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[Previously Culture by Design] The leader is the #1 factor in determining organizational success. If you want to become an effective leader, you have three objectives: First, learn to lead yourself. Then, learn how to unlock the full potential of your team. Finally, build a business where culture is your competitive advantage and innovation is the status quo.
Welcome back, Culture by Design listeners. It's Jillian, one of the producers of the podcast. We're talking about interview questions this week. Why? Because poor interview protocols are dangerous and inefficient and all too common.
Jillian:They decrease your chances of finding the right person to join your team. And we definitely don't want that. During the episode, Tim and junior highlight the limitations of traditional interviews, and give you 10 unique interview questions to help you improve your 3 d interviewing skills. Some of these questions are kind of unconventional, but the concept should help you create a more engaging and effective interview experience that will land you hires that you love. As always, transcripts, show notes and important links can be found on our website atleaderfactor.com/podcast.
Jillian:Thanks for listening and enjoy today's
Junior:I'm Junior here with my cohost, doctor Tim Clark. And today, we'll be discussing interview questions, but not just any interview questions, questions you probably haven't heard before, questions that aren't cliche. Tim, how are you doing today?
Tim Clark:Fantastic. It's a beautiful morning. Happy to be here.
Junior:I'm excited to record today. There's a lot of good conversation that I think we'll have, a lot of interesting questions that we'll ask about the interview questions themselves and otherwise. The premise here is that every organization needs people. The better the people, the better the organization. And part of the process in finding the best people is interviewing.
Junior:You can do that well. You can do it poorly. And most people are not stellar interviewers, and most interview protocols are poor at best, and at worst, they can become dangerous. So if you've ever asked to tell me about a time you faced the challenge and how you overcame it, today's episode is for you. And if you've ever used sell me this pen, there's no hope.
Junior:I'm just kidding.
Tim Clark:Junior, this is a cliched process, isn't it? It's overcome and overwhelmed with cliches, and we're gonna try to bust through all
Junior:of that today. Right. Bust through is the right way to put it. So how do we increase our chances of finding the right person? How do we get rid of this cliche?
Junior:We'll give you 10 questions that you might ask, but rather, and perhaps more importantly, some considerations. These 10 questions that we're going to go through today are not going to necessarily be your 10 questions, but I guarantee that at least one of them will be a light bulb for you and will inform the next time you are in an interview, either on the interviewee side or the interviewer. So, Tim, how many interviews do you think you've been a part of?
Tim Clark:I can't even count. So many. So many. But, well, this proves the point that you just made, Junior. Most of the time, they devolve into becoming just ritualistic kind of perfunctory cliched experiences when what are we really trying to what do we why do we do it?
Tim Clark:We're using them as proxy indicators for the likely performance of a candidate. So if you think about the job to be done, it's crucial. We're trying to find the right people. We're trying to figure out if this person can do the job, if they have the skills, the motivation, the everything that we need, if they're a good fit, and we use the interview, we put a lot of weight on the interview process, don't we? And so if we do, then we need to think about whether that interview process is really effective or not.
Junior:Yeah. Part of the reason that I ask how many interviews do you think you've been a part of is so that we all understand we're not coming at this from 0. We've had some experience for better, for worse. We've been part of some good interviews. We've been a part of some poor interviews.
Junior:We've done poor interviews. We've done good interviews. So, Tim, tell me a little bit about the interview processes that you have been through throughout your career in executive search, in succession planning, in helping organizations that tap into your expertise find the right people? What's at stake at that level of interviewing?
Tim Clark:Well, it's massive. One of the things that I've done over the years, junior, as you know, is that, board of directors will call me and ask me to fly out to interview a CEO candidate. Now talk about high stakes interviews. This is a high stakes interview situation. We're talking about a candidate that is being considered to lead an enterprise.
Tim Clark:And so so much is riding on this. And in in this kind of a situation, I'll go in and interview a candidate for half a day using an interview protocol that has been designed for that purpose. And it will be a depth interview, and we will we will explore and probe and develop many different topics to try to dig and excavate the potential and the the likely performance of an individual. Now that's not something that we can do normally in a normal interview. We have to move through them pretty quickly.
Tim Clark:So on the other side, what have I witnessed over the last 30 years? I witnessed, as we said, a lot of cliched experiences where people ask these same questions over and over again. And they're not really learning very much. The behavioral interview questions are pretty good often, and behavioral interviewing has become a standard approach. And it does tell us quite a bit.
Tim Clark:But what we're gonna do here, junior, we're gonna go to the next level, aren't we? We're gonna ask interview questions that people don't anticipate.
Junior:Yeah. I was looking at the etymology of interview. I love words. I love language. So I look this up.
