EP 42 Why Can't I ask Follow Up Questions in Interviews on the Empty Red Seat?

In this episode Tony and Steve expose some insights into how to train your managers to interview.  What are they interviewing for? The guys debunk the myth that you can only ask the same set of questions in the exact same order to every candidate.  Steve sheds light on the number one things candidates complain about, the number one things interviewers complain about, and Tony loses his choo choo. Oh... And that is how long Steve's hair is right now.   

Learn more about Fantastic Tony Benjamin at: https://www.thegrangellc.com/
Learn more about Steven “Big Deal” Smith at: https://thehiringtreebook.com/
Learn more about the books mentioned on the podcast at: https://thehiringtreebook.com/hr-life-podcast
Learn more about our sponsor MegastarHR at: https://www.megastarhr.com/
Lean more about The Thrive Life Project at: https://www.thrivelifeproject.org/

Creators and Guests

Host

Fantastic Tony Benjamin

I am a unique HR leader with more than 20 years’ experience working for some of Utah’s oldest, fastest growing, and most well-known companies. My experience includes Superior Drilling Products, Air Medical Resource Group, Control4, Ovivo USA and Deseret Book. I am a regionally recognized authority on building successful cultures and am an alumni speaker at DisruptHR SLC and DisruptHR St. George. I have earned an MBA from the University of Phoenix, a Bachelor’s degree from Utah State University, and am a certified Professional of Human Resources (PHR). I'm married to a woman out of my league, have three brilliant kids I doesn’t deserve and, although I travel a lot, live in Vernal, Utah.

Host

Steven "Big Deal" Smith

Steve will be the first to tell you that recruiting is marketing. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Finance at Brigham Young University and started his career in recruiting in Feb 2005. In 2008, he took a risk during a recession to help start a new company with Ryan Kohler, called ApplicantPro, a full suite HR platform for small to mid-sized businesses. In March 2025, ApplicantPro became iSolved Talent Acquisition, now serving 177,000 clients and close to 9800 employees. Before the merger, ApplicantPro made the Inc 5000 list 12 years in a row, Top Places to work in Utah 3 years in a row, and Steve was named the Small Business Utah HR Achievement Award winner in May 2024. iSolved was also named an Indeed Platinum Partner in 2023, 2024, and 2025 and is one of only ten ATS platforms in the country to obtain that designation. SHRM-CP & PHR certified, Steve currently volunteers on the Utah SHRM State Council as the immediate past State Executive Director. His book, The Hiring Tree: Laws of Applicant Attraction, was released in early 2023, and has helped thousands of organizations across the country rethink their approach to hiring. If you need help understanding the principles and role of SEO, marketing, and AI when it comes to attracting job seekers, Steve provides a solid framework for hiring effectively.

What is The HR Life Podcast?

The HR Life Podcast is a show about the work-life experience of those of us in Human Resources and business leadership. This long-form podcast is a conversation, casual, and not always the corporate line. Hosts and guests touch on everything from serious or even controversial topics to the absurdity of modern American business practices. Your hosts are Tony Benjamin, owner and founder of The Grange Strategic HR Consulting, and Steven J. Smith, Author of The Hiring Tree: Laws of Applicant Attraction and all-around important guy. Guests include the best minds in the HR world. Join the show weekly.

Tony Benjamin (00:08.636)
Welcome to the HR life podcast, a podcast about the work life experience of those of us in human resources and business leadership. Your hosts are fantastic. Tony Benjamin, owner and founder of the Grange strategic HR consulting and Stephen big deals Smith, who is so important that when he goes to slide rock in Arizona, he only needs one layer of swimsuits because nobody will look when it rips.

Hey Steve!

Steve-o (00:41.742)
I can't believe you threw that wood in there, my word.

Tony Benjamin (00:44.85)
You want to fill people in on that story?

Steve-o (00:49.006)
Oh my gosh, that goes back. My daughters were really little and we used to, so when my wife was in nursing school, we used to drive to Utah every summer because I was helping build applicant pro back then. And so every summer we would drive back and I would work from the office and usually we would either stay with her parents or friends or whoever for the summer. so we would, you know,

Live in Utah for the summer and and then like I said, we go there Well when we were driving back my wife has family in Arizona and they were so excited They're like, let's go to slide rock. We're like, what is slide rock? Apparently it's this natural formation of a rock that has like a waterfall and water associated with it and you literally just go to the top of the where the rock is and you can slide down the little river thing and It's like a literally like a homemade

Not homegrown, but just naturally made slide and and you just go on it. So anyway, so I think it was the first or second time I slid down and I guess I must have hit a small rock and I didn't realize it and it sliced a big L. I think it was my right cheek. My butt cheek. And and so for I would say maybe two hours.

Tony Benjamin (02:07.058)
Right, right.

Steve-o (02:13.196)
That little slit is there and I am just showing the world everything. Or at least what you can from a from that perspective, right? Not even knowing what was going on. My girls are giggling. They're sitting on my lap or sliding up and down and going up and down. I mean just the whole thing. And then somebody finally was kind enough to say, sir, you're going to offend some children here. In fact, you're.

Tony Benjamin (02:23.61)
Right, right, right.

Tony Benjamin (02:28.658)
You

Steve-o (02:41.038)
probably going to get arrested. So you better, you better take care of this.

Tony Benjamin (02:46.35)
Wow, there you go, there you go.

Steve-o (02:49.011)
I'm sure our listeners just really wanted to hear that one.

Tony Benjamin (02:54.042)
I think it's a pretty good story. I think it's a pretty good story. So we dig deep. We, I'll bet it was, I'll bet it was. Well, you you're that important that, right.

Steve-o (02:56.639)
my gosh, it was so embarrassing. It was embarrassing, like seriously. Especially because I didn't know for like two hours. Like, who does that?

Tony Benjamin (03:08.238)
Right, right. That's funny. No, that's pretty good. There you go. Well, now everyone else will too.

