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Hiring? Stop With the Stupid Questions

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Are you feeling that you are in the wrong job even though you have only been with the company for less than a year?

Well, one reason may be that during your interview, you were asked a number of questions that may have struck you as silly. For example:

How much do you love money?

Can I see your wallet?

Do you believe in ghosts?

If you could be a fruit, what kind would you be?

And one that’s become a nonsense classic… “Sell me this rubber band.”

These turkey questions are included anecdotally in new study conducted by Development Dimensions International (DDI). According to DDI’s global research, “more than half of all new employees are experiencing buyer’s remorse after taking a job offer this year.” Not only are employees feeling like misfits, so too are companies. One in eight new hires are failing in their first 12 months.

A big reason, according to DDI, is that too much of the decision-making falls to the hiring manager. Judged by the questions cited about, some of these people should not be asking questions of anyone He or she is not on the same page as the department or managers in need of new recruits.

DDI, a consultancy specializing in talent management, offers a slew of good suggestions about how to hire more effectively. Among their suggests are know your candidates better, use assessments, evaluate the effectiveness of your selection system, and reveal more about the position and your company to candidates.

The systemic suggestions affect the organization but managers do not need to wait for an organizational review to act. One way to address two of the suggestions immediately is to employ a technique that many organizations already use: team interviews. Invite co-workers to interview a select number of job candidates. The questions will be focused on eliciting two things, how the candidate thinks and how he or she interacts with others.

Such interviews should not be one-way streets. The candidate should be encouraged to ask his or her own questions about the job as well as expectations for joining the team. Such expectations will cover issues related to cooperation and collaboration.

Another big reason employees wash out, according to the DDI report, is weak evaluation of their abilities and skills, that is relying too much on the employee’s “self promotion to assess their capabilities.” A team interview is an opportunity to see how the candidate presents him or herself and how they talk about their work. Candidates who make frequent use of the pronoun "we" in reference to their accomplishments is an acknowledgement that they are cognizant of the team dynamic. These are individuals, as one executive once told me, who know the value of working well with others.

Never forget, however, that job interviews are artificial situations. They put the candidate in a pressure cooker environment. That is good for revealing a degree of character but it can be intimidating to some very good candidates who are more introverted, and even shy, in unfamiliar situations. Initially introverted candidates may not be in line for senior level positions where comfort in the public eye is necessary but when hired make outstanding contributions. And in time more than a few introverts rise to senior leadership due to their exceptional abilities as well as a learned ability to project their leadership in management situations.

The lesson for anyone in a position to hire is to find out what you about the candidate but also allow others on your team to have a voice in the hiring process. That will ensure that the candidate feels more welcome upon arrival and will feel better about the new job.

And it avoids the need for hiring managers to ask more stupid questions.