Junior:Interview comes from the French word, meaning to see each other or have a glimpse of. I thought that was really interesting to look at the actual word because that is all we get. We We just get a glimpse. So an interview is just a glimpse. If we have just a few moments together on the upper end half a day, then we need to use that time wisely because so much rides on the outcome of that interview.
Junior:So on average, a candidate will go through 10 to 20 interviews before landing a job offer. Pretty interesting.
Tim Clark:Is that what it is now?
Junior:10 to 20. Yeah. Yep. And successful interviewing is not obvious. That's one of the first points that I wanna make today is that it's not obvious.
Junior:It's not something that everyone is just good at by default. The interview protocol should enable us to get as close to reality as possible. To me, as I look at the interview process and I ask, well, what, you know, what is the point of this exercise? It's to allow me an opportunity to get as close to reality as possible. But as you've probably seen throughout your career, that reality can be hard to get to.
Junior:So why? Why is the reality so hard to get to in an interview setting?
Tim Clark:I think the reason, Junior, is that what are the tools that we have? We use questions. And it it all comes down to the effectiveness of the questions that we're asking. They can be blunt tools, or they can be sharp tools. They can be enlightening, penetrating, revealing, or they can be very superficial.
Tim Clark:I can't tell you how many interviews or an interview process I've been a part of where people come back after the interview process, the interviewers, right, the employer, and people will huddle. They'll do a kind of a postmortem after the interview process, and they'll say, so what did you think? And the other people say, I like that person. I like that person. And that's about it.
Tim Clark:Or or I didn't like that person.
Junior:Yeah.
Tim Clark:And and that's the extent. That's the depth. That's the analysis. No wonder we make so many hiring mistakes. Yeah.
Tim Clark:Right?
Junior:I was bouncing around an idea. It's not fully fleshed out, so maybe we can come back to it, you know, another time after I've molded over. But I've been thinking about this idea of 2 d versus 3 d interviewing. And in so many ways, the traditional interview is a 2 d experience. It's just back and forth.
Junior:The only mechanism that I have for evaluation at that point is dialogue. And the fact of the matter is a human can say whatever a human wants to say. And so I'm left with them reading nonverbals. I'm left with asking different variations of questions, and that can only get me so far. What I have learned is that when we hire someone, when I hire someone, I'm hiring not just that person in the interview, I'm hiring the person that came into that interview, the person that leaves that interview, and all of the context that surrounds that person.
Junior:I'm hiring their life, and that's what I've come to see. I'm hiring their habits. I'm hiring the good ones and the bad ones. I'm hiring the context. I'm hiring their friends.
Junior:I'm hiring their situation. I'm hiring them at 8 PM. I'm hiring them at 3 AM. I'm getting the whole person, and anyone who thinks that the home life or personal life is completely 100% disassociated and unaffecting the work life, you will probably learn that eventually.
Tim Clark:It's gonna spill in.
Junior:Yeah.
Tim Clark:It's gonna spill in. Junior, it really is true, though. It's a the traditional interview is a 2 d experience, 2 dimensional. The traditional questions so it's basically length and width. But if we start to ask some of the questions that we're gonna talk about today, it adds depth.
Tim Clark:So we're going from a square to a box. We're going to a cube. We're gonna get some depth now. Much more depth because the questions depending on the questions that you ask, that's what gives you the depth, your ability to penetrate, to go deeper. And I think we have some tools that will display that, that will show us how we do that.
Junior:One more thing I'll add about this idea of 3 d interviewing is in order to get more dimension, references are so important. People who know these people are so important, and asking the same questions to those people to then answer on behalf of your candidate is also a really interesting way to go about this. I will not hire someone unless I have a conversation like that with someone who knows them better than I do because that's another angle. So a lot of different things that we could get into regarding hiring in a general sense, but let's get into the bulk of the conversation today with these questions. Oh, also, another stat that I learned, 40% of people lie on their resumes.
Junior:How about that? 40%. 40%. Now I don't know what the study is considering a lie, but, evidently, 40% of people have resumes that are not in line with reality. That's one way to put
Tim Clark:it. Wow.
Junior:How about that? So you can see how difficult this is. So the solution in part is to ask real questions, ask questions that are sincere, that are interesting, questions that lead to real conversation. So, Tim, what are we getting at when we say ask real questions regarding critical thinking and reflection? What are we doing?
Tim Clark:Yeah. Well, first of all, let's just talk a little bit about the premise behind the questions that we're going to talk about. The premise is that we're going to ask some questions that the candidate would not anticipate. And if you're asked a question that you did not anticipate and that you did not prepare for, then the asking of that question will reveal whether you've thought about those kinds of things or not. Because you don't have time to come up with a thoughtful answer.
