SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 160,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each Tuesday in our e-newsletter.
Last week, we asked: When interviewing job candidates, what’s more important to you in making your selection?
- I place equal emphasis on the balance between skills and values/background: 75.29%
- I value their background and values more than anything else: 19.3%
- I value their skills more than anything else: 5.41%
Balance matters. Clearly skills are important, but the emphasis on a candidate’s background and values trumps any skills interviewers are looking for. This seems pretty obvious given that skills can be taught in a relatively short period of time compared to the values a candidate grew up with. Bob Herbold, former COO at Microsoft, has offered a revealing and simple way to dig into a candidate’s values and background — all you have to do is ask one line of questioning related to who influenced the candidate the most while growing up. The answers to that line of questioning should reveal the core of his or her character.
Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS and author of “One Piece of Paper.”
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We hire for alledged skills and fire for poor job fit! We believe our questions are more "core value" focused and are often disappointed when their performance, attitude, and other factors don't match up with our notes (or memories) from the interview! People will lie or stretch the truth in an interview! Sadly, it's a fact.
In my book, "Hiring Amazing Employees," (BizSavvyHire.com) I provide a strategic process for ensuring we are hiring the right people for the right job. Hiring is a strategic process. Short-cuts, thought-provoking questions and pseudo-psychology has never worked. My clients have reduced turnover significantly, one company from 125% to 25%; another saved $100K in 8 months. My point? In 2012, let's get real. It could save your company, your career, and theirs!
As you've probably read, someone with great values, great skills and high energy will contribute to your success. Someone with the second two and not the first will ruin you. In addition to the interview questions suggested in your other piece, I would add: "Tell about the first time in your career that you had to make a difficult choice that you saw as having an ethics or values dimension. Whose voice did you hear in your head and what did they say? What did you do?"
Dozens of CEOs have confirmed that the first truly moral choice with high stakes is when your standards are sealed at the level with which you were raised or begin the slide down the greasy pole.
That's my view from years of coaching CEOs.