The interview between a search consultant and a candidate is ideally a professional, valuable, and sometimes also an entertaining, educational process of information exchange between two consenting business people. At worst it is a dreaded, boring and sleep inducing waste of time: expect by times high coffee consumption.
Interviews serve multiple goals.
1. Establishing a storyline based on the formal CV and the person
Probably the most obvious, common sense goal of any assesment interview. Fortunately it is not as arcane as coffee cup reading, palmistry or astrology. The exploration of a CV, when done well, puts the career of a person in an appropriate context. I had several times the experience when a client objected to a candidate after a glance on CV style career history and dynamics. Nevertheless, after meeting the candidate the objection went up in smoke. Therefore, when CV's are concerned, don't judge a book by the color of its cover. For instance, a CV can show considerable change, even indicate someone might be a "job hopper", though what might look like job hopping could also be the result of frequent M&A in an industry, bankruptcy of an employer, or high salary inflation in a particular sector.
In the US and Western Europe, people learn, and generally are conditioned from early high school on (at least in my case), to write "good CV's", paying attention to structure and composition, formulating responsabilities in the correct manner, but also dust off, buff up, polish and in the case of some, invent"achievements. With the term "good CV" I mean the composition and structure are clear and comprehensive, while the hard skills content matches the requirements of the position. A brumble picker might have the most professional CV on the globe, he ain't gonna be an investment banker (though I am not sure of that anymore). In my interviews, as a general rule, I always try to look through the shine of a "good" CV in order to evaluate the true match with the position to be filled: be prepared to discover some light bulbs dim faster than others.
For instance, a senior consumer business unit manager for OS products at Microsoft claimed once he managed to grow his revenue 25% YoY over the previous 3 years. This individual worked at a Microsoft subsiduary in an Eastern European market where the IT market was growing yearly between 30-35% over that particular period. However, as he managed the Windows OS business, which has a near monopoly in the consumer OS market, was he underperforming the market? I believe that moment I caught the first occurance of the "deer-caught-in-the-headlights-stare".
In another case a former VP at a telecom company gave an account of one of his core competencies as the "pro-active, holistic management of dynamic and complex matrix organizations..." Yawn! Though he wanted to communicate professionalism and sophistication, what he really said was that the former employer subsidized CV writing and interview coaching after lay-off. It should be clear CV's do not reflect such information, they give at best only a hint or raise a red flag that (1) the icontract of the individual was terminated, so he did not resign as lots of people in such case will subtly suggest, and (2) his communication skills fit at best those of an average hypnotist.
Questions probing towards the motivation behind job changes, the nature of the effective or sometimes pretended responsabilities and ditto accomplishments, the budget responsability, and where a candidate figures in a company hiearchy, can only be conclusively answered through a dialogue.
2. Evaluating if the personality of the candidate fits the hiring organization
Companies hire competence, but the person needs to fit. Soft skills count for at least half of the hiring decision. The more senior a position, the more social and emotional intelligence, the less technical competencies matter. How can we discover if a candidate is in reality an abusive, backstabbing and manipulative bastard; despite the fact he will put his best leg forward during an interview, claiming he's "oh such a smooth operator"? I had once a candidate who did not even do that effort, and that interview, which took place a a year ago in the Bucharest Hilton, lasted less than a minute and is still the shortest of my career.
The behavioural interview probes into this matter, discovering how a person acted during previous circumstances, as this is highly predictive of future behaviour. Such interview is most effective when an employer has decided on the specific skillset required for the position. Rather than the traditional interview questions "describe your weak and strong points" "where do you see yourself in five years.... blah blah blah", it will probe into how someone handles situations, covering criteria such as adding value, conflict management, analytical thinking, adaptability, time management, relationship building etc... An excellent list of questions can be found here. People can be trained and coached through the popular STAR method to engage a behavioural interview, though a large majority of succesful senior executives and candidates never trained in interview techniques. They simply never need(ed) it.
Therefore I spike the behavioural interview with lots of hypothetical questions. Such questions probe into what someone would, should or could do in a specific situation. For instance, a candidate for an HR management position I would ask the hypothetical question "how would you handle a situation where a star performer is found intoxicated at work, while you know he was in a painful divorce and custody battle" after a behavioural question such as "can you give me an example of a situation where you had to handle a situation where you had to make the best decision for the company, taking into account the various conflicting interests of individuals and business?". My favourite question to a candidate HR executive is always to learn, in his or her words, how their HR activity adds value to the business.