Tim Clark:If you've never been thinking about those kinds of things, you can't bluff your way through it. And I think that's what you're going to see with these questions. These questions transfer an enormous amount of critical thinking and reflection to the interviewee. But it's very difficult to do all of that in the moment. It's going to reveal whether you've been thinking about those kinds of things before.
Tim Clark:So there's there's no softballs here, but that's exactly what we want. We're gonna ask probing, penetrating questions that people have to wrestle with for which they cannot give a cliched and non meaningful response. And if they try, then that's going to be obvious right away. These are questions, as I said, you can't bluff or charm your way through or out of.
Junior:I wanna call out that the the reason that we're here, the the way we've ended up here is because we've gone through the dark valley of poor interviews. I It's true. Have been guilty of asking rote overused interview questions, which is why I know they're useless because I've done them myself. I've come out of interviews knowing next to nothing about the person I just spent a half hour, an hour, 2 hours with. And another thing that I've learned is that if you ask rote interview questions, nothing will stand out between the candidates because they'll likely answer the rote interview questions with rote interview answers that they all prepped.
Junior:Right? Yeah. So we wanna get away from that. The objective, as Tim said, is to elicit critical thinking. It's to provoke authenticity and see reality.
Junior:So these are 10 interview questions that we came up with. And if there are any that you don't like, I came up with them, not Tim. The ones that you don't like, definitely for me. Here's the format. So we're going to share the question.
Junior:We'll share why we would ask this question, and then give our 2¢ regarding what a a wrong or a poor answer might look like and what a quality answer might look like. And remember, you'll have to come up with your own questions depending on the objective of your interview. The questions should be role dependent or at least what you might look for in the answer should probably change depending on what the organization needs the person to do. So let's dive in. Question number 1.
Junior:What are you better at than anyone else within a mile of this room? Tim, what do you think about this one?
Tim Clark:I love this question. Me too. This question, let's all think about it. All all of our listeners, let's think about this together. What are you better at than anyone else within a mile of this room?
Tim Clark:What are we testing here? We're testing several things. We're testing self awareness. Right? Do you have a sense of what you're good at, what you're not good at, where you have an advantage, where you may be 2 or 3 standard deviations from the mean?
Tim Clark:We're testing self awareness. We're testing comparative analysis. We're testing critical thinking. We're testing objectivity versus egoism as well. How are you going to position, for example, your response?
Tim Clark:Can you give a thoughtful, meaningful response to that question that is not self indulgent, but is dispassionate and has some accuracy to it. So this is a hard question to answer, Right? If you're too egotistical or arrogant, if you're too hubristic, that comes out. If you're too self deprecating or coy about your answer, that comes out. So can you handle this kind of a question and give a meaningful answer?
Tim Clark:Not easy to do.
Junior:Yeah. We're looking at what's the sense of confidence that this person has. We're testing their perception. We're testing their view of reality. And some pretty nuts and bolts things like probability.
Junior:Right? We said mile. We didn't say a 100 miles. We didn't say 10 feet. These are purposeful words that we've included in these questions.
Junior:Here's a wrong answer. Nothing. If someone says, I'm not better than anyone else within a mile of this room, we don't wanna hear that. Why? If they don't perceive that they are uniquely valuable in at least some area, they probably don't have the self awareness or the self confidence that we need.
Junior:Right. So a right answer, what might that look like? Something thoughtful, something defensible, something useful based on the role you're interviewing for. Something like, hey. You know, you'd be pretty hard pressed to find someone better at focusing than I am.
Junior:I can sit in a room by myself and work on a single thing for 14 hours straight, and I'm pretty confident that no one would would be able to do that the way that I could within a mile. Tim, any caveats or additional thoughts here?
Tim Clark:Well, I just go back to the fact that this question really probes self knowledge, self awareness, self examination. And again, when you ask this question, you're not giving the person time to do the self examination that they never did before. You need to have come to the interview having done some of that in your life so that you could give a thoughtful answer in the moment. You can't cram for this one. Yeah.
Tim Clark:Just right? You cannot cram for this question. Yeah. And we're looking for a meaningful response to this question.
Junior:Question 2. Tell me about the last time your conscience bothered you. So there are other ways to ask this question that I think are worse ways to ask this question. You might have been asked or you may have asked, are you honest, or do you have integrity? Those questions are pretty close to useless.
Junior:It does not get to the heart of the issue. But what do you think about this one?
Tim Clark:No. I love it because what you're doing is you're presenting the opportunity for the interviewee to present a case study or an example or an anecdote back to you. Again, as you said, Junior, a binary question about having integrity is nearly useless. So this is open ended. Tell me about the last time your conscience bothered you.
