MBA1279 How To Get The Best Out of An Interview Candidate

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Hey O. Welcome to the $1 because when you grow, so does your business. That's why we deliver daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online. And in today's lesson you will learn how to get the best out of an interview candidate. One of the worst things to experience during an interview is where you're sitting in front of the candidate. Whether you're online, via video or in person or and you're just not getting enough information. It's like pulling teeth. And at the end of the interview you're left with I don't have enough information to make a decision to actually say yes. I'm not even sure if this person really wants this job. There is a chance that this person is a good fit for your business and for the position. But are you going to risk it? Do you know for sure? Well, in today's episode we're going to talk about some of the things that you can do to prepare your candidates to make sure you're getting the best version of them. You're getting the performance that you can base your actual decision on. Nicole and I do a lot of interviews for our business Even though we've grown, we still like to do the first interview. It's like the cultural fit interview before we move on to a technical interview where the manager in that department would do that interview. So I want to walk you through some of the things that we prepare our candidates with so we don't waste their time, we don't waste our time. And by the end of the first interview, we, we know, hey, this is a past or a good culture fit. We have enough information to say, move them on to the next step. It's a good feeling. It's a feeling of confidence that you've done everything you can to choose the best candidates. Let me show you how. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. When it comes to interviews, the reality of the situation is you can only make a decision based on the information you have. So what are some of the pieces of information that you'll have at the interview? Well, number one, they pass some sort of screening process. Number two, you have the resume or cv. Number three, you have the answers to the questions that you ask. You're gonna ask them some questions on this interview. They're gonna answer. You're gonna learn from the questions they ask. And then finally, you're gonna learn from just their overall demeanor, their personality, how they deliver and perform on the actual interview. Now, a lot of times a candidate will be in an interview and they're nervous and their delivery may not be so perfect, but if they say the right things and cover the right information, then I can give that a pass. I can understand people are nervous in these situations, but if they've provided me with no information, if they don't really give me the information I'm looking for to make a decision, can they do this job? Will they be a good fit? Are they ambitious, are they hard working, are they responsible? All that stuff, they don't give me solid examples of that. I can't give that a pass. I don't have any evidence. I don't have solid proof that I should pass them in this interview. So one of the ways we make sure people actually understand what we need is to let them know before the interview, they actually go through a screening process. We talked about this before on the show before, where they fill out a Google sheet with some example questions, some example scenarios that they'll be in, depending on the position that they're in. If they're in customer service, we'd given some example customer questions that they would answer with some information just off our website or Our help docs, if it's a designer, we give them a small task, things like that. If they pass a screening and they're called for the first interview, we let them know what the interview format's like. This is what the format is. It's going to be a video interview. You have to have your camera on. Here's the nature of the interview, what we're trying to accomplish and we have some advice for them. Hey, if you want to do well, this is what you should do. You should study our website, maybe try our product, provide as much real life examples to answer the questions we ask on the interview. There's nothing worse when somebody answers a question like, tell me of a time when you dealt with an IRA customer and they give you a generic answer like, well, I deal with IRA customers with patients. No, I don't want you to tell me hypothetically. I want you to tell me an example, a story. Walk me through when you dealt with an IRA customer and what happened. So we make this super clear. So if they do not do this in the interview, it's one of two things. Either they don't have real examples and they don't have the experience, or they didn't read the instructions and they didn't take this interview seriously. Either way, I have my answer. Do not pass this person. So preparing the candidate beforehand, letting him know, hey, this is our expectation. This is what this interview is about. This is what we're looking to gain. This is what you need to do to do well, kind of give them tips. Here's some resources you can use to really excel on this interview. We also tell them, hey, this is a conversation back and forth. We want to get to know you. We're not looking for robots, we're not looking for people pleasers. We're not. We're looking for people that genuinely want to work for us and improve our business and our product in whatever role they take. Now, after they get the email, they accept the interview and it's time to start the interview. We do a abridged version of this at the start of the interview. Hey, let me tell you how this is going to go. We're going to have a conversation, we're going to ask some questions. I'm going to ask you to give me some examples from your experience and then I'm going to give you a chance to ask questions. Then we'll talk a little bit about the job. And here's the kicker. Here's the most important thing to say the start of the interview, you Say, I want you to put your humility aside for the next 30 minutes. I need