Do these 2 things in a job interview to find the best talent
Adam Grant says traditional job interview methods of describing rather than showing a candidate’s strengths may be responsible for employers “missing out on diamonds in the rough”. Instead, he says, interviewers should try to combine the two steps to assess a candidate’s true potential and suitability for the job.
Grant, a bestselling author and organizational psychologist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, shared tips for improving the interview process while speaking at WOBI’s World Business Forum in New York City on Nov. 5.
“How well someone does a job is measured not by how the first meeting goes, but by how much growth they show from the first meeting to the second,” he cited research.
Of course, hiring teams don’t always have the time or resources to give everyone a second chance if they fail the first interview. But Grant shared an alternative that still gives candidates the opportunity to make a change without the hiring team having to reserve time for another interview.
“Even if you stop the interview midway through and say, ‘Hey, I have a few notes for you,’ and then watch the motivation and ability develop from the first try to the second, that’s a great window into whether someone is excited to get better and also whether they have the capacity to learn the skills you’re trying to perfect them.”
In addition to giving feedback and giving candidates a chance to improve if they get off to a rocky start, Grant adds a task that’s part of the actual job to the interview to see the person’s skills and potential in action.
‘I’m also guilty of this’
Grant shared a personal anecdote about how he almost missed hiring a person. a top performer because of his own approach to interviewing applicants. Before becoming an organizational psychologist, he led an advertising team and recruited salespeople. He recalled one candidate who, based on his resume, appeared to be “the worst candidate imaginable for sales.”
Grant was desperate to land the role, so he interviewed the applicant regardless but was unimpressed. He told the company president that the candidate would not be suitable for the role because he made no eye contact during the 45-minute interview.
“I didn’t know anything about neurodivergence at the time,” Grant said.
The company president said, “You do realize this is a telemarketing job, right? There’s no eye contact in this job.”
Grant suddenly realized that he had been so focused on confirming his belief that the candidate was unsuitable that he learned a lesson.
“I realized I needed to restart our recruiting process,” he said. “If you want to measure someone’s potential, the best thing you can do is actually give them a challenge that’s actually part of the job and watch how they handle it.”
So he brought back all the candidates and asked them to sell him bad apples. Grant chose it because all the candidates were familiar with apples, so it would level the playing field, and because “if you can get me excited about a bad apple, you can definitely sell our products,” he said.
Candidate Grant was unwelcome before launching into his sales pitch.
“This may look like a bad apple; it’s actually an old, antique apple,” Grant recalled saying. “‘Will an apple a day keep the doctor away?’ you know the saying. Because of the nutrients involved in the aging process, you only need to eat one per week. “You can then plant the seeds in your backyard.”
Even though Grant joked that he had “some serious honesty and integrity questions” about the candidate, he hired him, and the man eventually became the best salesman on the team.
“What I learned from this story was that I didn’t just need to see him in action to gauge his potential,” Grant said. “But I also needed to give it a twist.”
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