Tim Clark:You can tell if someone gives you a thoughtful, measured, and insightful response. And again, you can't bluff your way through this kind of question. World peace would not be a good answer. And it also tests you to see if you're sweating the details. It tests your moral sensibilities.
Tim Clark:So do you have when do you feel that twinge of conscience? When is there moral compunction in you? When does your system, your moral system, react against something? When do your antenna go up? You should be able to search back through your memory, your recent memory, hopefully, and be able to, again, identify something specific.
Tim Clark:Now behavioral interviewing methodology attempts to to do this very thing where someone has to give you a specific example. But have you noticed that these questions become even narrower than the traditional behavioral interviewing question. Tell me about the last time your conscience bothered you. Very specific, time bound. You gotta come up with something.
Junior:Yep. So here are some wrong answers. It doesn't bother me. I can't remember. Anything hypothetical.
Junior:If anyone says anything hypothetical here, watch out. If they say, well, you know, if this happened I would have a problem with it. That's not the question. The question is about a real time for you, a real story about them. They could say something like, well, I was overeager in a projection I made and was inclined to round up when I probably should have rounded down.
Junior:And my conscience perked up, and I stopped myself, and I said, you know what? It's not worth it. And it ended up hurting my performance eval, but it was the right thing to do and so on and so forth. Any story like that that could be acute, could not be, could be high stakes, may not be, But we're asking, hey. When's the last time?
Junior:So to your point, we're looking for the antenna. Is the antenna working or is it broken, dusty, and sitting in a closet?
Tim Clark:Yep. And do you have a moral, ethical creed? That's what we're probing for. Do you have that kind of equipment in you somewhere? If so, then you'd be able to tell us about it.
Junior:Yep. And do you just put it on mute or do you listen? Number 3. What don't you know that you wish you knew? This is an interesting one.
Junior:This one, not a whole lot of specific right answer, not a whole lot of specific wrong answer, but here's where I kinda tease out some of the response. If you get something like, how to fly, If someone says something like this, they somehow forgot they were in an interview. They should know that implicit in the context is that I'm trying to figure out why I should or shouldn't hire you. So if you tell me something that doesn't help me figure that out or that context is lost on you, you're not a fit. Now if you can turn that into something interesting and relevant, hey, by all means, go for it.
Junior:But we're looking for something meaningful and something non obvious. Hey. I wish I knew how to incorporate blockchain into publication so everyone could time stamp and record their contributions like songs and jokes. Okay. That's interesting.
Junior:Now we have something fascinating to talk about. I don't know why there are 2 main political parties. Why aren't there 3 or 5? Why do humans have such a tendency to congregate the way they do? I wish I knew the answer to that question.
Junior:I wish that I knew how to create a battery that had a 100 x of storage capacity of the current alternatives because we could do this and this and this and this and this, and we could do solar powered water pumps in Sub Saharan Africa. Right? Why? Tell me what you don't know that you wish you knew that's interesting. What do you think about this one?
Tim Clark:I love this one, Junior. Let's think about what we are trying to understand here trying to get at. We're trying to understand if this person is a reflective, curious, self directed, agile, aggressive learner. Do they assess their own gaps in skill and experience and knowledge and competence and then move to close the gaps? So you should be able to identify something that you don't know that you wish you did know for some reason, application, some use case.
Tim Clark:Right? So again, what is it? And it could be work or non work as you say, but it reflects the motor of the individual and the motivation of the individual to learn. So I I I love that question.
Junior:Here's the next one. Question 4. How would your enemies describe you? This one's interesting. How would your enemies describe you?
Junior:The wrong answer is I don't have any or I have no idea. Right? Yeah. That's the wrong answer.
Tim Clark:You get the buzzer on that one. Thanks for playing.
Junior:Yep. Try again later. Yep. We're trying to lose the cliche. Right?
Tim Clark:Yeah. Now in this one, Junior, your cliches won't save you. Your platitudes won't save you. You've got to stand on your own feet and do your own thinking. Don't try to be cute.
Tim Clark:Don't try to be precious. Don't borrow someone else's line. I'm asking you, how would your enemies describe you?
Junior:So what we're looking for here is anything that shows that you can put yourself in another person's shoes and then look back at yourself. So an example might be, well, they would describe that they're so sick and tired of the fact that I won't go away. Right? You might look for anything that's a healthy dose of self deprecating. Deprecating.
Junior:I might be dumb and missing something, but I just keep coming back for more. That's what they would say. Right? And what are they trying to communicate? That I don't give up.
Junior:Right? If they give an answer like that, I don't give up. I won't turn over, and that's frustrating for people who don't like me. Right? I mean, there are so many answers to this question that you could give that but that's just an example of one that I would find interesting and would try to unpack a little bit more.