As you guessed, this combination of questions can be further be put in case context resembling the business of the client. Depending on the skill of a consultant, and the seniority of a candidate, this can lead to a highly enriching, sometimes entertaining and animated discussion where attributes such as self-confidence, preseverence, maturity, intelligence and bad habits can be uncovered. Bad habits? Vice? You would be surprised! One colleague found himself once in the hilarious situation of being invited to a late dinner by a long legged and short skirted candidate, but if, and only if, she would be on the shortlist.
3. The education of the consultant.
I always go to an interview with an intention to learn something. Some candidates are both great professionals and wonderful people. I have interviewed individuals, where after establishing a common ground and mutual respect, I left with the satisfaction of having picked up something unique about a company, sector, profession or position. Other candidates can give an interviewer a profound negative experience because of their arrogance, insecurity, even obnoxiousness. Both experiences allow a consultant to sharpen his people assessment and relationship building skills, optimize the time he allocates to an interview, and focus on what information he seeks to collect.
Due to the vast amount of tacit knowledge required in this profession, the successful executive search professional seeks proactively to accumulate experience. The good news is that the job provides tremendous opportunities to learn fast. Maybe experience is the ability to not make costly mistakes, but it is what makes individual effectiveness and efficiency improve over time. Don't forget that in this profession, time is the most important opportunity cost, hence I would call the improvement in ROT, or Return On Time, the direct and tangible result of good interviews. Experience allows directly to the heart of the matter or issue, and extract the needed information required.
In my view there is a significant correlation between consultants that like to learn, and those that bring above average results for their firm and customers. I have a colleague who befriended clients and candidates, and joined them in actual business meetings to learn the nature, importance and style of deal making amongst investors and developers in the East European Real Estate sector. It is no coincidence he, and like minded others, are routinely offered the position they have to find a candidate for; and are considered the leading search consultants in a sector.
Every year I hear from senior executives about how some search firms employ out of college liberal arts types consultants, by times social and articulate individuals, but who are still green behind the ears, with no practical business experience (at best they hear or read about it once in while), conducting interviews whereby it is abundantly clear the interviewer has no clue what, say a Director in charge of Alternative Delivery Channels in a bank really does, and much less about how to assess such individual. I always wonder why firms put such consultants in front of a clandidate, and why hiring companies give such search firms a mandate....
4. Business Development
Yes! Of course! The interview allows for a broad and rich exchange of information about business, allowing a consultant to learn about opportunities at a company, or in an industry. A competitor might be struggling, a new market entrants seek to establish themselves, a company puts itself up for sale. The person interviewed extends an invitation for a business forum or volunteers to make an introduction to an acquintance who could become a buyer of the service.
Heck, I had once had a candidate I did not even shortlist become a client few months later. When there is a mutual respect established with a candidate, he or she can provide valuable information, which ,when acted-upon, can kick start new business. For this to happen, professionals must see in each other a potential peer or better, someone that can add value to what he or she does.
To conclude:
The great candidate asks sharp, intelligent and concise questions. He knows what he wants, what the business is about, and if the consultant in front of him is not just a dressed-up puff. The "this is how I look like, but this is how I really am" type of candidate comments within the first minutes that he or she does not have much experience in interviewing, because they realize the interview is not conducted by just another sucker. Set the level of the playing field early on, as quickly as possible.
Everyone can be perceived as a gruyere cheese, you know, the famous tasty swiss cheese with the holes. It means we all have, myself included, some defects. I learned early on a good search consultant does not need to be a sadist, looking for, and poking with his fingers into those holes. Most important is to evaluate the negatives in their proper context, not to find out how heavy the defect weights. When you established an IT Director has no business application or analysis experience, do not ask him how he would organize an ERP roll-out.
One thing about interviews I can still improve dramatically on is in note taking. Usually, a few days after the interview I look at incomprehensible notes, like they were written blindfolded, or the pen was held with ski gloves. I admit I am improving, but still there is quite a way to go.
Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 11:00PM 