Steve-o (03:13.268)
I'm glad you got a kick out of that. If any of our listeners have some embarrassing stories, please share because I just want to redeem myself now.

Tony Benjamin (03:21.97)
That's right. Just send your send your emails to the H.R. Life podcast at Gmail dot com and in the subject line put slide rock and we'll know what it's about. So anyways, there you go. We're digging deep here. We're we're getting we're getting to it. So well, Steve, how you is every how's everything going?

Steve-o (03:40.59)
So embarrassing.

Steve-o (03:49.07)
I mean, it's busy.

Tony Benjamin (03:51.87)
Yeah, you've been up to your neck with it. I know I know how it goes. I've, I've, I've brought on a couple of new clients lately. And it is just crazy all the time right now. I like today I was telling you earlier, I just I don't I don't think I remembered to eat lunch. I just kind of worked through the day. And at the end, right before we recorded the podcast, I thought, man, I better get some snacks or something in me. So I don't. Yeah, it's

Steve-o (04:14.798)
You're as bad as I am. I didn't eat all day and then all of sudden my wife's like, well, you need to at least have a salad. But I will say I love Central Utah Shurm because Central Utah Shurm every year during our Christmas holiday, they give us these oils and balsamic vinegars. And I have this pear vinegar thing, pear orange, something like that. It's so good. And I put that on my salad. That's my salad dressing. I love that. So it's so good.

Tony Benjamin (04:41.606)
Yeah, that's that's cool. And I was telling you earlier, there used to be this shop here in vernal that had nothing but vinegars, like hundreds of different kinds of vinegars and all that sort of stuff. And you could go there and you could get whatever you wanted, all these balsamics and everything like that.

Steve-o (04:48.333)
Yeah.

Steve-o (04:55.928)
Well, and I've heard that they're good for you. Like they're not, I mean, I'm not a health nut or anything. I don't know anything about that kind of stuff, but I've heard that they're much better than like your traditional like ranch salad dressings or things like that that you might put on there that just adds a whole ton of calories. So.

Tony Benjamin (05:14.098)
Yeah, and the and and I know that like if you do apple cider vinegar, whatever you you drink a little bit of that once a day or whatever, that it will it does really good things for you too. And I know it's like, Yep, yep. And there's there's some really cool stuff with kidney stones and that sort of stuff too. So yeah.

Steve-o (05:25.442)
Yeah, there's some healing properties there or something.

Steve-o (05:34.156)
wow. Now I'm just going to tell you right now to our listeners, if you're listening to this podcast for health advice, this is not the right place.

Tony Benjamin (05:43.422)
That's right. That's right. That the health information that's right. That the health information obtained in this podcast is not necessarily deemed fit for anybody in particular. You should see a qualified medical profession professional. So.

Steve-o (05:45.6)
as we drink our Coke when we...

Steve-o (05:56.63)
Nope.

Or a really good TikToker.

That'll do it every time.

Tony Benjamin (06:05.714)
You know, one of my pet peeves lately are these lawyers that are on YouTube that give you all sorts of advice about what to say and not to say to HR. And I'm just like, really, it's just like, really, come on. Like, look, if you want to get on there and you want to say, hey, if you have an FMLA, this is the way you should handle it and what you should or shouldn't say to HR, right?

Steve-o (06:17.014)
Really?

Tony Benjamin (06:30.268)
But instead, they create these adversarial relationships. Never say the following three things to your employer.

Steve-o (06:36.718)
Yeah, but that's just it. It's all about being salacious and like really getting, you know, the attention of people. So at the end of the day, the reason why I struggle sometimes with certain influencers is because they're just in it for the money. They just want to hook you, bait you and get you in there for the money. Now, granted, I'm all about really good marketing. I love good marketing. And when that marketing really does drive value and produces results.

Tony Benjamin (06:40.303)
Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (06:52.048)
Yes.

Steve-o (07:06.286)
But man, for some of those people out there that just make money off of the people who are struggling or whatever the case might be out there, to me, that's where I think there's, I don't know, there's just no place for that. But what do you do? People wanna make money. So sometimes they do bad things, right?

Tony Benjamin (07:23.43)
No, and that's that's. Yeah, well, yeah, it's all salacious and they say, matter of fact, I've decided that anything I see on Facebook about the Pittsburgh Steelers, I don't believe it. Like anything that just pops up by the Pittsburgh Steelers, I don't believe it. They're like the Steelers make the biggest trade in their history and you're and you look up, know, what's happened? So I start looking up what's happened and neither nothing has happened or.

Steve-o (07:37.39)
Ha

Steve-o (07:50.552)
Yep.

Tony Benjamin (07:51.706)
that you get a thing about some free agent that, you know, hasn't really played in the league for three years that came in for a visit and you're like, okay.

Steve-o (07:59.65)
Yeah.

Well, like I said, then they use these headlines that are not necessarily salacious, but they're just they're, I don't know, crowd pleasing or they satiate the appetite for big news that you can talk amongst your friends about or have a conversation and such. Anyway, I could go on and on about all that.

Tony Benjamin (08:05.852)
Right.

Tony Benjamin (08:16.442)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (08:23.802)
Hey, I want to show you this. No one's seen can watch this. So but you can't see it very well in the camera. I got new logo swag the other day. You logo swag. It was really cool. I got a bunch of shirts. Next time I see you, Steve, I think I've got one for you. So you can be indoctrinated into the grange.

Steve-o (08:32.195)
fun.

Steve-o (08:39.566)
Nice, that's cool. Those are always fun, you know, like see that to me, that's a good example of good marketing, just having people wearing your logo out there and supporting you in that way. And, you know, I remember the T-shirts we used to make for Applegant Pro and just how fun they were there were. I just I felt like that was it was a great way to to not only tout the HR profession, but

Tony Benjamin (08:49.596)
That's right.

Tony Benjamin (08:56.434)
There were some good t-shirts, yeah.

