Prove It! The Working Interview Solution

Credentials and pedigree on a resume can seem impressive. They should.

Resumes Are Exaggerated

It’s estimated that the majority of resumes are falsified to some degree. Don’t get too enamored with what’s on a resume. Even if it is accurate, that doesn’t necessarily mean the individual represented by the resume will be a great fit with your organization. It only tells you the applicant might have the needed competencies to do the job, without any indication of methods, style, relationship, behaviors, or pace.

Cover letters reveal a lot about an individual’s style, language, and potential fit. That’s part of why you want one. Candidates who don’t upload a cover letter may be the kind of candidates you don’t want to upload into your organization. People who just press send on a generic resume that’s saved on a job board don’t include a cover letter.

They just want a job. Any job. Yours will do.

Interviewing Sucks

Interviewing sucks as a way to select new team members. There are answers to just about every interview question you could ask out there on the Internet. There are also sites for job seekers where people share the interview questions they were just asked in interviews with some companies. Your favorite interview questions will be on those platforms before long if they aren’t already.

A great answer may not mean that much.

What does an interview actually prove? You get a chance to see aspects of personality, such as poise, confidence, self-awareness, and response time. You get a chance to hear how well a candidate can do answering questions that they’ve probably already rehearsed. Self-promoters can be great interviewers. Strong performers who are uncomfortable in an interview setting can bomb.

Most people don’t have to do interviews for a living. Politicians do. Do you want one?

You should review resumes. You should peruse cover letters. You should ask interview questions that give you some idea of proficiency and fit. You should check references and do background checks… though those only work as long as identity theft is not involved. But beyond all that, you need a way to find out whether the person can actually do the job you’re hiring for, in the ways you want it done, working with your team in real life.

The Best Way to Avoid Bad Hires

The best way to avoid wrong hires is the working interview. Professional Sports Teams have tryouts. The real issue isn’t how well an athlete can answer questions about how great she is as a guard on an NCAA basketball team. Success at the collegiate level doesn’t automatically predict success in the WNBA. And it can never predict a winning chemistry with the existing team. To determine how she might perform with the team, she may be invited to try out in one or more practices, playing in the position she knows well. That’s a high-stakes working interview. She’s got to prove it!

Anyone who wants to join a band, an orchestra, or a theatre production may answer some interview questions, but they always audition. Auditions aren’t just to see if someone can memorize lines or notes; those selecting performers are looking beyond just skills and ability. They want the right blend; the right chemistry. Auditions are working interviews. Those wanting to join have to prove it!

If you think about it, the military has a working interview that lasts 7-12 weeks. Boot camp. The military doesn’t just take anyone who wants to join. There are steps to go through beyond just an interview—an aptitude test, a physical exam, and ultimately, Basic Training, as it’s called. Some 18-year-old guy getting out of high school who wants to be all he can be, and join those who are the few and the proud, doesn’t merely talk to a Recruiter. He has to prove it!

Organizations can do the same. Invite top candidates back for a half-day or full-day working interview. Put them in real-world situations—your team, your customers, your workplace—and see how they do. They get an inside view of what it looks like to work in your organization; you get something far more powerful than an interview. When you have someone do actual work, you find out:

• If the person oversold himself and is just a good interviewer
• If you’ve got a diamond in the rough who doesn’t interview all that well, but could be a gem
• How the candidate treats your customers and your team
• If others on your team believe the candidate is a keeper.

This isn’t free labor. Pay them for their time. It’s also not shadowing. Make them prove it!

It works in any industry and any profession. Anyone who knows that they can do the job will enjoy showing you that they can. And those who oversold will be obvious. A plus is that you can get feedback from your current great team members, engaging and empowering them in the process of building your team.

It Works!

I ALWAYS recommend working interviews. Besides numerous success stories I could share from clients who have hired those who could prove it, here are some examples of candidates who needed to get weeded out:

• A Software Analyst who couldn’t interpret information on a basic report and showed no ability to figure it out on his own. That was the point. He didn’t get it. He didn’t get the job.
• A writer/editor who created a nice piece, complete with a grammatical error or two. Though she could write, she didn’t prove she could edit.
• A Construction Worker who thought he would love to get into Solar. Once on the roof, he got the heebie-jeebies and decided he wasn’t cut out for the job of working on steep roofs with a tie-off rather than scaffolding.
• A worker who thought the crew would think ethnic jokes were funny. They didn’t. Maybe he thought he would fit in. He didn’t.
• And my all-time favorite. A Project Manager who had perfect experience, all the credentials, and glowing references from past employers in the same industry. Her working interview involved accompanying the business owner to client and prospect meetings. Afterward, the business owner called me and said, “She is full of BS. She makes things up. I don’t do that.” Despite probably being good at what she does, her ways were not the ways of the company she wanted a job with. The resume wouldn’t have told that. The interview wouldn’t have revealed that. The reference checks wouldn’t have exposed that. The working interview did.

Methods, ideas, pace, and overall fit with the culture and team are vitally important. Not everyone with a great resume (exaggerated or not), a solid interview (rehearsed or not), and references (accurate or not) will be a good fit for your organization. The working interview will allow the best candidates to prove themselves in a way that’s so much more effective than merely asking questions, as was done in the 1960s. The world has changed. Work has changed. How we select team members needs to change.

Need other ideas about finding and keeping the best? Let’s talk. I always have ideas. I’ll prove it!