you to brag a little bit. I need you to talk yourself a little bit up. If you don't tell me or give me enough reason to hire you, I can't hire you. If you don't give me the information I need that I'm looking for to make the case that you should move on to the next step, then I can't. So basically, you're telling them the ball's in your court and you need to provide the information. You can't give me one word answers. You gotta be as elaborate as possible and really want this and really give me your best self. Talk yourself up a little bit. One of the questions we ask is, what would a colleague or a former manager say about you? How would they describe you? Cough. This is time to talk about yourself and brag. We also say we need as many real examples from your past, from your experiences to back up your claims. So if you say, hey, I'm a great communicator, I need to hear immediately after. For example, one time this happened. If you say, I'm really good at resolving conflict or dealing with IRA customers, I want to hear, for example, I had a customer once that emailed us with this problem. He was fuming. I resolved it this way. When you frame it like this, they get it. They're like, okay, I got to make my case here. I got to actually be like a lawyer in the courtroom and show exhibit A, exhibit B, and why my client should be ruled in their favor. You get the point? A jury can't convict if it doesn't have enough information. Now, throughout the interview, they will feel this. Okay, I get, I understand. But they might forget and they might go generic. And you have to stop them and say, excuse me, I'm sorry to interrupt. I'm going to interrupt you a few times. Excuse me, I have that problem. But I need you to give me an example. Give me an actual example. They might stop short and you have to just say, hey, tell me a little bit more about that and stop talking. Just pause. Or what happened next? Or simply then what? You're going to sometimes need to give them some prompts to get the ball rolling, to get more out of them until you feel comfortable you got the answer you're looking for for that question at the end of the interview, before you give him a chance to ask questions about the job or about the position or whatever, you can say, hey, is there anything you want to share with me? That would help me make the decision to move you on to the next level, to hire you. Is there any experience, any situation, anything I don't know about you? Maybe in your free time you're an illustrator and you like to draw and maybe you want to contribute that way somehow in the team, Whatever. You're a musician, you have discipline. You want the state championship in badminton, you want to see the championship in chess when you're a kid, whatever it is, just give them a chance to maybe add something to the story, add something to the case. This is like final remarks by a lawyer. And of course, at the end of it, you thank them for your time. And if you do all this, you'll have enough information to say yes or no. Either they have got it and they've promoted themselves. They've actually given you enough information to make a decision, give you enough solid examples, real life examples, where you're like, yes. Or those examples showed that no, I don't want to make this higher. Or they don't give examples or they don't talk about themselves enough. And you realize I just can't risk it and hire somebody who can't follow instructions, who can't fulfill what I need in this moment.

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Guys, to wrap up today's lesson, I'm trying to convey to you in today's lesson that you need to give your interview candidates a heads up. You got to give them a chance to be their best self and you got to give them everything they need to do that. So providing with that information, with that email, with that conversation at the start of what you expect, hey, if you want this job, this is what you have to do. This is your first step in getting that job. This is what I need. This is what I need to understand. This is the information I need to gather so I can make a decision. One last tip. It doesn't hurt to share your values when it comes to hiring with your candidate. Like, hey, I really value commitment, hard work, people that are fast learners and are easy to get along with. Maybe these are your four values. If they have these values, they're gonna wanna make sure that they display them or give you examples how they value these things as well. Somebody's gonna figure you'll know it in a second, so don't worry about that. Give them a reason to succeed. Give them what it takes to succeed. Tell them what you need so you can make a decision. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe right now so you don't miss an episode and that you have access to all our archive episodes. Over 1200 episodes in our archive. The only way to have access to it is to hit hit subscribe on whatever you like to use to listen to podcasts, whether it's Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Radio, Overcast, Spotify, Tunein, we're on them all. Hit subscribe right now. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. One of the best pieces of advice I received about interviewing is from my buddy Noah Kagan, who is the founder and the CEO of AppSumo and Sumo.com and he says if you leave the interview feeling like, hey, that was a great conversation, I want to hang out with that person more. It was interesting, it was smart, it was fun. That's a good sign. And you should give that person a second interview. Now, obviously they would be a good fit for the job in terms of their qualifications if they got screened for an interview. And you're not going to hire somebody who's bad for your business because you love your business too much. But feeling like you want to continue the conversation and spend more time with this person, it means they're going to be a good contributor to your business or a good culture fit. And they're going to help and not hurt your business culture. Thank you so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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