Tim Clark:I love it. I love it.
Junior:Question 5. How far away is the future? So the answers to this question vary widely, and they should. It's a general subjective question on purpose. Are they saying the next second, a week, a month, a year, a decade?
Junior:Tell me about this one.
Tim Clark:Junior, I love the way that this one is asked because you don't give a frame And that's on purpose. It's asked so broadly. The respondent has to frame it before they can solve it. They have to take a point of view and then back it up with logic and support. There's no right answer.
Tim Clark:We're not looking for any kind of right answer. We're not fishing for some answer that we have in mind. So what are we looking for? We're looking for reflection, introspection. We're looking for observation and insight.
Tim Clark:Is there any job anymore that you want someone to come in and fill by doing rote, mindless work? Is this what you're hiring for? I doubt it. Maybe there's a few of those kinds of jobs, but they are becoming fewer every day. This question, again, it helps it gives a person an opportunity to take a point of view and then back it up.
Tim Clark:What we're looking for is just an example of doing that in a fruitful, interesting, meaningful, thoughtful way. So take a point of view, give us a line of logic, back it up. That's what we want to see.
Junior:We wanna see a case. They could say, well, you know, it's any nanosecond that's in ahead of right now. Right? Okay.
Tim Clark:For example, you could say, to me, the future is 6 months. Why? Because I wanna I want to talk to you about the application of AI in this use case that I'm thinking about right now. And so 6 months is a long way away. That's just an example where you have a very short time horizon, but you're making a case for, okay.
Tim Clark:Fine. Tell me about that.
Junior:Yep. And on a different note, they could say, well, the future's a 1000000 years. The future's 10000000 years. The future is a 1000000000 years. We're just, floating on a rock, and there were a lot of things that happened before us, a lot of things that are gonna happen after us.
Junior:So they could pull way out into a macro level frame and describe the history of the Earth, the the galaxies. Right? Those are interesting. And here's regardless of how they answer the question, you'll be able to tell a little bit about them and their personality. You'll probably be able to get some insight into how they spend their afternoons.
Tim Clark:Right.
Junior:Because if they're laser focused, if they give the AI answer, it's not good or bad. It's good in that they made a case, but you can rest assured they're probably paying attention to the cutting edge. Right? Do you want a technologist who thinks that the future is 10000000 years away? I don't know.
Junior:Maybe you do. Maybe you don't. Maybe you want a technologist who thinks that the future is tomorrow because maybe there's some breakthrough that's gonna happen that's gonna affect the landscape. I don't know. But these are all interesting considerations.
Junior:We just want to see a case made. Okay. Question 6. You're the president of the country and you get impeached. Why?
Junior:Now there are different ways you could ask this question. Another way that I could ask it is you got a disciplinary notice from your manager. Why? Right? There are several different ways we can take this, but I like the president one.
Junior:So here's a wrong answer. I I work too hard. What what do you mean? If you get an answer like this, you know, press again. Why would that get you in trouble?
Junior:I've heard things like this before. So what do you think about this question? What what's the type of right answer or something you might look for in an answer to this question, Tim?
Tim Clark:You could say something like, I was a polarizing figure. People hated my policy stance on x y z issue, But I think that I was right. And that my decision was evidence based and the right thing to do. And here's why. Again, you're you're looking for thoughtfulness.
Tim Clark:You're you're looking for a point of view. You're looking for someone that's thinking through cause and effect, both intended and unintended consequences. They're nonlinear thinkers in many ways. They're thinking and it gives you a glimpse, again, as you said from the outside, Junior, gives you a glimpse into the way they process, the way they interpret, the way they take in information, the way they synthesize, the way that they connect. This is what we're looking for.
Junior:Well, you'll notice in answer to a question like this, some people can't even put themselves there. Oh, I wouldn't be president. Well yeah. I know. That's not what we're asking.
Junior:Right? If you were, like, it it can't go there, and that can be a difficult thing. Next one. What's something that you know for sure? What's something that you know for sure?
Junior:What are we getting at here? We're getting at thoughtfulness. In order to know something for sure, chances are you've thought about it a lot. I love this question because it shows you what people think about, what's important to them. Now they can say 2 plus 2 is 4.
Junior:That's not terribly interesting. But what's a wrong answer? Anything that's just boring off the cuff, I suppose, something that doesn't show you that they've thought about it. And the right answer, for me, one of the things that I look for, for better or worse, is any answer that includes some hesitation. If they don't pause for at least 5 seconds, you should think twice because this person doesn't think twice.
