Interviewer Tip #5
How Can You Really Pick Out A ‘Can-Do’ Person From An Impostor?
During a job interview, every candidate is a “can-do” person. Every candidate is an overachiever who works hard to produce results. Every candidate could take that job you’re offering and get things done. Just ask every candidate and they’ll tell you so.
In reality, not every candidate is going to perform to the highest level. It just so happens that candidates can pretend they will because they are more prepared than ever to ace a job interview thanks to all the tools available to them today.
It’s up to you as the interviewer to really hear what the candidate is saying and determine whether that person has an “I can!” attitude or not. But first you need to know why an “I can!” attitude is important.
A person’s attitude about whether something can be done makes all the difference in what comes next: that person’s thoughts that lead to actions.
If you believe you can do something, you find a way to accomplish it no matter what. You will overcome any obstacle, or 10 obstacles, or 100 obstacles because you believe that in the end, you will accomplish what you set out to do. You will find a way.
On the other hand, if you believe something cannot be done, you will give up as soon as you run into the first roadblock. The obstacle only confirms what you’ve believed all along: that the goal is not attainable. You stop looking for ways to overcome the obstacle. Why bother? You’d just be wasting your time since the task is impossible.
Both achievement and lack of achievement start in the mind. You’ve heard the saying by Henry Ford, founder of the American automobile empire: “Whether you think you can or you cannot, you’re right.”
“I can” candidates will be able to tell you detailed stories of how they encountered obstacles, determined how to get around them, and put their solutions to work by taking action. “I can” people don’t necessarily reach every goal or accomplish everything they set out to do. But they realize that every failure brings them one step closer to success.
“I can’t” candidates don’t talk about the steps they took to overcome the roadblocks and achieve results because the steps they took are limited. Why? It’s because they give up in the face of adversity. What they can tell you instead is why the achievement was impossible, who or what stood in their way, and why it was beyond their control. The successes they can talk about, however, are predominantly those that didn’t require overcoming obstacles.
To get a candidate to reveal his or her true attitude, pose questions using the “O Say” or O-SAE Method, which entails asking about past situations involving obstacles, their actions and the end results. (See last month’s newsletter for more information on the O-SAE Method.) Then listen to the candidate’s stories. What are his words telling you about his actions - and, more importantly, about his attitude?
This global economic recession has motivated many laid off job candidates to learn everything they can on how to ace interviews while most interviewers remain untrained or under-trained. It’s an uneven playing field which that grossly favors the job applicant. Companies must change this by putting their interviewers on higher ground through education…or face the consequences. With advances in technology, good interviewer training is available on-line and at a cost-effective price. The Motivation-Based Interviewing web course, for example, teaches interviewers how to identify the three components all High Performers share in common (including the “I can” attitude) in about 4-5 hours. It’s self-paced, highly interactive and includes 2 virtual practice interviews. Employers can preview it before deciding to purchase (http://www.hireauthority.com/subscribe-me.html). There is absolutely no reason for any company to fill a job opening with a mediocre or average job performer, yet it happens all the time. The question is, who will take this step first: your company or your competitor? Creating a maximum performance culture begins with changing who the interviewers in a organization choose to hire.
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Interviewing Tips & Techniques are provided by Hire Authority, Inc. Remember, if the time you spend interviewing doesn’t help you to accurately predict future performance – it’s a waste of time. This information and much more can be found in the book Don’t Hire Anyone Without Me! or Motivation-Based Interviewing. To learn more about our Instructor-led training, please contact us at (407) 523-1334.
Writing the most effective interview questions is a skill that will help you make better hires. To learn more about how to gather better candidate information, please visit our Learning Center at www.HireAuthority.com. Just click on “Learning Center” to get started.
