Interview
Balance
When we
were beta-ing our Interview Creation Tool™ our beta testers
asked if they could change the way the questions were written. Like
many developers of software, we struggled between allowing maximum
flexibility and the development resources we had. In this case, though,
we didn't say no because of resource constraints.
But we
did say no. The questions are written in a specific way –
they’re general enough for everyone to be able to use them,
whatever the role level or industry, and specific enough to get to the
heart of the skill that we're looking for.
The
algorithm balances the interview so that you ask more questions about
skills, traits and abilities which are more relevant to the role and
less about those which are less important.
Now,
you don’t need to use our Interview Creation Tool™,
of course
– even though everyone who has used thinks it’s
pretty fantastic. (One person said that that he wanted to cry after
using it!). What you do need to do is find the balance between too
specific questions which encourage candidates to give short, often
yes/no answers, and questions which confuse them by being too general.
You
also need to make sure the interview is balanced overall and asks about
a range of skills. It's no use concentrating on programming
ability if you also need your programmer to get on with the other
people in your team (and who doesn’t?).
Creating
interviews is easy. Write down the first 10 questions you think of.
Creating good interviews is hard. Creating
great interviews, that weed
out the average candidates and allow you to keep the bar really high,
is devilishly hard.
The value comes though, when you have a team of
superstars working to get YOU promoted.
One of the lessons of wisdom is learning to work really hard on only
the things that are really important. Interviewing
is one of those
things. Whether you use the
Interview Creation Tool™ or not,
resolve to be a great interviewer.
HP
Print Apps
We're happy to announce that Manager Tools is now available on your HP printer. New HP printers come with 'print apps' which allow automatic delivery of daily content straight to your printer. As well as Manager Tools, there's the Wall Street Journal, Motley Fool, Disney, USA Today, Delta Airlines. We're one of the first companies asked, in part because we have a loyal following of HP managers.
If you have an HP printer, check it out. You could have Manager Tools, even if you have an EMP moment. Let us know what you think.
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