Junior:If they immediately come up with something, unless it's something just obvious, in which case it's not interesting, then you're getting a view into the thoughtfulness or lack of. To me, that's what's interesting about this question. What about you? Mhmm.
Tim Clark:This question is wow. It's so revealing in so many ways, and it's, well, for example, you can think of a spectrum that runs from absolutism on one end to relativism on the other. And this is something that we all have to wrestle with in life. And so have you come to the conclusion that there is anything that you know for sure?
Junior:Me? Yeah. I I was thinking about this question. For me, it's pain.
Tim Clark:K.
Junior:For me, it's pain. What's something that I know for sure that pain exists?
Tim Clark:Mhmm.
Junior:I've never met anyone in my whole life who would say that they haven't experienced it. Now if you flip that and say, joy, happiness, or those things for sure, don't know. I've experienced some people who might take issue with that, but I've also had enough experience in my life to know that pain's a thing. So think about that. Right?
Junior:Just that little note in the conversation, you asking me about that. Now we're in a conversation. We get an idea of, okay, you know, what's this person like? We get an idea of, okay, you know, what's this person like? How might they grapple with this issue?
Junior:And, sure, at the end of the day, there are, you know, nuts and bolts that we have to arrange. There are things we have to organize, work that needs to be done. Some of it's technical, some of it's rote. But the person behind those tasks makes a difference. Are they going to be able to think critically?
Junior:Are they thoughtful or not? Yeah. So that that's what I think about this question.
Tim Clark:Can I tell you what I think is a is a poor answer?
Junior:Yeah.
Tim Clark:And I've heard this before. Well, you have your truth, and I have my truth, and that's all there is to say. Really? That's as far as it goes. So I I think we wanna probe a little bit further than that.
Junior:Definitely. I would have some follow-up questions. Yeah. Right? And maybe we could have an interesting conversation that.
Junior:I'm sure we could. Okay. Question 8. Tell me about the last time you spent your own money to learn something new. What are we getting at here?
Junior:We wanna see if this person takes their own learning seriously and whether or not that's initiated by themselves or if there's something else that has to spur to them on. A wrong answer, like many of the wrong answers in here. Oh, I don't know. I can't remember. I'm not sure.
Junior:A right answer? I bought an online course on 3 d printing 2 weeks ago. Pretty cool. I started my EMBA. I bought a subscription to master class.
Junior:You could even have a joke in the real answer. What you know, tell me about the last time you spent your own money to learn something new. I spent $20 on slots to learn for the 10th time that the house always wins. But, actually right? So it's it's fine if they wanna joke around a little bit.
Junior:Right?
Tim Clark:These are That's great.
Junior:They're that's fantastic. Great. You're human. There's something to you. You know?
Tim Clark:And if you're good at improv and that comes through, then we know that. Exactly. If you can rip on that and, that's funny, then we got a talented person in front of us.
Junior:Well, to me, like, the airport test is one of the most important things in hiring. Right? We're at an airport. Our plane gets canceled. Do I hate my life?
Junior:And do you hate your life because we have to be together for the next 10 hours while we wait for the next plane? If you get a question like this or like some of the others and and there's some humanity to the response and there's some sincerity, some authenticity, something personal, a joke here or there, good signs. Good signs.
Tim Clark:Yeah.
Junior:And at the end, we'll talk a little bit about some of the response patterns to look for, but I I like this one. So, Tim, what about you? What do you what do you think about this one?
Tim Clark:I think this one probes to the underlying motivation of a person and your fuel. So do you propel yourself by your own power? Do you take the initiative? Do you look at life as with curiosity? Do you see it as interesting?
Tim Clark:Thing? And are you going on your own adventure that no one asked you to go on? But it's your trek. It's your adventure. And it's uncharted territory to you, but you're going on the adventure because you want to.
Tim Clark:And you you gotta go learn something. And no one told you to. No one required it of you. It's not the institution that's carrying you along. It's your own machinery.
Tim Clark:It's your own motor. Yep. I love it.
Junior:Question 9. What's the first thing a team member would complain about when working with you? So the reason that this question is phrased this way is to make the complaint imminent. It's going to happen. Someone's going to complain about you, not do you get along with your colleagues that or what might make it difficult to work with you?
Junior:No. No. No. That's not what we're saying. What's the first thing a team member would complain about when working with you?
Junior:The wrong answer, I get along with everybody. I'm great with people. Okay? Not the question.
Tim Clark:It's a non answer.
Junior:Yeah. No.
Tim Clark:Not doesn't tell us anything.
Junior:Well, it tells us something. Right?
Tim Clark:Well, yeah, it tells us that not an answer. I think we candidate.
Junior:Yeah. Exactly. The right answer is a real answer. They might say, when there's a deadline, I'm absolutely insufferable, and that's what a team member would tell you. Right?
