WorkZone: Culture clash or culture compatibility can make all the difference at work; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1/16/17

Kris B. Mamula, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; 

WorkZone: Culture clash or culture compatibility can make all the difference at work

"Creating an engaged workforce begins with the job candidate’s first interview, said Anne Papinchak, vice president, business transformation.

“We like people who ask questions,” said Ms. Papinchak, who oversees human resources at Lucas. “We ask, like, what situation made you feel really uncomfortable — and what did you do about it?

“We look for people who learn and know themselves well.”"

Companies turn to quirky interview questions — even after Google says they don’t work; Washington Post, 3/29/16

Jena McGregor, Washington Post; Companies turn to quirky interview questions — even after Google says they don’t work:

"Now, however, Google actually urges its hiring managers not to use such questions, according to a book released last year, "Work Rules," by Google's head of "people operations," Laszlo Bock. In it, he writes that they aren't actually worth much.

How a candidate performs on such questions "is at best a discrete skill that can be improved by practice, eliminating their utility for assessing candidates," he writes. "At worst, they rely on some trivial bit of information or insight that is withheld from the candidate, and serve primarily to make the interviewer feel clever or self-satisfied. They have little if any ability to predict how candidates will perform in a job."

Bock admits in his book that some questions like this have been used at Google, and may continue to be, though he says that "we do everything we can to discourage this, as it's really just a waste of everyone's time." When they do pop up, he writes, senior leaders "ignore the answers to these questions."

Instead, Google now bases its interview process on assessment methods that research has shown to be most predictive of performance, Bock writes. Technical hires go through some kind of test of their ability to do things like write code or design algorithms. And then the company asks "behavioral" ("tell me about a time when...") or "situational" ("what would you do if...") structured interview questions that help assess things like a candidate's cognitive ability or conscientiousness."

Preparing for Your Interview; Chronicle of Higher Education, 1/13/11

Rob Jenkins, Chronicle of Higher Education; Preparing for Your Interview:

"When I say "craft" your narrative, I don't mean make it up. I trust that, if you're applying to community colleges, you really are committed to teaching. If you're faking it, the committee members will almost certainly sniff that out. And even if they don't, even if you sell your act and manage to get yourself hired, you're going to be pretty miserable teaching five courses a semester.

What I'm suggesting, assuming you really do consider yourself a good teacher, is that you keep that role foremost in your mind. Think about the experiences you've had in the classroom that led you to enjoy teaching and convinced you it was something you wanted to do. Then weave those stories into your interview answers.

For instance, you may be asked about your experience with diverse student populations. Don't answer by spouting numbers: "My last campus was 43 percent African-American and 17 percent Asian." Instead, tell a brief story about the time a student's cultural differences enlightened your class discussion, or the time you went out of your way to help a student who was struggling with the language."

Corner Office, Interview with Jana Eggers; New York Times, 2/21/10

Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Jana Eggers, chief executive of Spreadshirt: Should I Hire You? I’ll Ask the Receptionist:

"Q. How do you hire?

A. I’m going to ask you a lot about what you did. Of course, I’m interested in why you want to come to Spreadshirt, and those are usually the kind of ice-breaker questions to get people comfortable, because that’s what they’ve been thinking about, and what they’ve prepared for.

But what I really want to know is what they’ve done, because that is the biggest indicator of what they’ll do. I don’t mean specific things like, “Oh, I implemented this e-mail program.” I’ll ask: “Well, how did you do that? Who was involved? What was the biggest challenge you faced in doing that?” I’m interested in seeing how they organized themselves, how they think about projects, how they think about other people around them. There are very few jobs in any company these days where one person goes in and does it alone. They always have to interact with other people.

Q. What else?

A. I’m also going to see how they treat the receptionist. I always get feedback from them. I’ll want to know if someone comes in and if they weren’t polite, if they didn’t say, “Hello,” or ask them how they were. It’s really important to me.

I also check references myself. A lot of times people may leave that to their H.R. people or to someone who works for them. But, to me, it’s really important to talk to the person and build a rapport. I really want to know, what am I going to see? Everybody has challenges. One of the questions I usually ask on references is, “Where should I spend time coaching this person?”

