Interview Coaching

When coaching interviewers, I find myself giving certain advice repeatedly. Here are three areas that almost every new interviewer struggles with.

1. Vocalize More.

We help condense the nuanced concept of rapport (curiosity, fascination) into a memorable tagline: Smile, Nod, Vocalize. Most people are reasonably good at the first two and honestly pretty terrible at the third.

I think this is because people have been taught—from a young age—to be polite. And for most people, that means silently listening until the other person is clearly done talking. If you do this, a large percentage of your interviews are going to be a big waste of time. This is because certain candidates will simply talk too long and you will not get anywhere near an optimal ratio of data:time.

The fix: find a way to insert some micro-vocalizations as you are listening to their first response. Hmm, yes, makes sense, ok, got it, etc. Pretend you are listening to your friend tell a very interesting story. You just can’t help but be an active listener who is going to often engage in the conversation. Psychologically, it’s easier for the candidate to keep their stories short and crisp when they hear you “in there with them.” This is the inverse of getting people to talk more (e.g. during a negotiation) where the dominant strategy is to insert some awkward silence.

Vocalizing will also make the second piece of advice easier to implement…

2. Interrupt sooner, and more often.

If the candidate goes off topic—or too deep—on a particular topic it is your right and duty as an interviewer to get in there and interrupt them. Jordan and I interrupt candidates constantly but in a high-rapport, nudging, deft, and non-abrasive way. This is one of the reasons that building high rapport (with loads of curiosity) is so helpful. It buys you the right to interrupt in service of hearing more of the candidate’s story.

You are not interrupting them to debate politics and tell them they are wrong. You are helping them get to the meat of their story.

If you are not interrupting candidates, you are actively doing yourself, your company, and the candidate a disservice. You need to learn how to do this.

And when you do jump in with your next question, make sure you follow this last piece of advice…

3. Keep questions short, simple, and side-door.

The average interviewer asks questions that are way too long, complicated, and often directly point out what the “right” answer should sound like.

Keep your questions short. Keep them simple. Long questions confuse candidates. It’s also possible you’re attempting to talk about yourself or semi-apologize for asking the question. Stop doing that. It’s awkward and unnecessary. 🙂 

Please also keep them open-ended. Closed-ended questions like “Did you hit your targets?” or “Was she upset when you gave her the feedback?” are yes-no hypothesis tests that show your hand and may make the candidate feel judged. There is almost always a way to re-phrase as an open-ended question.

And whenever possible, avoid telegraphing the exact quality you are looking for in a “good” response. Savvy candidates (salespeople) will reverse engineer what you must have on your Target, and then start molding their story to overly emphasize that quality.

Example: instead of asking “Tell me your best example of inheriting a team, setting targets, and holding them accountable,” you could instead ask them about the last three teams they led, what they accomplished, what they are proudest of, how they interacted with their teammates, and what a key team member would say about their leadership style. (All separate questions of course—that would be a horrible single question.) This will generate a collection of high-probability stories that are likely to tell you whether or not this person is or is not an active “manage-by-metrics” manager. And remember, you can always ask the “front door” question as a backup.

Fix these three habits and you will immediately level up as an interviewer, start getting better data, and start making more accurate hires for your company.