Interview for Attitude

Early career candidates will not have the technical skills yet, so interview for attitude!

Transcript

Welcome back to my podcast Scaling Out!

Hiring early career requires a different set of interview objectives. Students right out of school, veterans just leaving the military, or career transitioning professionals might have some technical experience and can share some technical details on the project work completed but I would argue that deep technical capability is much less important for this group. Sure training and foundational knowledge demonstrate that the candidate has learned other technical skills, but that is what you are really diving into - whether the candidate can LEARN technology quickly and translate it to successful outcomes. New technology can always be taught to those want to continually learn and grow. So what you are looking for curiosity. Ask a lot of ‘why’ questions, such as ‘why did that interest you?’ ‘why did you decide to go down that path?’.

Working in a team environment means that we need people who simply are not jerks. Who wants to deal with a coworker who is mean? Absolutely no one. So really listen to their answers when asking how they worked with others. Some example questions are 

“when there was a team member that was not pulling their weight, what did you do?”. 

Or, “tell me of a time you jumped in to help someone else on a project”. 

What you’re looking for is emotional intelligence, the ability to see a need and address it for the good of the group. Helpful people are not jerks. 

Accountability and authenticity are required in consulting in order to gain your customer’s trust. And hiring for these requires a LOT of listening. Questions around missing deadlines can help dive into being accountable. One of my favorite questions to view their authenticity is from a coworker who always asks “what scares you about this role?”, it puts candidates a little offguard but we get some very honest responses. And the more honest the better. That’s what this really boils down to though, understanding the candidate as a person, what makes them tick, what motivates them & drives them to continually improve and grow. Spend the interview time dedicated to getting to know the candidate as a person. Not by asking personal questions (how old are you, do you have kids – that’s all illegal), but by diving into their attitude.

Thanks again for listening to my podcast, Scaling Out. Until next time, stay safe everyone!