Steve-o (09:07.32)
they were conversation starters, right? They were things that people could relate to in that world. And I had some of the greatest conversations with potential clients as well as clients over the years at conferences with those t-shirts. don't know, I love it. Again, to me, that's the kind of marketing that I really support and enjoy because it's meaningful and it has meaning for people, right? So anyway, there you go.

Tony Benjamin (09:32.198)
Yeah. and here we go. This is a cryptic tease for what's coming. But for all of you that are planning on attending the Central Utah Shurm Conference that they have on May 14th, we will be there. And we will be there. And in addition to that, they're talking about some swag.

Steve-o (09:39.918)
Dun dun.

Steve-o (09:49.208)
Yes, coming up.

Yes, we will.

Tony Benjamin (09:59.846)
there will be some cool swag that we will have available. And I don't want to announce it yet. I don't want to announce it yet, but it's coming. And all I can say is it is a strategic piece of sweat.

Tony Benjamin (10:16.549)
Just saying it's going to be awesome. So.

Steve-o (10:16.608)
Nice. I hope they like Coke.

Tony Benjamin (10:24.914)
You

So anyways, so anyways, it's right, right. Yeah.

Steve-o (10:29.358)
That's all I think about strategic now. Every time I say that word, just like, think Coca, you know, and for me, I'll be honest, I love Coke Slurpees. I just like them slurp, like the Slurpee, Slurpified, do you call that? Icy? I guess people say icy, but there is a distinct difference between Slurpees and Ices.

Tony Benjamin (10:38.81)
Yeah, yeah, you've said that before. I... Yeah, I...

Steve-o (10:50.06)
Like the Maverick Icy is very different from the 7-Eleven Slurpee. And I will argue that till the day I die. There is a huge difference.

Tony Benjamin (10:50.604)
Yeeees.

Tony Benjamin (10:59.922)
Okay, if anyone disagrees with Steve, please send your email. Of course, of course. Yeah, right, right. Now that's we're gonna we're gonna have to do an episode on that at a whole thing. Maybe maybe when we're at the Central Utah Sherham Conference, that's one of the questions we can ask attendees when we interview them is, is there a difference between the slurpy and the icy? I kind of like that.

Steve-o (11:02.316)
If you disagree, you can get on the podcast and we'll have a conversation about this and I will explain exactly what I mean.

Sorry, that's totally off topic.

Steve-o (11:23.82)
Is there a difference?

Steve-o (11:28.28)
Yeah, I will totally argue that one all day long.

Tony Benjamin (11:30.129)
But.

Tony Benjamin (11:34.034)
But there you go. All right.

Steve-o (11:34.71)
I'll tell you what some of the differences are because I've been tracking it.

Tony Benjamin (11:38.802)
Now, now that we've taken all this time to do this, let us introduce you to our guest over here in the red seat. No, I'm just kidding. There's no one in the red seat today.

Steve-o (11:40.939)
Anyway.

Steve-o (11:49.349)
I thought you were gonna like play crickets or something. I was totally waiting for it.

Tony Benjamin (11:56.178)
So this is actually this is what I should have done right here. Anyways, there you go. But no, it's an empty red seat today, everybody. We hope that you're in ready to jump in and have some fun.

Steve-o (12:01.614)
There you go. No any crickets you got to have crickets for that one though. It's just

Steve-o (12:13.452)
And it's because of questions, questions from listeners like you who have been asking these questions and we want to respond. And so we thought it would be appropriate to take some additional time and respond as we are meeting with additional guests and getting recordings ready. So there we go.

Tony Benjamin (12:19.474)
That's right.

Tony Benjamin (12:30.724)
Now, the most common question we get in the inbox for the podcast is when Steve cuts his hair, can I have a snippet of his hair? That's the number one. Yeah, that's the number one question. You could buy it. That's right. More swag, more strategic swag. Wow. Look at that.

Steve-o (12:38.254)
Is that right? We'll put them in little baggies. It'll be on our website. You can buy one

You see how long it is now?

OK, hold on. So and I feel so bad because my listeners. So I had a call with my daughter this morning and she wanted me to take a picture. Look at that.

Tony Benjamin (13:01.02)
my. Okay, okay. You have to send that to me. You have to send that to me tonight and we'll post that with the episode. That'll be awesome.

Steve-o (13:03.062)
She described it so far listeners out there. Yeah, I will.

Steve-o (13:10.286)
Okay, so the best way my daughter described it is she said that I looked like Buddy on The Incredibles, you know the bad guy Who was a little boy and grew up and became Buddy? I What was his I don't even know his evil like evil villain name. I can't you remember I just remember his name was Buddy Do we remember I I can't you remember?

Tony Benjamin (13:20.082)
Okay, right, right. Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (13:32.21)
can't remember. I, I get all that's getting fuzzy. can more remember Mega Mind than I can the Incredibles. But yeah, so

Steve-o (13:40.78)
gotcha.

Yeah, I know he was incredible when he, you know, because he's like, I'm incredible. And he wanted to be like Mr. Incredible. But yeah, Buddy Pine was his name. But I can't I can't remember. I can't. syndrome syndrome. There we go. This is the beauty of Google, right? Plus, I have Syria on my phone and says, you just asked a question, would you like to do this now? And I say yes. And then it tells me the answer. Anyway, so she says I look like syndrome with the hair like that.

Tony Benjamin (13:55.418)
Anyways, it's coming. That's right, syndrome, OK.

Hahaha.

Tony Benjamin (14:08.594)
I I got it

Steve-o (14:14.254)
I'll send you so our listeners can go look at it.

Tony Benjamin (14:14.748)
Okay, send me the picture. me the picture. Yeah, yeah, and I'll put it. I'll post it with the with the episode when I post the episode and it'll be kind of whatever. But OK, so all right, we're going to get into our topic. But before we do running a business is hard. HR shouldn't be Megastar. HR is here to save you from bad HR with expert support and everything from hiring to handbooks compliance to culture.

need payroll help or recruiting power. We do that to fractionally and flexibly no overhead just results. Visit megastarhr.com and let's grow your business together. Shout out to Becca. Thank you. We appreciate it.

