Interviewing Job Applicants Can Be Hazardous to Your WealthLearn Management Articles on management-info.biz. Interviewing Job Applicants Can Be Hazardous to Your Wealth article will help answer your questions on Management Articles.We at management-info.biz specialize in Management Articles. Management Articles at management-info.biz provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
2nd Fact: Research proves most interviewers do lousy at predicting if an applicant will succeed - or flop - if hired. 3rd Fact: Research shows that customized pre-employment tests do great at predicting if an applicant may succeed or fail on-the-job. 4th Fact: Since you must interview applicants, even if you use tests, you need to make better predictions based on interviews. If you do not learn how to do this, it will prove hazardous to your wealth! When you hire the wrong person, you will pay a huge price. Your business financially suffers, and you can destroy your management career. WHY MANAGERS DO ROTTEN INTERVIEWS Unfortunately, most managers base hiring decisions on interviewing job applicants. But, most managers do not know what they are doing. They often do not know 1. talents the applicant needs to succeed on-the-job 2. questions to ask 3. how to take useful notes 4. ways to stop applicants from lying about work experience or skills CUSTOMIZE INTERVIEWS FOR EACH JOB Since you still must interview applicants, let's pinpoint how you can conduct useful interviews. Start by listing key talents a productive employee needs in the job. I use a 35-item checklist to help managers identify crucial talents. For example, one company desired to hire better salespeople. Using my checklist, the sales executives chose crucial seven talents their salespeople need to succeed: 1. Mental Abilities 2. Friendliness 3. Persuasiveness 4. Flexible about Following Rules & Procedures 5. Optimism 6. Desire to Make Lots of Money 7. Desire to Control Sales Situations INTERVIEWING MADE VASTLY EASIER With the job talents list, make a customized interview guide form. This helps you conduct an insightful interview. It includes these parts, as shown in the accompanying example: 1. Job-related talents, such as Friendliness and Desire to Make Lots of Money 2. Place to insert test scores, e.g., scores on the Forecaster™ test's Money Motivation scale 3. Actions to look for in the interview. Example: Craves pay linked to his/her productivity 4. Questions to ask. Example: 'What inspires you to do a good job?' 5. Note-taking space 6. Ratings: Up arrow = positive rating Sideways arrow = moderate rating Downward arrow = negative rating The accompanying example shows how the interview guide form section for one of the seven job talents: Desire To Make Lots of Money. Example: Section of Interview Guide Form DESIRE TO MAKE LOTS OF MONEY ___ Score on Forecaster™ test's 'Money Motivation' scale = _____ Note: Benchmark scores on Forecaster™ test: 7 - 11 = Up Arrow ___ Enthusiastic about earning commissions or incentive pay ___ Craves pay linked to his/her productivity 'When you work each day, what ingredient of your job that you feel most enthusiastic about?' 'What inspires you to do a good job?' Rating: Up arrow = positive rating Sideways arrow = moderate rating Downward arrow = negative rating _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ OPEN PANDORA'S BOX Your goal is to ask questions that force the applicant to reveal how he or she would perform on-the-job. But, most interviewers ask questions that elicit little worthwhile information. Why? Most interviewers ask closed-ended questions, like 'Did you like your last job?' or 'Can you do creative problem-solving?' Any applicant with an IQ above room temperature knows the 'correct' answer to closed-ended questions. For example, if you ask, 'Can you do creative problem-solving?', applicants will answer 'Yes' - even if they have the creativity of a dead insect. Closed-ended questions start with words like 'Do,' 'Can,' 'Would,' or 'Is.' In contrast, skilled interviewers ask open-ended questions. Open-ended questions do not give away the 'correct' answers. Plus, they force applicants to reveal their thoughts, feelings, goals, and experiences. That juicy information enables the interviewer to predict if the applicant may succeed if hired. Open-ended questions start with 'How,' 'What,' 'Describe,' and 'Tell me.' SECRET TIP Few managers know it proves best for two people to simultaneously interview each applicant. This boosts the likelihood of making accurate predictions about the applicant. One interviewer asks 99% of the questions while the second interviewer takes notes on the interview guide form. Both interviewers discuss the applicant after the interview. You will be amazed at how this approach improves interview results. 2 WAYS TO HIRE THE BEST When you buy expensive clothing, like a fine dress or suit, you take it to a tailor who makes the clothing fit perfectly. The same principle holds true when you hire employees. You increase your odds of hiring winners by custom-tailoring your two key prediction methods: (1) tests and (2) interviews. First, do a test 'benchmarking study' on behavior tests and mental ability tests by having your superstar employees take the behavior tests and mental abilities tests. For instance, to hire profitable salespeople, first have your superstar salespeople take the tests. Their scores are 'benchmarks' which you compare against applicants' test scores. Second, devise a customized interview guide form for each job. If you are hiring salespeople, customize the interview guide form for your company's salesperson job. Interviewers use the form to ask questions, take notes, and link test scores to interview observations. Remember: Research proves you probably will not hire the best if you only interview applicants. So, customize your tests and interviews and - most importantly - only hire applicants who rate high on your interviews and tests.