Tim Clark:Mhmm.
Junior:Hey. Okay. Now we have something to work with. And it also you know what this does too that I found? Once they tell you that that's the first thing that, someone's gonna complain about, then they hedge against that if you end up hiring them and it ends up not being an issue.
Junior:How about that? They're like, I already told this person that I'm insufferable when there's deadlines, and so I shouldn't be. That's right.
Tim Clark:That's right.
Junior:Question 10. What character in a popular film or book are you most like? To me, this question tells you more about a person than almost any other question because there is story behind the answer. There is so much that's inferred, so much that is implied by the answer. Wrong answer again, I don't know.
Junior:I haven't thought about it. Not sure. They just picked some hero from the last thing they saw. The right answer is anything that's thoughtful that has an explanation alongside. I'm like William Wallace from Braveheart because of this.
Junior:I'm like Eleanor Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility. I'm like Harry Potter. I'm like Spock from Star Trek. I'm like whoever. Right?
Junior:Because they see themselves either in a real sense or in an aspirational sense in one of those characters. They won't tell you someone that they really don't think that they're like or want to be like. You can tell. You can tell. Often, it's left field or oddball or something that you'd you did not even know about because there was some there was something.
Junior:There was this one time they read this book. They saw this movie. They watched this show, and they saw themselves in some character. If they tell you that, 1, you know that they're sincere, especially if the character is fallible. And 2, you can understand the entire context in the narrative creates this vision of this person, who they think they are, who they want to be, I just love it.
Tim Clark:Yeah. It's a hard one too, Junior, because
Junior:It's impossible.
Tim Clark:It's it's aspirational. It's a little presumptuous to see yourself in the in that light of a character. But yet, if it's sincere, then it means a lot. Yeah.
Junior:Well, especially if it's not the lead. Right? Yeah. What if they choose a secondary or a tertiary character? Right?
Junior:That tells you something. Do they choose the hero or the hero's helper? That's an interesting one. Do they wanna be a number 1, or do they wanna be a number 2? Some people know them know that about themselves.
Junior:There are so many intricacies in answers to this question, and this is one that you're definitely wanna gonna wanna push on 2 or 3 times. Tell me more. Tell me more. Tell me why. What character are you least like?
Junior:Why did you choose this one? If you could pick up this character and put it in a story of another book, which one would you do? The things that they may not have thought of. Right? I wanna see how your brain works.
Junior:I wanna see how you process issues. I wanna see what you think about yourself because that's that's real. That's the real juice. That's what we want. We wanna know these things or at least have some idea when we're gonna work together.
Junior:Right? Yeah. And then the final question is what question haven't I asked you that I should ask you? Have you ever asked this one, Tim?
Tim Clark:Yes. And a lot of times, I would say most of the time, there's not a good question coming back on the other side. There's a lot of times, there's more contentment and, no, I I don't. I don't have any. Yeah.
Tim Clark:That's an opportunity. Take advantage of the opportunity. Don't let that go.
Junior:Yeah. How about ask me how much I wanna work here? Right? How about a question like that? And then I would say right?
Junior:And then you indulge them, and you say Yeah. Perfect. Why do you wanna work here? And allow them to say what they wanna say because they'll often give information through that question and answer that they wouldn't just come out and tell you on a whim out of left field with no invitation. Right?
Junior:Okay. So let's get into some of the answer patterns, and then we'll wrap up. But I want I thought that this was an important piece to include in this conversation because these won't necessarily be your questions. Right? You're gonna go create your own based on the role based on your personality, which which questions do you think you could interview with?
Junior:Well, we're looking for here's one thing. Do they ask clarifying questions to your questions? If they don't or they don't tell you their assumptions, you have to be wary. Clarifying questions, if they don't ask them in the interview, they won't ask them when you ask them to do something else or they have some responsibility in role.
Tim Clark:Right. They'll be likely to make assumptions instead of clarifying something they don't know.
Junior:Exactly. You gotta see if that person's hasty or not. Yeah. Do they walk through their logic step by step, or do they jump all the way to the end? So the time question is an interesting one for this.
Junior:Are they gonna walk you through the frame or not? The steps are definitely important if you're asking some sort of, like, I I really like the case method or the problem solving method. Like, here's an example. How many semi trailers would it take to deliver all of the turkeys on Thanksgiving? Right?
Junior:I love these types of questions depending on the role. But are they gonna walk you through? Well, you know, it's approximately this, and I would do this, and this is my assumption, and so on or not. If they don't and they jump all the way to the end and say something like, oh, I'm a million. Right?
Junior:That tells you a lot about the person.
