I was digging around Maren Hogan's Blog (gotta do research on the kids who are going to post on Fistful) and found her linking to a 2004 article by Lou Adler on the "one question interview".
My first question was "what's Maren doing kicking around Lou Adler's site all the way back to 2004?" I
pictured a Lou bobble-head doll on her desk, maybe one of the kids with a "Lou Rocks" t-shirt, that type of thing.
Then I remembered Google. False alarm - she probably just typed in "best interview questions" and got Lou in the results. Too bad - the bobble-head doll would have been a nice touch.
In any event, here's the question Lou Adler would ask if you had a gun pointed at his cat and said, "you've got one question to figure out this candidate - make a poor hire, and Constanza here gets it":
"The key to the one-question interview is to ask the candidate to describe a major project or accomplishment in great depth. To understand the actual accomplishment and the candidate's true role, the interviewer must dig in with a series of fact-finding questions (e.g., when, where, why, how, who...). It often takes 10 minutes of peeling the onion like this to really understand the scope and impact of any accomplishment. This process is then repeated for a number of different team and individual accomplishments spread over a period of time.
By digging deep into a person's background this way, it's quickly apparent if you're dealing with a great employee or someone who just makes a good presentation. Candidates who are only good at the presentation piece tend to balk at the inquisitive nature of the questioning. Their answers tend to be shorter, shallow, and often evasive. Sometimes they even lose their composure, become nervous, lose eye contact, and seem less confident. People who are average at the presentation piece, but who are solid on the performance side, undergo an equivalent transformation. They become energized by the questions, they talk more openly and enthusiastically, seem more at ease and confident, and can't wait for another chance to tell you what they've accomplished."
I like it. Behavioral interviewing at it's best. Ask a simple behavioral question, then be an absolute bulldog for about 15 minutes. Two things happen - either the candidate can pop you with sufficient depth, with your follow-ups providing reminders for them, or they're thinner than the all-beef patty on a plain hamburger at McDonald's.
The missing link in the Talent game related to this? The ability of interviewers (be they recruiters, HR pros, or hiring managers) to confront and ask for endless details. On about the 7th follow up question, mere mortals tend to fold, when they see the glassy look in the candidate's eyes.
Not the closers. They're all too willing to ask for "how" the candidate decided to whom to send the email.
That's why they are the players...
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