Hire for your team, not for their resume

Finding resumes is not hard. Knowing who will be a good team member, however, is hard.

An often-heard refrain: “We want people with a great attitude. We want people who have a blend of sales, consultative and technical skills. And we want people who will fit in with our team. How do we know who to hire?”.

The assumptions: You have, or want, a culture that promotes creativity and rewards people for developing better products or finding better ways of doing things. You are willing to hire people who are better than you are. When you find them, you are willing to get out of their way.

Not every business, and not every candidate, wants or needs this. If this is what you are looking for, asking questions like these at candidate interviews may help.

Question 1: Can they ANTICIPATE?

Think of an occasion in your company where something dramatically and suddenly changed: a sales was made or lost, a product development effort was announced or cancelled, a project budget was reduced or increased. Think of something typical in a company of your size, that you would expect to deal with, and is significant enough to be worth discussing.

Tell the story to your candidate for a few minutes. Ask them to imagine how the story finishes. Give them enough detail so they can start asking their own questions. Prompt them if you have to. What do you think the head of sales did? How well did you think that decision went down in the PMO? If you were in charge, who would you have contacted and what would you have said?

There is no right or wrong. They can’t really be expected to tell you how things worked out in the end. But you can tell a lot about who they are based on who they imagine would have done what.

The person you want on your team has the experience to anticipate reactions to change and know how to deal with them.

Question 2: Can they TEACH (and LEARN)?

Ask the direct question: Tell me about the last time you taught something?

Most candidates don’t prepare for this question. The answer might surprise you. Was it at work, or a weekend/evening group, or at home with family and friends? Was it something large or something small? Was it complicated or simple? Was it useful to pass on? Was it for no better reason than to share? Does the candidate not have an answer at all?

Then ask a similar question: Tell me about the last time you learnt something?

The person you want on your team shares skills and information willingly and easily. And they are always learning.

Question 3: Do they HAVE EMPATHY?

Ask the direct question: When have you stopped doing your work to help someone else out?

This is an unsettling question, because it begs the next one “How did you manage to get your work done as well?”. But don’t ask that. You’re trying to find out how the candidate made the decision to help his or her colleague, partner or friend.

People with empathy and compassion are capable of balancing work and life, and you want that. Even better, the person you want to hire is confident that the decision to help someone in a work environment is the right one for the overall project or the whole team, and can explain their reasoning.

Question 4: Can they DESCRIBE their ideas effectively?

Everyone in your team should have ideas. Ask your candidate to tell you about the best, most creative idea they have ever had, and how they planned to communicate it.

Going in, you will have no idea what this idea is, or the context for it, or even the situation in which it makes sense. Did they explain the basic need and solution in 30 seconds? Do you understand the size and shape of the project in 3 minutes? Do you think it is worth hearing any more?

If this is the best idea they have ever had, they should be able to convince you very quickly that it has merit and is worth some action. And they should be able to convince you that they are the best person to lead this effort.

Question 5: Do they have a TRACK RECORD of success?

Clearly, candidates need to have time to explain their track record. Ask these questions: “Tell us about the projects that you have been involved with that have made a difference? Can you highlight the parts you led and the parts where you assisted?”

The first point here is the projects that made a difference. Do you understand what the difference was? It could be something very small but significant in certain circumstances, or it could be a multi-year, major project.

The second point is project leadership. The person you want on your team is seeking success overall across all the projects the team is involved with, and they are confident that a bit part is as useful as a lead role and will be judged as such.