Steve-o (15:00.716)
Yes.

Tony Benjamin (15:02.638)
Okay, so the subject we wanted to talk today about interviewing and we, I realized this as I started. So lately I've been getting a whole bunch of questions about teaching people how to interview. And so I get a bunch of new managers and they're asking, well, how do I do an interview? I've never done an interview. Like what are, what are the best ways to interview and that sort of stuff. And so.

And hopefully you as an HR practitioner and HR professional, you kind of have some ideas. But I maybe we can talk about and this was Steve and I were prepping to talk about. We really wanted to talk about this this episode. How do you teach managers to be good interviewers? And I think I think it's I think it's important. It's I don't know. I've made a career of telling everybody that.

HR people are not psychologists, right? If you want us to interview for some field or something that we don't have any expertise in that we might not be the best interviewers, because we can't.

Steve-o (16:04.33)
What?

Steve-o (16:14.446)
But see, this is, you bring up a great point, Tony, because even the best recruiters out there are not gonna understand the role like the manager does. That is so important to understand. And as soon as you understand that, and you realize and recognize that you don't need to know every single position in and out meticulously, that's a good thing because that allows you then to pass on that expertise to the managers.

Tony Benjamin (16:23.845)
Exactly.

Steve-o (16:41.752)
who are the ones that understand their field the best and are going to be the most capable of asking those questions. So that's why this topic is such an important one. I mean, in part, right? So.

Tony Benjamin (16:53.646)
Right, right. No, absolutely. Okay. So as we get into this, here's here's Tony. He's getting he's about to be controversial. Everybody get ready. Controversy right here. It's the new swag. It really lets me break loose. Yeah. It's that. So I want to burst everyone a whole bunch of bubbles out there. This notion that

Steve-o (17:04.594)
Why are you always so controversial? This is just ridiculous.

Is that what it is? Okay, I guess.

Tony Benjamin (17:21.7)
You must write out questions for your managers and they can only ask those questions and they must stick to the script. What do I what do I call that crap? That's right. Explodive and explodive on the podcast. So. That's right.

Steve-o (17:31.704)
That's

That's a four letter word. Whoa.

Whoa.

We need one of those bleep buttons now.

Tony Benjamin (17:50.557)
But anyways, let's just address this because this is silly. This is just silliness, silliness, silliness. Now I will.

Steve-o (17:59.18)
And where this stems from, Tony and I were talking and he is in a Facebook group. I'm in several Facebook groups, Reddit groups, like I'm in a lot of groups, right? Where people ask these questions all the time and they talk about this. And Tony is absolutely right. There are people that get on there and they will recommend that you need to write out your questions and have this finite list. And that's the only things they can ask. That way you can stay compliant, you'll be safe. And that's all they can ask. So Tony, enlighten us. Why is that a bad idea?

Tony Benjamin (18:29.01)
Well, aside from the fact that it's a little. Well, right. Well, look, here's the case, right? So the case is that when you when you go into an interview, if you're asking different questions to different people, you you may inadvertently write disparate impact you dis right. Right. You might have a bias and you're not aware of it. And so you find that certain people you're asking harder questions to.

Steve-o (18:31.618)
I mean, it's a good idea in part, but...

Steve-o (18:48.888)
disparate impact, bias, all the things.

Tony Benjamin (18:57.466)
and certain people you're asking easier questions to. And therefore, the idea is to not let your bias bleed through, but to always ask the exact same question. Right. And this starts to come into being with lots of large companies as they're doing that. They're they're out there and they're pushing their no, we will do this only this right. And you must ask the exact same question.

Steve-o (18:59.842)
Mm-hmm.

Steve-o (19:17.836)
Which means there is value there, right? That is valuable. But sometimes I equate it to the iceberg, you know, and we've used this analogy before, where the top layer of the iceberg is very visible and you'll probably get those types of answers, but it may not be fully, it's not the full picture that you might need to make an effective decision.

Tony Benjamin (19:21.586)
Hmm? Right, right.

Tony Benjamin (19:42.855)
Yes, yes, exactly. So like, that's the case for it, right? And then and then the real case behind those scenes is that is that you just don't trust your managers not to ask something stupid. I mean, so Tony. Right, right. mean. Ding, right.

Steve-o (19:48.131)
Mm-hmm.

Steve-o (19:58.99)
That's a problem too, right? And whose fault is that?

Steve-o (20:08.48)
Well, and the reality is there's a lot of people that could be at fault there, right? It not just HR. I know sometimes that's what people want to say. Well, that's HR's fault for not training properly or what have you providing proper training. But there it's it's so much deeper than just that. So just be that, yeah, be that as it may. Just be aware that it's more than just that. And that's not what I'm trying to say is that it's just HR's fault. There's a lot of people at fault here in essence.

Tony Benjamin (20:14.171)
Yes.

Tony Benjamin (20:37.49)
Well, right. But it may not be each individual HR practitioners fault within the company, whereas it may just be HR in general's fault. So so

Steve-o (20:46.798)
Correct.

Or the company in general, top leadership, executive leadership. You know, they're the ones that model most things. Maybe it just hasn't been modeled. And so that's where this is where strategically HR can use it as a tool, right, to go in and be that type of partner that the company needs them to be to recognize that this is a deficit here. This is this is a lack. This is something we need to work on.

Tony Benjamin (20:55.004)
Yes.

Tony Benjamin (21:11.76)
Yes.

Steve-o (21:19.074)
And therefore, know, so anyway, go on.

Tony Benjamin (21:21.702)
No, no, that's really good. I think, and to go to that, right? HR people, please, please, please, please teach your managers about protected classes and what harassment really is and what it isn't.

Steve-o (21:40.908)
And disparate impact, how many of your managers even know what disparate impact even means? Right?