Tim Clark:That's right. Well, junior, that I think that leads to another point, which is, are they superficial or unreflective in the way that they answer? One of the indications that they are, is that they try to use humor to hide a lack of critical thinking skills. I've seen this time and time again. They'll try to make a joke or bring some humor into it to hide the fact that they're not thinking deeply and critically about a question or they they don't have a good answer.
Tim Clark:It's superficial. So that is a that's kind of a defense mechanism that I have seen that that I think we need to be on the lookout for.
Junior:Yep. Agreed. Are they put off by the questions? The questions themselves? If they're if they're flustered or nonresponsive to the questions, depending on the role you're hiring for, probably not a good thing.
Junior:Maybe not even depending. It's probably just not a good thing generally if they're put off nonresponse to the questions. Another one that's pretty easy for me to tell at the end of an interview, are they eager to continue the conversation or can they not wait to get out of there? Yeah. Right?
Junior:Do they lean into the uncertainty and some of the discomfort? Because you get, you know, 1, 2 questions in, and they might say, this is different. The you know, I don't like this or, like, this is the most interesting interview I've ever been in. Like, let's talk more. Are they skittish?
Junior:Are they unsettled? Just their body language and the general energy that they're bringing, you know, midway through the interview, definitely gonna be an indicator. Are they telling you a compelling story in their answer? Tim, tell me about story. Why might why might we be looking for story or narrative be behind these answers?
Tim Clark:Story reveals. Story helps us understand the person, the way they interpret life, the way they see themselves, their self-concept, the way they look at others, the way that they put facts together, the way they synthesize data, right? The story is the output. It's the interpretation of all these things. And so you got all these inputs going in, and then you got conversion, and then you got outputs.
Tim Clark:The story is the output of this entire process. And it's kind of like the finished product that we get to see. And that is as close an indication, well, probably the best data that we can get from in the interview process.
Junior:Some of you may think, wow. These questions are a little much. These are a little hard to answer. Exactly. Exactly.
Junior:Exactly. If you think about the stakes, right, the organizational stakes, they're high. If you get great people, you're gonna have a great organization. If you don't, you won't. And then think about the personal implications.
Junior:I think about this all the time. What types of people do I wanna work with? We spend a tremendous amount of our lives at work, a tremendous amount of our lives trying to solve difficult problems, we will have a much better experience enjoying the process and solving those problems if we have the types of people around that we would work well with, the type of of people who are reflective, who lean into these types of questions, who are willing to have a real conversation, who are willing to open up a little bit. And so it may seem different. It may seem unusual.
Junior:It may seem hard, and that's the point. So our invitation to each of you, and to ourselves as well, is to continually refine the interview process. It's a two way street. The candidate's interviewing you this whole time as well. And if your interview process is boring and outdated, they're gonna think that your organization is probably boring and outdated.
Junior:So if you wanna bring some life, some energy, real vitality into the conversation, we would encourage you to think about questions, new questions, that provoke the type of critical thinking that we need. Tim, any final thoughts today?
Tim Clark:Yeah. I just wanna go back and talk about or reflect on why are we hiring people. Are we hiring them? Are we bringing them into the organisation to be caretakers? Absolutely not.
Tim Clark:We're bringing them into the organisation to be transformational figures to help us go forward, to help us grow and become who we want to become to reach our vision, our mission, to execute our strategy. We don't want caretakers. It reminds me of the statement that leadership is relief. It's escape from mediocrity. So we we're trying to bring in leaders.
Tim Clark:And I mean that in the true sense of the word. There are 3 domains of leadership. Lead yourself is the first domain, and then lead a team, and then lead lead an organization. We are always trying to bring in people that demonstrate leaders because we're trying to escape mediocrity. We're trying to move an organisation forward to accomplish something meaningful, to make a meaningful contribution in the world.
Tim Clark:So that's what we're trying to do. We don't want caretakers. We want people that can really help us create and deliver value. Love it.
Junior:Couldn't agree more. On that note, we will end. Thank you everyone for your time, your attention. We appreciate your listenership very much. If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a review.
Junior:Please share it with a friend, and we will see you next week. Take care, everyone. Bye bye.
Freddy:Hey, Culture by Design listeners. This is the end of today's episode. You can find all the important links from today's episode at leaderfactor.comforward/podcast. And if you found today's episode helpful and useful in any way, please share it with a friend and leave a review. If you'd like to learn more about Leader Factor and what we do, then please visit us at leaderfactor.com.
Freddy:Lastly, if you'd like to give any feedback to the Culture by Design podcast or even request a topic from Tim and Junior, then reach out to us at info at leaderfactor.com or find and tag us on LinkedIn. Thanks again for listening and making culture something you do by design, not by default.