Candidate Interviewing & Selection
As managers (or future managers), how do we know who to hire onto our team? There is a plethora of information surrounding this topic on the internet. So whose advice should we consider? Why not the top executive at one of America's most successful companies: Google! The above video is a link to Laszlo Bock's talk at the 2014 Linked In Talent Connect Conference in San Francisco. When it comes to hiring for your team, he suggests focusing on the following three tenants:
Let's break these down:
1) Set a high bar for quality and never compromise
This seems easy enough - interview candidates and then select the best one. But in reality, there are a number of factors at play that can cause hiring managers to stray from hiring the most well-qualified candidates. If you think of the hiring process as a pyramid, you have the hiring manager at the top. This individual knows which skills are needed for the job in question, but what happens when this manager hires someone who is "almost" perfect? This new hire will eventually be in a position to hire another team member. What if they also choose someone who is "almost" perfect. And so on and so forth to the point where all of a sudden, the quality of the employees are 2, 3, 4 levels below the original hiring manager on the pyramid. This greatly compromises the performance level of an organization and therefore, hiring the best candidate in a given pool is not always the solution. We always need to look for the candidate who has all of the skills we are looking for.
Other factors which lead to compromise in hiring practices can include hiring individuals from our personal networks, hiring someone who went to the same school as us, hiring someone "in a jam" or hiring an individual with high political value. As Laszlo explains, it's hard to say no to hiring the daughter of a big client.
2) Assess candidates objectively
OK, so we know we need to avoid compromise. But how exactly can we do that?
We have to remove our biases. Laszlo recounts a mindblowing phenomenon that was studied by researchers at the University of Toledo. In their research trails, hiring managers were taped while interviewing potential employees. Afterwards, the videos were shown to a group of undergraduate students, with no audio. The undergraduates could not hear what the two individuals were saying. After the 30 minute tape was finished, the undergrads were asked, "was this individual offered the position?" The accuracy was incredible, the students almost always predicted the correct outcome. Next, researchers began to show different participants shorter and shorter amounts of the interview video, down to the point where only 10 SECONDS of video was needed in order for an outsider to determine whether or not an individual would be hired. Researchers deemed this the "ten second slice."
The ten second slice is important because it highlights how individuals who come off well in the first ten seconds of an interview, or more broadly, individuals who make a good first impression, are hired more often. BUT, these are not always individuals with the right qualifications for the job. Hiring managers are influenced by their emotional reaction and they tend to give the benefit of the doubt to individuals who present themselves well, and not to individuals who fail to make that crucial connection during an introduction. Laszlo used this information to determine that traditional interviews are largely inaccurate predictors of job performance.
Instead, Laszlo and his team had to develop 4 clear criteria:
A) "General cognitive ability" is a criterion that renders typical interview stunners like: "how many golf balls can fit into an airplane?" irrelevant. The best predictors of intelligence and skill rely on situational questions, or "case studies," which tend to highlight an individual's thought process and problem solving ability.
B) "Leadership" but not just leadership, "emerging leadership" is what's important. Laszlo does not find value in titles: "President of Student Council" or "Director of Procurement" mean nothing. Instead, candidates must detail an experience where they took initiative. Typically, the kind of candidate who is fit for a Google position is also someone who takes that initiative, solves the problem and then steps back and does not desperately try to hold on to that power position.
C) Here, insert the qualities valued by your team. At Google, this meant intellectual humility, meaning an employee's willingness to say, "yes, in light of new information and data, I can see that I was wrong." This drives the productivity of a team.
and D) If Google is hiring a new Director of Marketing, they are not necessarily looking for someone who already holds this title elsewhere. They are looking for the individual who holds the skills that are needed to perform as the head of a marketing department. By refusing to pigeon hole candidates based on their job title, a new, innovative drive can be added to a position.
Finally, 3) Give candidates a reason to join
People want to feel that their work has meaning so as hiring managers, we need to "sell" potential members of our team on the fulfillment aspect of the job. I loved hearing about this section because all too often, as the potential employee, we are so focused on answering the question, "how are we selling ourselves so that they (the company) will want us?" Maybe this is just a part of being young, and having little job expereince, but it's nice to know that employers who are serious about who they hire, are not just looking for someone who is the right fit for their company, they are looking for a mutual match.
In my limited experience with interviewing and selection, which, let's face it, has almost always been on one side of that table, I have seen how little the interview process can actually correlate to the job functions. It's almost as if once we are offered the position, we are supposed to know what we will be doing. Google has taken a very innovative approach to addressing that disconnect by forcing "interviews" to be dynamic and interactive and not just based on Q&A, which essentially relies on a candidate's ability to answer questions in the way the employer wants them to.
Silicon Valley is synonymous with innovation. Learning from perhaps the most cutting edge company in the United States was extremely valuable. One day, I will be in the position to hire members of my own team, and I plan to incorporate interactive aspects to that process so that I can assess all of the aspects that Laszlow highlights: problem solving ability, personality click with the company's values, necessary skill sets and actions related to initiative.