Tony Benjamin (21:45.521)
Yes, yes. And by the way, the perfect, the case I use to teach disparate impact, and by the way, I teach it to every employee that I onboard for my clients, is the New York Fire Department case. I don't want to say it was in 2008, something like that, I can't remember, but the New York Fire Department case is the perfect example to use.

Steve-o (22:05.016)
We'll have our researcher, we have a co-workers, a researcher, they'll do all the research for us. Yeah, yeah, we'll have them research that for us.

Tony Benjamin (22:08.626)
a research assistant. Maybe we should talk about that one time. anyways, it was in court for, I don't know, a decade or something like that. But it's a great example of disparate impact. it also, anyways, it's great. But here's what I want to say. Give them a general list of questions. Or better yet, they develop their own general list of questions. And it ought to be, you

Steve-o (22:17.688)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (22:35.986)
pretty easy to do those. They don't have to be worded exactly the same every single time. But when you give that to them, then they're free to dive into each one of those things. They can dive in and ask follow up questions. So on that Facebook group, there was somebody who was asking and they were saying, how do I train my managers not to ask follow up questions in an interview?

Steve-o (23:01.134)
What a question is that?

Tony Benjamin (23:03.026)
I'm just like, that's craziness. So anyways, it just, and of course my response to this is why in the world would you want to just limit it to that? anyways, just let's burst that bubble out there straight away that it's okay that you don't have interview questions written down and everybody just, you have the same five questions or same eight questions. You ask everybody the same.

Steve-o (23:30.146)
Wasn't it Shrek that talked about how we're all onions and you just have to peel the layers?

Tony Benjamin (23:35.773)
You pull back the layers. That's right. Stinky, but really yummy. So but no, no, that's that's perfect. And matter of fact, this will tell you what one of the most valuable classes ever went to. And I can't remember if I've said this before. There was a a guy who did interrogations or depositions for the FBI. And this was at back when it was crossroads. I want to say it was twenty eighteen maybe.

No, was probably before that. Anyways. yeah, but it was really cool.

Steve-o (24:07.31)
2016 maybe? All of our listeners understand how well you know dates, so we're okay. We're okay.

Tony Benjamin (24:13.906)
Hey now, hey now. Just because I'm old and forget doesn't mean you can say that.

Steve-o (24:21.486)
I didn't say you're old or that you forget. I just I simply said all of our listeners know Tony really well and how he is with hate. good.

Tony Benjamin (24:24.016)
Yeah, right.

So anyways, it was really cool. The class was on and it was a double session class. The class was on how to tell if somebody's lying to you. And he talked about you set a baseline and behavior. And then you asked them about something you know that they don't want to talk about. And you watch the behavioral changes and what how they change and all that sort of stuff. And then you relax, reset them to baseline where they're relaxed. And then you can start asking about something else.

And what you're trying to do is, you know, and this is interrogation, you're trying to find out what makes them uncomfortable. Because when people lie, they become uncomfortable. That's how we all are. Right. So

Steve-o (25:04.621)
Yeah. Now, now I just, want to throw one caveat here. Remember that an interview should not feel like an interrogation. Okay. I just want to throw that out there.

Tony Benjamin (25:09.383)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (25:13.466)
An interrogation. No, we're trying to find out. Why did you get fired from your last position? Right. Right. Right. Right. So I'm going to hang this light bulb over your head. Right. I go on your permanent record. That's right. Anyways, the point he was making is then when you go to and this is good for investigations, when you go back.

Steve-o (25:21.752)
Tell me now!

Do I need to call your mother? Lightbulb. I'm gonna waterboard you.

Tony Benjamin (25:40.947)
So what you do is you go across to find out when they're uneasy and then you dive down into that thing. And then if it's becoming so much that they're uneasy that you can't get any more information, you bounce off that, you let them reset, get them back to baseline and then you go back into it. But his point was follow up, follow up, follow up. And you can't really get to know somebody if you don't ask them to explain something that they said or have follow up questions. It's just impossible.

And there's no way to script that. There's no way to, there is no way to not be able to fall upon that and find out a lot about somebody. And, and so please people just stop doing.

Steve-o (26:21.964)
Yeah, well, and you know, in sales, we call this reframing, right? Where you repeat back what they told you to make sure you understood it. And what that does is it allows the person to say, well, no, that's actually not what I intended. Or yes, that's exactly what I intended. And so those types of things in an interview become really valuable because not only does it show that you're listening.

which I'm going to talk a little bit about this later. We're going to talk about why candidates are ghosting you. This is a presentation I've done for many years now and I have some really good data that's actually backed up by Gallup on this. so, and we love Gallup with Jeremy and all that. So, right. Yeah. So, so anyway, so I have some data we're going to share later, but the point being is

Tony Benjamin (27:03.42)
Dun dun dun dun.

Steve-o (27:11.16)
When you reframe like that and you repeat what they're saying, not only does it allow you to get deeper into how they're thinking and what their thought processes are, it also helps you remember what they actually talked about because you're repeating what they said. There's actually value for both sides of this. science proves it, right? And so repeat it. Repeat based on what you thought you heard so that they can either agree

Tony Benjamin (27:31.089)
Right.

Steve-o (27:40.486)
Or they can say, actually, let me go deeper for you. Actually, let me explain that. there's value to doing that. again, it's considered a sales tactic, if you will. But I don't consider it a tactic at all. think doing that actually shows your interest in the applicant. And again, it allows you to dig deeper. I've always told people, mean, people have heard on this podcast before, I've always said, three levels deep.

That's just my, that's some arbitrary number I made up, but I find that when I go that deep, they become meaningful conversations. So.

Tony Benjamin (28:06.726)
Right, right.

Tony Benjamin (28:14.578)
And by the way, when you're in an argument with your spouse, the quickest way to diffuse anything is, okay, wait, let me repeat back to you what I thought I heard. You think I'm an idiot. Repeat, repeat back to them. Well, yeah, but anyways, active listening, Active listening. But anyways, I wanted to start this out by bursting that bubble.

