Failure is for the Privileged: Or How Not to Run Interviews
Recently, I was talking to a brilliant friend of mine who'd fallen victim to the tech sector layoffs about how her job search process was going. She got really animated when relaying the story of one interview wherein a group of male interviewers asked, "Tell us about your biggest professional failure." Her response in her head (and to me) was . . . . "Failure?! I'm a woman in tech -- I am not ALLOWED to fail! Failure is a privilege afforded only to you (the men in the room)."
She was 1000% right. Failure IS a privilege. To fail and professionally live to tell about it means that you were in a position to enjoy the surety that you could experiment and push boundaries and be rewarded for your ingenuity. All too often, women, people of color, and other marginalized identities push through their whole careers without that surety -- instead, they get labeled as difficult, too risky, etc. In a coming article, we'll talk about how, as a leader, you can create a culture that supports innovation from *all* employees. But first, let's talk about a better way to conduct interviews. Get ready to break some molds.
Do not go into this with the attitude that applicants are supplicants at the alter of your company who are lucky to even attract your gaze.
Selecting Who You're Going to Interview
It Starts with Your Attitude About This Process
I can't stress enough how important it is to remember that this process is much like online dating:
there should be mutual respect;
the applicants are, rightly, evaluating you for fit as much as you are evaluating them;
they are not dating (applying to) only your company, nor should they be expected to pretend that they are (unless you've directly recruited them, most applicants are applying to many dozens of positions, throwing spaghetti at a wall until something sticks -- because see point below);
they have every right to be picky about and want to know, before even applying, what the starting salary and benefits are -- rents/mortgages, food, kids, all of that comes before your company's mission -- always. period.
Do not go into this with the attitude that applicants are supplicants at the alter of your company who are lucky to even attract your gaze.
Selecting for Initial Phone Screens: Don't be Lazy
There's no one-size-fits-all formula for selecting who makes it to that initial round of interviews. Sometimes the sheer number of applicants forces a rather impersonal, uncreative first-round cull (based on resume key words, etc.). That said, there are SO many jobs out there where that kind of culling isn't necessary. And what happens when first-round culls are based on an algorithm? Often the folks with the most potential or the most demonstrated success in the soft skills (risk taking and ingenuity, relationship management, ability to change gears easily, etc.) don't make it through. And then you've ended up with a bunch of folks who technically meet your (possibly overly prescriptive and quantitative) checklist but aren't necessarily the ones who would be superstars in the role. So, where at all possible, challenge yourself and your company to try some or all of these things:
Don't have applicants input their resume in pieces in your online portal (they don't have time for that); make it a simple PDF upload.
Require a cover letter (that's where more of the soft skills start to shine through).
Don't worry about a typo here and there. Between disabilities like dyslexia and applicants applying to sometimes 100s of jobs, it's going to happen. It happens to you too. People are never perfect (especially when stressed about the job search); and, contrary to the common excuse, it doesn't actually tell you anything about their attention to detail on the job or their excitement about the role.
Select folks who meet your checklist, but also select some outside-the-box candidates (more on this in another article).
Avoid immediately assigning red flags to career gaps and education and experience levels. Hard and soft skills can be built outside of traditional jobs, knowledge can be gained outside of formal education, and potential should be cultivated -- everyone has to start somewhere, and implicit bias does enough screening on its own. Yes, there are times when specific qualifications are absolutely necessary -- but very often they're not.
For higher level roles at bigger organizations, or even entry-level roles at small ones, consider requiring ONE short essay (200 words or fewer) in your application that encourages creativity and would showcase the person's soft skills. It can be something like, "What has been the most rewarding thing for you about your career path so far?". Sometimes, your outside-the-box candidates will pop out to you here while some check-box candidates will fall a bit flat.
For externally advertised positions, don't put all your recruitments eggs in the #nepobaby basket. In other words, it's totally okay to elicit candidate recommendations from friends and colleagues, but make sure you're recruiting publicly as well, and via means that reach a broad diversity of candidates.
Not Your Grandma's Interview
Here is where we collectively really need to seriously break some molds. We have developed and nurtured bad habits here as employers that make the process more stressful and less productive for everyone than it could be with some simple adjustments.
Try building these habits:
Let candidates know the questions ahead of time. Not only does this make interviews more accessible to people with certain mental illnesses or learning disabilities, but there's no reason not to. What real life work situation are you testing them on when you surprise them with the questions?
Let candidates know who will be there in the interview. Send the candidates the interviewers' bios and roles.
Consider having the candidate's would-be direct team colleagues conduct one of the interviews, without the would-be supervisor there. This can ease a lot of tension and bring out different parts of the candidate's personality.
Limit the number of interviews. Make it incumbent upon yourself to make sure the company has its ducks in a row on scheduling, and only break into interviewer groups because of the type of group, not because of scheduling.
Avoid these questions (and their variations): tell me about a time you failed, tell me about a time you dealt with conflict or adversity, what will challenge you the most in this role?, what is your biggest weakness?, what's the worst job/boss you ever had?, etc.
Try these types of questions instead: what interests you most about this position?, what was your favorite job ever and why was it your favorite? -- or if you haven't had that yet, what would be your ideal job in a dream world?; think about the best boss you ever had -- what made them so great?; tell us more about how you know you'll thrive in this role; what skills have you built in your professional and personal life that might not be obvious in your resume?; tell us more about your experience managing remote or matrixed teams -- or, if you don't have that experience -- tell us about what you've seen done well by managers in the past; etc.
Don't try to elicit free consulting or freelance from them. There's no way for a candidate to know enough about your company to try to give you solid, specific solutions to real issues you're facing -- and you're not paying them to do so. Instead, stick to one real world question that aims not to get at the specific solution, but rather find out more about how they problem solve. For example . . . ."The biggest challenge this role will face in the first year is likely [X] -- what are your thoughts on how you'd frame out a strategy to address it? -- don't worry, there's no right answer here, and we're not looking for the solution, just an outline of how you'd start figuring it out." Similarly, where relevant, ask for already-existing portfolios, writing samples, etc. -- don't have them create something new for you for free.
Make plenty of time for their questions. Not only is that the respectful thing to do, but you can learn a lot about a candidate from the questions they ask.
YOU write the thank you note afterward to them, thanking them for their time and candor in the interview, and be clear about next steps and expected timeline on your end. Offer to be available should they have thought of questions after the interview or want to elaborate on or clarify a topic that came up in the interview. If the process gets bottlenecked or slowed down on your end, send them a quick note to let them know.
Be open to rescheduling for the candidate. Life happens. Candidate's kids get sick, they have a tough health day, snow storms snarl traffic, etc. Nothing is proven or tested by forcing the candidate to do the interview anyway -- except for you showing them that your company's work-life balance values may not align with theirs. Conversely, try not to reschedule on them -- they might have had to work out childcare, take vacation from their current job, etc. to make time for this interview.
