Hiring at any level can be a crap shoot. On paper and in interviews, a candidate may look like a great fit for your company culture. But once the paperwork is signed it can sometimes feel like you’ve hired Hyde instead of Jekyll.
At the management level, it’s even more important you get it right. With recruiting fees, starting bonuses and more, hiring at this level can cost a pretty penny and you don’t want to do it twice. While there is no way to guarantee that the candidate has what it takes to fit into your company, there are ways to protect against a culture clash.
One way is to look beyond the resume at the candidate’s so-called “soft-skills,” which many hiring managers often miss in traditional interviews. Evaluating these skills in interviews is not easy, as candidates often stretch the truth to put themselves in the most flattering light.
The best and most accurate way to determine someone’s soft skills is through psychological assessments, like the EQi-2.0, which evaluates emotional intelligence. If you don’t have the time or resources for the test, I’ve outlined a few shortcuts that may help separate the gems from the rocks.
Avoid Canned Answers
Questions like “what is your worst quality” or “how did you overcome a stressful situation in the past” are commonplace in an interview. Candidates expect these questions and prepare flattering responses, minimizing any thinking “on their feet.” With stress management being such an important characteristic for management, it’s important to find times to throw them off their script. Ask questions to find out specifically how different choices in the story impacted the end goal, and ask them how other options would have changed the result. Find out what they would have done differently and how they incorporated learnings from this experience moving forward. Turn the monologue into a dialogue.
Brain Teasers and Puzzles
Emotional problem solving is another important characteristic for corporate leaders. You need to know how they balance logic and emotions. Overly emotional problem solvers tend to go with their gut, and may not come up with the most practical solutions. Ask the interview candidate to solve brain teaser or puzzle in front of you. Try to figure out what is driving their response and how they balance emotion and logic. For example, it’s rumored that Google asks the question “How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?” It’s not about whether or not someone knows the answer, but about watching how they would tackle solving it.
Do Your Homework
There’s only so much you can learn about a candidate in a one hour interview. Don’t waste time regurgitating their resume. Ask them questions via email in advance before they enter the room. Get the basics out of the way so that you can use the face to face time to address trickier questions.
Attempting these tactics will help you get a sneak peek into the abilities of the candidate. But, none of these methods are exactly scientific. Emotional intelligence assessments allow recruiters to gain an evaluation of areas that are difficult to cover in an interview. Additionally, using formal assessments helps provide a more objective view of the candidate, to allow you to see through it when they put on airs.
Dr. Steven Stein is the author of The EQ Leader, and CEO of Multi-Health Systems.