Steve-o (28:24.076)
Yeah. Wow. Now we know how the conversations really go in Tony's household.

In that case, I may not recommend going deep at all, Tony.

Tony Benjamin (28:43.94)
So, so now let's start some basics. And this is what, what I would, I would, if you're, if you're working with first time managers and that sort of stuff, and I'm going to let Steve cut loose on his stuff here. But what you want to do is you want to teach them. And maybe we'll talk about my favorite process for doing interviews that I think works the best. and we'll, we'll, we'll talk about that, maybe afterwards, but I want to talk to them.

What do you really need to do? And you figure out this presentation, the order of how you want to do this on your own. But what do they need to know about that person? If they were the perfect candidate, what would they need to know about that person to know that? And that's what you're after. In an interview, that's really what you're after. And I bet you money what you will find is that you will find that it's not how many times

have you run a marketing campaign. It's not how many lines of code have you written across your career, all those kinds of things. It's not that. Those are introductory things and things you need to know to be sure that they actually have the experience you're looking for. And you may use some sort of technical jargon or something like that. Matter of fact, when I interview HR people, I ask them, can you tell me about the two types of discrimination? Right?

Steve-o (29:59.182)
.

Steve-o (30:09.571)
Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (30:09.586)
disparate impact and disparate treatment. if you can't, and just because you can't define or you don't say the exact right way doesn't mean I disqualify you, but it tells me where you're at in your understanding of the law. But the point, the point just being is I have standard questions asked to make sure they have the experience. And then I dive into what is really important for me. And that is how do you view the HR function? That to me is the most important.

thing to understand about an HR person and do they want to grow and what does that growth look like? Because I don't want to work. I don't want anybody reporting to me that isn't looking to grow and develop and be strategic HR. anyways, those are the basics that you need to introduce them. And now Steve's going to talk to us about why people are ghosting you back. So what I would start there is teach them about what they're actually interviewing for and, don't chain them down. Right.

And then go ahead, Steve, let's talk about that next.

Steve-o (31:09.848)
Well, and again, at the end of the day, have to find it. I mean, they still have to fit the role. They have to fill in the gaps of what you're trying to seek to accomplish for the role. And sometimes what I have found when I meet with managers and I talk with them about this, it's important to allow the manager to really explain what they think this person needs to do in the position. You know, one of the things we can do in HR is have this communication with the manager and draw it out of them.

so that they understand why drawing it out of them is important in a normal interview process where we're trying to draw information from the applicant to verify that they actually fit the role. Now, okay, so let me explain this study real quick. When I was writing my book, and this is chapter 13 of my book for those of you who have read it or are familiar with it, I did this thing with...

Tony Benjamin (31:52.54)
Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (32:04.636)
When Steve was writing his book, the following research became highly important. That's right. You were snoozing under the tree and the apple fell off.

Steve-o (32:09.658)
The epiphany, the apple hit me on the head and suddenly, no, that's not what this is about. I fell off. No, was, I was, did this research study with 500 managers and what we did is we, interviewed these managers and we asked them about what is the most frustrating thing in the interview process that you don't like? What is the most frustrating thing for you?

Not from the candidate perspective, because you know, some managers want to talk about, the unqualifiedness. I said, no, no, no, let's back up a second. I just want to know the actual process. If you were to take the candidate out of the process entirely and just focus on what is keeping you from from being effective in your interviews, the number one thing that came up was distraction. Number one. Yes.

Tony Benjamin (33:01.574)
Really?

Steve-o (33:03.468)
And what's fascinating about this is when I also started interviewing candidates and I asked candidates what was their biggest frustration when they came into an interview to meet with a manager for the first time. Guess what the candidates response was. Distraction. It was the same on both sides. This is what fascinated me about the study because I was like, wait a minute, both of you are complaining about the same exact thing. So how in the world is this still an issue?

And so, so I asked on both sides, what is, what's going on here? Well, the manager gets frustrated in the interview because they've got, you know, the, the computers there that'll ding at them when things are going on. They've got their cell phone, they get the text messages that'll ding. They've got people knocking on their door. If you, they're doing face to face interviews, even if they're doing online interviews, they're still getting the knock on the door. The distractions, the distractions was the number one thing. So, so the reason I bring this up,

is because not only does it distract you, the manager or your managers that are doing the interviews, but it is distracting to the applicant as well. And it is one of the biggest complaints that they have because they feel like the manager is not really focused on them in the interview when there's so many distractions happening. And that's what was so fascinating about this. Right. Go ahead, Tony.

Tony Benjamin (34:22.544)
No, that's really cool. No, I was gonna say that's really cool because that that validates something I've always said, don't do interviews in your office. Do them in a conference in a small conference room or something like that, where you're away from your desk, right?

Steve-o (34:36.942)
And the statistics not only verify that, but they support that, right? Which is why it's so important that if you're going to conduct interviews, that you find a place where the least amount of distractions are possible. So important. And I cannot emphasize this enough. This was absolutely the number one thing. And it was so funny that both the candidates and the managers complained about it. Both of them. It was their number one thing.

Tony Benjamin (35:06.512)
Which means that it's more important than their favorite football team and why it's not the Steelers and why they don't like Star Wars and why they don't like Star Wars. Right, right, this is it, right.

Steve-o (35:13.294)
I don't know about that, but no, but yeah, you bring up the valid point. And so if you as a manager going into the interviews, we talked about doing some of the interview questions, right? And how to, and I'll talk a little bit about that, but number one, get rid of all the distractions. If you're going to have an appropriate interview and actually have a successful interview and get what you need out of it to make the appropriate decision, get rid of all the distractions. Okay.

Tony Benjamin (35:41.788)
Very cool, right.

Steve-o (35:42.232)
Guess what one of the distractions managers have? The interview before.

