Interviews Don’t Work

Interviews Don’t Work

The reason why 80% of companies still feel as though they are ‘best guessing’ even after second interviewing …

For a senior role and even many junior roles most companies will have a second interview, sometimes even a third. There may even be a psychometric test or a ‘competency’ based assessment. Yet in making their final decision many companies still feel as though they are taking a best guess and lack any degree of certainty in their final decision.

What skills do companies interview for ?

When we look at the interview process it becomes apparent that assessing technical skills and other hands on competencies is actually relatively simple. Ask a series of questions, listen to the answers and observe whether the answers indicate the necessary degree of understanding and / or competence. Assessing technical competence is easy for anyone with any degree of experience in technical interviewing.

The problems arise when companies have to assess ‘Character’ and soft skills, for example,management style, fit with established team members and degree of commitment.

How do people make evidence based decisions ?

The interview problem is born out of the process of evidence based decisions and how people get convinced about those decisions. In the LAB Profile – a psycho-linguistic tool we use to assess behaviour, there are two patterns that tell us how someone gets convinced in a given context:

Convincer Channel: tells us what type of evidence someone needs to begin the process of getting convinced, whether they need to SEE, HEAR or READ evidence or whether they need to DO (or FEEL) something as evidence – or maybe some combination of all four.

Convincer Mode: tells us how this evidence must be experienced before someone reaches a point of total conviction and certainty. Maybe they need to experience the evidence over a PERIOD OF TIME, perhaps they need a # of EXAMPLES, maybe they will be convinced AUTOMATICALLY with the first evidence or maybe they will never actually be convinced and need to look for CONSISTENT recurring evidence.

What do the statistics tell us ?

The LAB Profile is a context dependant assessment that was validated as a language based tool using a number of contexts. The context in which the LAB Profile was originally validated was that of work so we have original figures to tell us how people make decisions and get convinced in work. The statistics for Convincer Channel and Convincer Mode are given below:

Convincer Channel: SEE(55%)   HEAR(30%)   READ(3%)   DO(12%) 

The above figures tell us what percentage of the population require evidence they SEE, HEAR, READ or DO (develop by doing with someone) to begin the process of getting convinced.

Convincer Mode: # EXAMPLES (52%)   PERIOD TIME (25%)   AUTOMATIC (8%)   CONSISTENT (15%)

The above figures indicate what percentage of the population reach the point of conviction with a # EXAMPLES of evidence, experiencing evidence over a PERIOD of TIME etc.

If we combine the two sets of figures we get an indication of how interviewers might get totally convinced about someones suitability in the context of work Eg. It is apparent that in an interview scenario less than 5% of Interviewers will get convinced of someones suitability by HEARING them in one single (AUTOMATIC) interview (8% of 30% = less than 5%).

Interviews don’t work

If we consider the process of Interviewing, first a CV is received and READ then select candidates are invited to interview. The interviewers get to HEAR them discussing aspects of the role and their skills but they do not get to SEE them exhibiting the skills of the role and they do not get to experience working with (DO) the applicants.

The interview process will only suit interviewers who get convinced AUTOMATICALLY (by the first piece of evidence) or over a PERIOD of TIME (provided that falls within the space between interviews) and also anyone who gets convinced by # EXAMPLES provided that number is equal to or less than the number of interviews held. With the #EXAMPLES trait the requisite number of times evidence must be experienced to reach conviction frequently exceeds 3 which is more than the normal number of interviews conducted by most organisations.

Even being generous in light of the statistics it is clear that the types of evidence garnered in traditional interviews is not suitable for most decision making ‘tastes’. Equally the interview process is unlikely to meet the requirements most interviewers have to reach a point of conviction. Essentially conventional interviews fail utterly to provide the evidence, or the experience of that evidence, that the interviewers need in order to make confident decisions. That is, interviews don’t work.

The missing piece in interview preparation

Probably fewer than 40% of people prepare themselves effectively for an interview. Even though it does not take more than a couple of hours to prepare well – remember you are not learning anything new (except a little about the company) you are simply preparing to discuss what you already know.

Most people focus on rehearsing answers for technical questions, but this is not the area that gives companies most problem. In fact interviewers find it easy to discriminate between candidates on technical competency, the difficulty, as already highlighted, is in the area of soft skills.

The easiest way to influence a decision in an interview situation is to allay any doubts about WHO you are by connecting with the interviewers.

The power of rapport in interviews

Making a connection simply means establishing genuine rapport with all of the interviewers present. Although many people think rapport is about empathy, about liking and being liked, it isn’t – although that is often a side affect of rapport – it’s actually about connecting on more than just a superficial level.

Why is this so important ? When people connect with someone they get to:

• Have a sense of understanding and of sensing who the other person is
• See aspects of themselves in those they have rapport with
• Experience a heightened sense of trust in a short space of time

This sense of connection with strangers is not a sense that lends itself to words very well, not something that can easily be explained consciously. Yet giving someone the sense that they understand who you are is the most powerful tonic for doubt.

How to establish and maintain rapport

There is a lot of advice written in books about using body language and there are some ‘techniques’ that can be used to great effect in fast tracking rapport such as:

• Matching and mirroring body language and breathing
• Matching voice tempo, tone and volume
• Listening for and responding to sensory predicates in language (the language of the senses)
• Pacing sensory awareness (being consistent with another’s ‘map of the world’).

These techniques do work when performed out of the conscious awareness of the person you wish to develop rapport with. This is the tricky part, if the other person gets a sense of what you are doing then rapport will probably go out of the window. Without some basic training and a fair amount of practice it is not advisable to use ‘techniques’ to establish rapport, especially in important situations like interviews.

So what is the answer? Well, in reality whilst there is no one size fits all alternative to skillful application of technique, the fastest and simplest route to establishing rapport is probably to focus on developing a genuineinterest in all of the interviewers. More importantly to demonstrate this behaviourally with, for example, eye contact, enthusiastic and engaging tone of voice, an attentive attitude and plenty of questions about the role.

Focusing on developing this connection will yield the best results. To be on top form you must first have covered the basics of interview preparation. Provided you have covered the essential basics you can then focus on managing your state and focusing your attention in the right places. Advice on essential interview preparation is coming soon (by 15th Jan 2010) in another blog article. 

Toby Poulsom MSc has been coaching people in Interview Skills for over 10 years. He has recruited for numerous companies and consulted on the recruitment strategies of a number of global organisations. He is also certified as a Classic Code and New Code NLP Trainer by the ITA. To find out more about his work, coaching or training services, please either use the contact form on this site or call the office on 0845 6025966 and speak to someone directly.

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