© Copyright 2005 Michael Mercer, Ph.D. I very much enjoyed my discussion with Roy and I know you will too. For some background: the ACM, which is the world’s largest educational, scientific and professional non-profit association recently released their ACM Tech Pack on Mobility, edited and annotated by Roy Want, Chair of ACM SIGMOBILE, and his Mobility Tech Pack Committee. “The Tech Pack includes original work, must-read texts, and the latest research from the ACM Digital Library and beyond. Mobile Computing is the fastest growing area in computer science, fuelled by the explosive growth of the smart phone and cell phone market, expected to reach 1.7 billion units shipped this year. [2011] The Mobility Tech Pack looks at Visions and Challenges, Mobile Applications and Middleware, and Wireless and Mobile Technologies. The resource taxonomy includes Survey/Overview, System, Experience, Theory, and General topics. Additional materials include valuable community resources and events, as well as supplementary videos, tutorials, podcasts, websites, newsletters and blogs.”
For Want's significant contributions to Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing he was awarded the status of IEEE and ACM Fellow in 2005. Some of his best known projects are: Active Badge, an in-building location system; ParcTab, the world's first context aware computer system; Personal Server, wireless mobile computer interaction through larger nearby infrastructure and computers; and Dynamic Composable Computing (DCC), sharing resources wirelessly to build a logical computer on the fly. With over 65 issued patents, Roy is a recognized top international authority with research interests in: mobile computing, ubiquitous & pervasive computing, hardware design, electronic commerce, smart cards, distributed systems, multimedia systems, location-based services, mobile user-interfaces, MEMS and electronic tagging (RFID). Roy is the ACM SIGMOBILE Chair and Chair [ACM] Mobility Tech Pack Committee. (http://www.roywant.com/cs and http://techpack.acm.org/) Roy received his Ph.D from Cambridge University in 1988. For a complete profile, go to http://www.roywant.com/cs/. You can find out more about Roy's research interests, professional awards, education, experience, skill set, projects, publications (conferences, journals, periodicals, books, book chapters, published reports, articles, editorials, workshop papers, and EIC introductions), professional activities (professional memberships, committees, conference program chairs, conference technical program committee service, selected invited presentations, editorial posts, PhD thesis committees, industry technical awards, and grants), patents, and media coverage. To listen to the interview, click on this MP3 file link DISCUSSION: Interview Time Index (MM:SS) and Topic:00:44: :18:41: :21:00: :26:18: :29:46: :32:30: :34:34: :38:12: :45:48: :49:51: :52:56: :57:01: :58:49: :01:00:32: :01:03:27: :01:05:33: :01:07:21: :01:08:55: :01:10:21: :01:12:40: :01:13:43: :01:18:30: :01:20:43: :01:23:41: Article Index: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 |
More Articles:1. Balancing Your Business: Making Change Easy By Madeline Lewis “Perfect balance in a business exists only in the organizational chart. A living business is always in a state of imbalance, growing here and shrinking there, overdoing one thing and neglecting another.” (Peter F. Drucker)I believe the three major trends in organizational processes are: discontinuation of the old way of doing business (re-engineering); migration and starting a new way of doing business (organizational change).One of the most often sited reasons why many re-engineering project… Remodeling Austin Tx 2. Applying Lean Six Sigma to Service By Peter Peterka Although both Six Sigma and Lean Flow have their roots in manufacturing, it works just as effectively in service industries. Much of the U.S. economy is now based on services rather than manufacturing and many service organization managers are wondering how they can achieve the tremendous process improvement benefits of Lean Six Sigma to their service organization. Many service organizations have already begun to blend the higher quality of Six Sigma with the efficiency of Lean into Lean Six S… 3. Employee Motivation - Get The Basics Right First* To motivate your people, it is vital that you start off with understanding that there are some things that need to be fixed first, before you can get on with the above the line actions which develop a strong and engaged culture.There are eight things you need to do.Building a team of motivated people in your business is vital to get the very best results, but so many managers focus on the 'ra-ra-ra', rather than the important things - the things that make people feel comfortable in their workin… 4. Dividing The Loot By Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. It is when the going gets better, that the going gets tough. This enigmatic sentence bears explanation: when a firm is in dire straits, in the throes of a crisis, or is a loss maker – conflicts between the shareholders (partners) are rare. When a company is in the start-up phase, conducting research and development and fighting for its continued, profitable survival in the midst of a massive investment cycle – rarely will internal strife arise and threaten its existence. It is when the company… |
||||
Roy Want is a highly respected research scientist at Google. Prior roles include Senior Principal Engineer at Intel, EIC at IEEE Pervasive Computing, and Principal Scientist at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).