I'm dead serious. So another thing that managers complained about was that they were so focused on the interview that they just had that sometimes they start mixing them, especially if they have like five and six interviews in the same day. That becomes really distracting to them. Now think about that. Can every manager handle that type of distraction? Are they taking appropriate notes in the interview? Like there's just these elements there that become really critical.

Tony Benjamin (36:02.726)
Yeah.

Steve-o (36:17.186)
It's something that sometimes we don't think about enough does that make sense? So I absolutely love this this study because it really taught me a lot and I was so grateful for the company that allowed me to do this and I promised I would never share the company's name because they wanted to keep the information private but they were struggling and they allowed me to to interview all their managers and do this and it was it was it was amazing to me what we discovered and

Tony Benjamin (36:22.992)
Yes.

Steve-o (36:45.262)
what it allowed the managers to discover about themselves as well. So pretty cool. Now there's more there, but that's a big one. Yeah, go ahead.

Tony Benjamin (36:51.698)
I was about to make a joke about how we don't want to disclose that all that was at Tesla, of course, or anything like that.

Steve-o (36:59.662)
Nope, I've never actually shared the company that it was. And I've taught this in a lot of sessions over the years. when I go to some companies and we talk about internally and we actually work with their managers and teach them how to do some of these things. The second thing is your manager, have to be the brand champion of your organization. And the reason this is so important is because as a brand champion, that means you understand the role

Tony Benjamin (37:06.268)
Now that's cool. Yeah, yeah.

Steve-o (37:30.06)
You understand the significance of that role in your department. You understand how important your department is to the organization. And you understand the organization's mission, core values, and what it's all about. How it all, the big piece, right? How it fits. You know, Tony talks about how in HR we often have to understand the EBITDA and, you know, understand some of these terms that are very critical for us to be strategic. Right? Yeah, which is fine.

Tony Benjamin (37:52.548)
even if you don't remember what each of those initials mean, right?

Steve-o (37:58.242)
But as managers, you are the brand champion. And because you're the brand champion, it's your role to not necessarily sell the idea of why they should work with you. But let me tell you, candidates know during the interview when you are burned out, when you are tired, when you are not into it, when you're not all there, like I said, the distractions, they know, they're not dumb. People know.

Like they're there because they're fresh and they're ready to go. They've been thinking in their mind for hours, if you will, or days about this interview and things that they want to share. And then what happens when you actually get to the interview? So just think about those types of things. And then there's this concept I've always, hopefully people know who Bob Ross is. In fact, I have a story. You want me to share this story?

Tony Benjamin (38:46.374)
Yes, if you don't know about Bob Ross and his little happy trees and accidents, you should.

Steve-o (38:51.094)
Yeah, yeah, I think I've shared this before with you, Tony, with my daughter, right? During COVID, did I share this with? Yeah, my daughter during COVID was really struggling and she happened to be on YouTube and found these videos of this guy with this. She called it this guy with crazy hair and he would paint trees. You you paint these little trees and he said anybody can paint happy little trees. Anybody can do it.

Tony Benjamin (38:55.302)
Yeah, I think so, yeah.

Steve-o (39:18.036)
Some for some it might take them longer than others, but anybody can do it. Just follow this and he would, you know, teach you how to do it. And so my daughter had me go to Hobby Lobby one day. We got a whole bunch of canvases and stuff so she could paint happy little trees. And I actually still have some of her paintings that she did during that time that kind of helped her cope with it. And that's not the whole story, but in essence, she used that as a way to kind of cope.

Let me tell you you your managers are the Bob Ross's of your organization they are there to paint the happy little trees of the position of the department of the organization and Obviously recruiters and other people that are involved HR, know that are involved in this process can also help with that But it's so important to really understand what those happy little trees are because what candidates need to know is Define success. What does success actually look like here?

because I want to be successful. The candidate wants to be successful. You want the candidate to be successful. And so you have to be able to define that or in essence, paint the happy little tree so that they know what they're shooting for. Some might take longer to get there than others, but regardless, if you're not able to paint those happy little trees, you're going to struggle in the interview process. You really are. And then finally, just the influence and decision making. A lot of candidates would complain that managers don't have the ability to make any decisions.

at all. Like, candidate will answer questions. And in fact, I would recommend if you're in HR, sit down with your managers and brainstorm what are some of the most common questions that an applicant will ask during the interview and have prepared answers, right? Have prepared answers. And we all know the basic ones, benefits, the pay, the schedule. Like, we know those. But how many of you, if you were asked, like if you're a manager right now or if you're HR and a candidate were to ask

Tony Benjamin (40:40.486)
Yeah.

Steve-o (41:08.482)
Well, why is this role open right now? How are you going to respond to that? Right?

Tony Benjamin (41:13.382)
Well, because we fed the last one to the sharks. We pushed them off the cliff, off the slide rock, into the water, and the shark ate them.

Steve-o (41:17.822)
Pushed it off the cliff. That's right. Yeah. Another buck cheeks are out. Poor them. But but but do you see my yeah, but you see my point here? It's it's not just about what questions were asking in the interview, but it's also what questions do we anticipate so that we're prepared with responses? Those types of responses are OK to have written down, right?

Tony Benjamin (41:23.858)
That's right. That's all that's left is the butt cheek.

Yeah.

Steve-o (41:43.116)
Those types of responses are OK to say, well, here's what we would say in these types of situations so that we're absolutely prepared for those types of questions. But yeah, anyway, those are probably some of the biggest pieces that I got out of this study. And there is more to that. If any of you are listening and you have a local HR group or your company and you want to hear more, I do speaking and I do training. So I can help with that.

So there's a lot more to this than just what I've shared, but it's so critical. Those four elements are huge during the interview process. So this is not just about the questions you ask, and we'll get into questions and things like that, but man, there's a lot more to it there. And that will help you mitigate ghosting more than you realize. It will help a ton. So.

