Remember the interview indicates how well someone performs in an interview

Identifying the best performing person in the interview won’t tell you who will be the best performer in the role. To really find out if they can do the job, present them a real problem the business is facing. You can set his up as a 15-minute pre interview task with a presentation of their solution in the interview. You will discover how they think when there’s no rehearsed answer.

Hire for what they do when the things are going bad not the good times

It’s easy to impress when a business is flying.

What is more important is the capability and desire to rise to the challenge when things go pear shaped. Do they seek the responsibility or prefer to hand it to someone else?

Ask your candidate to talk about the worst thing they’ve been associated with in their career.

The purpose is not to hear about a failure they’ve rehearsed into a positive story, the purpose is to discover the failure that still burns deep.

Try and determine if they will accept accountability or deflect the blame, and have they learnt any lessons from this failure that they can use for the benefit of your business.

Senior people fail on character traits far more than fail on capability

It is unusual to lose an executive manager because they were not capable.

It is more common to lose them because they couldn’t stay composed when the pressure came.

Deliberately push back hard on something they said to test how they react when challenged.

How they react in a relatively low pressure environment may be good indicator of how they react when the pressure and consequences are real.

Concerned the candidate is “Overqualified”

It is important you find out why the “overqualified” candidate wants the role.

The reasons may be valid, or maybe your business is being used as a short term stop gap and they will leave when their ideal role comes along.

Ask why this role? why now? why our business?

If the answer is about their situation, you will most likely be rehiring the role within 18 months.

The best hirers know what good looks like

You can’t hire for a role you’ve never done.

Have someone on the panel who has actually done the job or has achieved the outcomes in another business that you want achieved by the successful candidate.

It is hard to assess a candidate properly if nobody knows what success looks like.

Finish the interview with the “any questions for us?”

What your candidate asks will inform you of many things

The candidates who asks, “what does success look like in the role?”, “what’s not working in the business?”, “who will be in the team that report to this role?” (i.e. who are direct reports, how long have they been in the business, what is the rate of staff turnover in the team below the direct reports?).

The candidates who don’t ask good questions, or whose first reaction is to ask about working from home or other benefits, are informing you all about their priorities.