Interviewing Skills -hiring Winners Part One - Chandramowly

Hiring winners, an art in itself It is better to hire a squirrel than training a duck to climb a tree. Yawar Baig's, ' Hiring Winners' overtly brings out the techniques of effective interviewing says M R Chandramowly.

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hat is the first step to take a good organisation to great? Set a new direction, a vision and strategy and then get people committed and aligned behind the new di-

rection? No. The research finds quite the opposite. The executives who ignited transformations from good to great orgnisations did not first decide where to drive the bus. They first got the

right people on the bus and of course, the wrong were off the bus. When the right people are in right seats, they figure out how to take the bus to some place great (Jim Collins -Good to great). Interviewing is the single most powerful process for creating and influencing organisation climate and culture,” says Mirza Yawar Baig (www.yawarbaig.com). Here goes our silent dialogue on his latest book “Hiring Winners” - A must read manual for practicing

managers. Question:Yawarji, Hiring winners with right values is the perpetual challenge in the talent war. Creating a winning culture using behaviour based interviewing has become inevitable for organisations. Your book “Hiring Winners” is about this. Let me understand what exactly you mean ‘Winners’? Answer: Mowly, you are a winner if you are willing to take responsibility. When

I say responsibility, you accept accountability and actively see achieving it. We all want to be winners but why aren’t we? We all start as idealists to achieve some thing great and to be remembered. What happens in the real life? Some people lie, deceive and let you down. You could be victimised by corruption or cheating and in the process you start sliding down. Since idealism is tough to put down, you hope that some thing better will happen. So you become an optimist. With more exposure to the world, you would start valuing reality, which moves you to become a Realist, then Pessimist. Then you will get ‘wisdom’ from advisors who will tell you not to getting in to trouble by following the ideals that wont work in this world. That makes you a Cynic and you stop caring what happens around you and that is the beginning of the bottomless pit - you would finally become indifferent! See, winners are people who light the lamp of others’ idealism. To do that, they must ensure that their own lamp never goes out. They are the people who challenge the status quo, who refuse to accept the ‘accepted’ just because those around them do. Question:Sir, you say that losers can never become winners because of training and the only way to select winners is through effective interviewing. What skills and tools one needs, to select a winner? What should our interviewers do to ensure hiring the best? Answers: First, let us look at some common belief about interview. There are some assumptions such as: interview is most reliable tool to measure job skills; first impression generally pays off; Turnover is just an unavoidable cost of doing business and so try people out and they don’t work well, replace them. Research shows that these as-

sumptions are false. Unstructured interviews are like throwing darts at a board on which you have written the names of the candidates. Unstructured interviews are lot more expensive. The effect of wrong hire is difficult to undo which spoils culture and morale. Second, would our interviewers hire ‘below’ themselves? Some are ‘threatened’ by people who are more competent than them and will not hire them. Often this happens unconsciously. Such awareness is critical for interviewers to be effective. Question: Yawarji, what do you suggest interviewers to make them to hold on to this awareness to hire right people? Answer: One must remember that right people are those who can share our values, beliefs and passion. They are ignited by our own goals and can dream bigger than we would every dare. Such people with high aspirations can be a challenge for managers to constantly inspire them. Interviewers must break the boundaries of ‘safe’ movement and remember that the whole secret is in spotting the right people, the winners. There is no alternative than tagging on to structured interviews. Question: Yawarji, they say that interviewers unconsciously select or reject candidates by interpreting

observed data to fit expectations based on their own personal traits and beliefs. I think it is important to be aware of this. This has been brought out well in your book highlighting the importance of structured interviewing. Would you like to say more on this? Answer: Its there in it. You see, there are three things which most of us think we are good at. Parenting, driving a car and interviewing. People believe that it is easy and natural. But there are lot of mistakes one can make. While training and practice can help them, but most interviewers are not trained. Some people interview rarely and have little practice. If the selectors do not have a pre-identified job competencies and required behaviours, they make different decisions on same applicant. Assertiveness observed in a candidate may weigh more important for one and it may be irrelevant for other. Some interviewers follow a method of looking for reasons to reject candidates. If they don’t find any negative reason, they feel that the candidates are OK. What they must focus is on whether the applicant can and will adequately do the job they have in mind." Interviewers also decide too early before collecting data of all evidence and they rarely change their first impressions. Research has

shown us that a typical interviewer makes his decisions within four minutes and spends the rest of the interview only finding evidence to support the decision they have already made! They seek out and remember good aspects of the candidate if they have decided to accept the person and negative aspects if they don’t want to take the persons on. Question:What are some good tips to become effective interviewers? Answer: An effective interviewer generates lot of information by sifting important information from the unimportant. He is aware of the first impression effect and makes an effort to generate data to confirm or change his impressions. He would also remember to reduce the subjectivity or bias to protect the candidate even from unconscious biases. Most importantly an effective interviewer tries to find out what one has done in the past and look for some specific indicators of what one will do in the future. He may not over depend on the personality factors.

To be concluded in the next issue. The author is former corporate Vice President - HR and currently HRD and Leadership Competency Building Consultant. E-mail: [email protected]