Author: Mary Ila Ward

We’ve had two young men as career coaching clients lately. Although pursuing different types of opportunities, they are both in their early to mid-twenties and are having a hard time finding a job in their respective fields- both of which, by the way, are in demand.   Both have been getting called for interviews, but something seems to fail in the interview every time and they haven’t been offered jobs.

So, we’ve been working with them to help improve their interviewing skills. Both of these guys are technically minded. They are smart, good, hardworking people. But they are introverts. Situations like interviews are not their strong suit. In reviewing the little bit of feedback they have been given by those who have interviewed them, they get comments like “You need to be more animated.” Or “You need to be more excited and passionate.”

I’m all for finding people who are passionate about the field they are pursuing, but I sometimes want to say to employers, come on, you are hiring an engineer, not a sales person.   Do they really need to be Mr. Personality or do they need to be technically competent and, yes, personable enough to get along with others, but couldn’t being introverted actually be something that is desirable for a role like an engineer?

While we need to help people become better at conveying who they are and why they would be a valuable asset to an organization, I think we rely on interviews entirely too much when making hiring decisions. Yes, they are necessary, but I think we establish a certain set of criteria for interviewing that seems to always judge people on their gregariousness or lack thereof and of course a person’s physical appearance instead of what is actually needed for success in a role.

In light of this, we are going to look at some innovative ways and tools to make screening better in order to hire right:

1. Implement a pre-screening assessment that assesses people for organizational fit. You automatically screen out those that would not fit with the organization’s values and culture, because as we wrote about previously organizational fit is more important than job fit. There is more here on how to select the right screening assessment.

2. Implement a mechanism to see if the person can actually perform the job like a skills-based assessment, in-basket exercises, assessment center techniques or a realistic job preview (more on this next week). Many of these tools also involve some type of interaction with organizational stakeholders that gives you an idea of how well they will work with their potential team. A cool company that is combining many of these tools is Shaker Consulting Group and it’s virtual job tryout.

3. Consider if competition based recruiting could be a viable option for your organization or certain types of positions within your organization.

More here on this new trend:

Contest Recruiting

Competition Based Hiring Whitepaper

4. Improve your interviewing tactics.

Some innovative tools for this: Hireology and Hirevue

Some other thoughts on improving your hiring process: Hire Slow

What have you found to be the best hiring practice?

With a growing need to manage project based work coupled with the need to vet an individual’s leadership capabilities, organizations are assigning hi-potentials with informal leadership roles, or project manager roles, before giving them the positional and formal leadership authority over others.

As a chance to prove capabilities, those given project management roles need to understand how to succeed at both the task of getting the project done and the priority to get work done through others. Often these two priorities seem to be conflicting, when in reality they are not. Informal leaders often fail when they see the only goal to be getting the project done, and neglect to realize how the imperative of getting the project done will only be accomplished through the work others. This necessities strong people management, not just task management skills.

If you’ve been given an informal leadership role you should:

1. Know and understand the members of your project team. Meet one-on-one with members and ask:
   1. What motivates them?
   2. What strengths to they have that they bring to the team?
   3. What are their stressors? In other words, what points of resistance or skepticism do they have about this particular project? What do they think should be done to help mitigate these potential issues?
2. Build buy-in by creating a game plan as a group. Bring the group together and based on feedback gathered in one-on-one meetings, create a game plan together that includes timelines for implementation and project meetings, assignments and ownership for each team member.
3. Practice what you preach. Set the tone for the project by following through on your assignments and commitments per the project plan and staying true to a meeting schedule that is set.
4. Realize that providing support for others to get work done is your number one priority.  If a team member needs you, that is your first priority, not the list of tasks on your to-do list. This helps to take the first three steps to the next level.

Most hi-pos know how to get stuff done. That’s why they are hi-pos. But what will set you apart is being able to transition your focus on getting work done to getting work done through others. This is even more of a challenge when you do not have positional authority. But if you take the time to know your team, build buy-in, practice what you preach and provide support for others, you’ll prove that you have what it takes to be able to transition to a formal leadership role, because true leaders don’t need a title to lead.