Q. What qualities are you looking for in hires?

A. I’m usually listening for passion. I want that passion, because that passion is what’s going to get you through your failures. It’s when the tough things happen that a person’s real personality comes out.

And I’m looking for whether someone’s aware that business is a team sport. You have to communicate. How do they describe the team, their role on the team? I always like to get their perspectives on the management, too."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/business/21cornerweb.html?scp=1&sq=jana+eggers&st=nyt

Corner Office; Interview with Susan Docherty, General Motors; New York Times, 2/7/10

Corner Office, Interview with Susan Docherty, who leads United States sales, service and marketing team at General Motors; New York Times, Now, Put Yourself In My Shoes:

"Q. How do you hire?

A. I like building teams with people who come from very different backgrounds and have very different experiences. I don’t just mean diverse teams, in terms of men and women or people of different color or origin. I like people who have worked in different places in the world than I have because they bring a lot more context to the discussion. That’s something that I value a tremendous amount.

I make sure that when I’m looking at people for my team, it’s not just what’s on their résumé — their strengths or weaknesses or what they’ve accomplished — but it’s the way they think. I can learn twice as much, twice as quickly, if I’ve got people who think differently than I do around the table.

Q. Can you talk more about how you hire?

A. I’m always in hiring mode. Always. When someone comes in for an interview, and they’re polished, and they’re practiced, and they’ve honed their résumé — everybody can give a great first impression. But what’s most important is seeing how people handle interactions on a day-to-day basis, when you’ve got days that are good, bad and ugly. It’s about how you handle the day-to-day interactions with your peers. It’s about how you treat the people on your team.

I have these little cardboard cards. And if I have an open position, and I’m considering a certain person, I grab one of these cards, and I write 1 through 10 on it. And I always try to get input about that person from other people. I don’t tell people necessarily, “Hey, I’m thinking about hiring so-and-so. What do you think about them?”

I might say, “Give me two great things that you like about this person, and two areas where you think they have a developmental opportunity.” And when you ask people like that, off the cuff, when you’re in an elevator or waiting for a meeting to start, you get some really candid feedback. So I get input from 10 different people — from the person’s supervisor to people who are on their team, and also from someone completely outside of the organization, like an ad agency or a supplier...

Q. So you’ve got your input and you’ve decided to interview someone for a job. What are you asking them?

A. One of the first questions I ask is, “Can you describe a decision that you made, or a situation that you were involved in that was a failure?” And I don’t need to know how they got to the failure. But I need to know what they did about it. How they handled that is the best illustration of whether or not they’re an innovative thinker and are comfortable taking some risk.

Q. Any other acid-test question?

A. I always ask people, “If you could be in my shoes today, what would be the top three things you’d do?” When most people prepare for an interview, they’re very focused on their prior experiences and examples of what they’ve done. And I think that you really do get some very candid, on-the-spot thinking when you ask them what they would do if they had my job. It demonstrates to me how they think on their feet without being prepared.

Sometimes I get answers back that are very in-the-moment, tactical answers. Sometimes I get very leader-like questions about vision, about things that are way beyond stuff that we’re currently thinking about. I love that question, because it’s very telling about how people think. And then there are other people who give a very balanced view, with thoughts on the short-, medium- and long-term. So I get a real quick read on strategic versus tactical thinking.

And it’s nice to get an outside perspective of how these people view me as a leader and what I really am focusing on, versus what they think I should be focusing on. I love that question. And by the way, I ask that question not just when I’m getting ready to hire somebody; I ask that question of people who are in a lot of lower levels within the organization.

Q. What other leadership lessons have you learned?

A. Whether you have a really small team or a really big team, communication needs to be at the forefront. It needs to be simple. It needs to be consistent. And even when you’re tired of what the message is, you need to do it again and again and again. Because everybody listens at different levels, and everybody comes to the table with a different perspective and a different experience. And the same words mean different things to different people.

On some very key things, people need to internalize it, and they need to own it. And when they do, you’ll know that you’re effective as a leader, because you hear them saying it."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/business/07corner.html