The following is something I sent to a colleague recently so it'll be in reference to our conversation but I'm not going to edit it for this thread:
I look for the following 5 traits in a candidate.
Dominance. We spoke a bit about this but they need to be able to hold their ground. Not get bullied. We work with big personalities.
Communication. The dominance MUST be combined with communication. We ask a lot of questions about how they communicate, how they handle situations, etc. A lot of it is finding out if they are going to rely on email to communicate (never going to work) or if they are confident and capable enough to use the phone or in person as their primary communication tool.
Intelligence. Need to have a good amount. Not off the charts obviously. I’m not winning any Nobel prizes anytime soon. This is probably the one I have the toughest time discovering in interviews and get a lot of this out of resumes, transcripts, etc. You can obviously uncover some in the interview.
Objectivity. This is the one you and I spoke the longest about. Probably the most critical for what we do. Has to be able to re-evaluate their own decision based on new info. Has to see their own gaps/faults/errors. Must take accountability for mistakes/decisions/etc.
Drive. Do they have a history of professional development? Performance? Actively doing things to close gaps? Designations, degrees, etc.
Objectivity:
1. Three strengths. Kind of want to know but not the important part.
Follow with Three weaknesses. I pay attention on the strengths but the weaknesses are much more telling. Like we talked about, I’d like someone to rattle off 10 things they need to improve on than someone who struggles to find one and then names three that are arguably strengths. CALL THEM ON IT if they do that. “Explain to me how that is a weakness?”
This is more Drive but follow that with “What have you done in the last X years to work on X (a weakness they named)? Hopefully something. OR, if nothing, it shows objectivity if they own that they haven’t. “You know, I haven’t done enough” isn’t a bad answer imo if they haven’t. It owns it.
Tell me about a professional mistake you made. Better have some examples. I can rattle off 15 this week so they better have 1.
Follow up is what did you do about that? How did you make sure that didn’t happen again? Etc. based on what it was.
Communication:
Tell me about a difficult working relationship you’ve had? Let them talk about how crappy this other person was. Hopefully they own some of it though which is the objectivity piece.
How did you manage that relationship? Could be some objectivity and dominance here too. Hopefully they had a face to face interaction.
College kid special: “Tell me a time you worked in a group that was difficult”. Similar to above but group project college question.
Intelligence: I don’t have any specific questions on this but it mostly comes out elsewhere.
Dominance:
Tell me what you like about your current boss. I want to know for how they like to be managed but it sets up the next.
What do you not like? Hopefully something or they aren’t being honest/objective.
What have you done about that? How they addressed it shows if they can stand their ground. Also COMMUNICATION to see if they will have that face to face talk with their boss.
Drive:
What do you know about what we do? What about our Customer? Etc. Depends on the person and what they would already know. If someone doesn’t take the time to figure out who we are and what we do they aren’t super driven OR not really interested in the job.
What have you done over the last X years to develop yourself professionally?
It’s 6 PM on a Friday. Your phone rings. It’s some broker, what do you do? I’m definitely ok with them saying “answer it and see what they need and then tell them I’ll handle X if it’s not a literal fire”. I’m not looking for “drop everything and deal with it” but I do need someone to answer the phone or text “call you in a bit”. It’s not a 9-5 job but I also don’t want to set the expectation that it’s a 24/7/365. Sense of urgency is important but so is the intelligence/dominance to know what doesn’t HAVE to be tackled now.
Misc:
This could go in a couple different boxes but I’ll put it here: You are killing it here. Always ahead of schedule. Hitting your goals. Etc. I come to you at the busiest time of the month and say I need you to take on some of John Doe’s work. You know John is a slacker. What do you do? They will hopefully answer that they would do it and get it done no matter what (drive). OK, now it’s the next month and I come to you again. I need you to handle half of John’s accounts. What do you do? Hopefully they do them but hopefully they also start to go into how to address the underlying issue. My colleagues may look for something slightly different but I’d like to hear A) I’d do it B) I’d talk to John to see if I can do something to help him stay ahead. Teamwork/leadership/etc. Hopefully the answer isn’t just complain to me about it.
We talked about this one a bit: It’s 5 PM on a Friday. You get a call from a client and they need you to do something outside of your authority. I’m not available come to because I'm at the bar and won't answer my phone. What do you do? Trying to see if they are A) going to strategize a way to get approval for it to help the client and B) willing to make a logical decision that they truly believe is the right one to help a client. Again, my peers may look for something a little different than I do but I want them to get creative in finding approval for it and when I tell them none of that worked say “If I believe it is the right thing to do I’d approve it and as soon as I could get into contact with you tell you what I did and why”.
Why should I hire you? Could go a number of directions. Have a good answer.
One I like: “Are you lucky?” Get a lot of interesting answers and I like to see people think it over and what they say. 80% of the time they will say yes and talk about how great their family is. Probably what I would say. 1 time someone said “No” and it got my attention. Went into a long list of really bizarre things that were truly unlucky that happened to them.
Finish with “Any questions for me/us?” A lot comes out of this. I get more information about a candidate from their questions for me than what I ask them generally. You BETTER have questions and one of them better be "Based on what you heard today would you hire me?".