Tony Benjamin (42:32.07)
No, you know, and I think I think it's important for us all to realize, you know, during COVID and after COVID, when there was a lot more jobs than there were people out there to fill them and all that, that's kind of softened up now, right? The demand for that. a lot of employers like, we can go back to doing it the way we used to do. No, you can't. And and and here's why I want to say that, because the people look, I know somebody who just left the company.

Steve-o (42:46.467)
Mm-hmm.

Steve-o (42:51.918)
You can't.

Tony Benjamin (43:00.614)
and he is going to get like three million job offers and he knows it. But he knows he's going to get a bunch of job offers. Right. That's the sort of person that you want working for your company. Right. He can he he's got a lot of different opportunities. If you're going to land that guy, you better recruit him. Right. You're going to have to recruit him. You can't just be.

Steve-o (43:06.573)
Wow.

Tony Benjamin (43:26.066)
passive in that and go through the normal interviewing process and think you're gonna get him because you're not He's got other opportunities and then you say well, I'll just up my pay. No, that's not how this works and that it goes no matter Ding yes, so so for example if I'm interviewing at your company and you tell me that And you tell me that I'm gonna report through the CFO

Steve-o (43:37.89)
And it's not always pay that's the attracting factor, right? Like, yeah.

Tony Benjamin (43:53.927)
right, as a VP or whatever else, if I'm going to go through the CFOs, done. We're not, we're not having that conversation anymore. Like we're just, we're not. And, and, and I, there's certain reasons for that. And I, and I fished through all those things, being able to make contributions and be free to do what I want is more important to me than anything else at a company. And so it's not always just about the money, right? But you gotta, you gotta dig in and find those things out.

Steve-o (43:56.248)
Yeah, that's like your red flag. Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (44:23.844)
I lost my choo-choo as my friend would say and I train the thought where I was going to go after that. But yeah, right, right. Anyway, no, what I was here we go, here we go. That's right. No, but just remember, you're recruiting them to and this goes back to what you're saying about be your brand champion, right? You're in an interview. You want them to be excited.

Steve-o (44:28.258)
Wow, that sounds like one of those old cliches.

You lost your choo-choo. I'm so sorry, your choo-choo left the station, I guess. I don't know how else to say that.

Tony Benjamin (44:52.358)
So even if you're not super interested in that candidate, right? Maybe you will be interested in them in two years for a different position or something like that or a year. You want them excited about it because you don't want anyone to tell you no, no matter who you offer the job to, you want them all to tell you yes. And to your point earlier, if they leave there, and it's gone really well, perhaps they will buy your product or influence somebody else at their next job who will buy your product or whatever, right? Right, right, right, absolutely.

Steve-o (44:52.59)
Correct.

Steve-o (45:16.77)
Yeah, there's so many other factors there, right? Absolutely. It's like it's like that interview. Remember, remember our guest, Katie Connell, are not Katie Connell, but JD JD, right? He was so impressed in the interview process with Katie that not only did he remember that, but it became kind of a catalyst for him and everything he did going forward. And they developed a really good relationship. That is a really good example of how important that process really is, regardless of whether you hire the candidate or not.

Tony Benjamin (45:25.926)
Yes. yeah, yeah, JD.

Steve-o (45:45.996)
In this example, he was not hired, but that was okay. And he was even okay with it, right? So prime example of how critical this can be.

Tony Benjamin (45:51.399)
Right.

Tony Benjamin (45:57.075)
No, that's important. The things you brought up there. So this is my hiring process. I was introduced to this. wish I could say it. Allison Nielsen, I worked with her at Control4 back when it was Control4. She introduced me to this process, and I think it's brilliant. And so I want to lay this out for everybody. And at that company, we hired 220 people during the time I was there.

And during that time, I think we whiffed on two. Like we made two bad hires and all those 200 people. And it was an awesome thing. So here's what we did. We would bring somebody in the office and HR would meet them at the front desk. And then HR would take them to a small conference room, offer them a drink or whatever else, because they're going to be there a while. And we told them about that upfront. You're going to be here a while.

Steve-o (46:26.668)
Ace.

Tony Benjamin (46:55.186)
And then HR got 15 minutes with them. And generally speaking, HR would do a little introduction about the company and say, maybe you've read about us, whatever, but here's a little introduction about the company. And then, you know, tell me about you. And so I can just get a feel for who you are. And generally speaking, those couple of things and a little chat chat, a little chit chat would bring us all the way to 15 minutes. Then every 30 minutes after that,

a new interviewer would rotate in and out. And it would be in the same room. If we were going to have, let me back up. We had, we generally tried to have about four people interview everybody that we brought in. And sometimes, depending upon how technical it was or how complicated the position was, sometimes it'd be 40 minute slots. But anyways, you bring those people in and you do that.

If it's getting long or whatever, you're worried about the length of all of it, move them in the middle of the cycle. Meaning HR comes back to that conference room and says, Hey, let me take you upstairs to this other conference room and we'll set you there. And the rest of the interviews are going to be there. And the reason we would do that is to give them a break, right? The interview, the candidate, give them a break. They walk up there. Now the people that we would have interviewed them are one person from each team that this person would interact.

Steve-o (47:54.315)
you

Tony Benjamin (48:19.6)
So if they're a project manager, they're going to know the software developers and the graphic designers and the engineers and whatever else. But that's how we would do it. We would have them all interact with them. One person from each of the teams that they would interact with. And the last person that they would interview with was the VP or the executive or whoever headed the department they would be interviewed in.

The reason for this is that, well, there's lots of cool things about this. Number one, I hate group interviews where there's five of you interviewing one person that's silly, person gets intimidated and scared. Yeah, right? The FBI interrogator guy, right? Yeah. So don't do that, number one. Number two, right, right. And the second thing is in those group interviews, usually only one or two people participate and everyone else is daydreaming about what they're gonna do when they get off work that day. So.

Steve-o (48:56.536)
That feels like a grilling, right? Yeah, it is such a grill. Yep. So yeah, be careful of that for sure.

Tony Benjamin (49:15.172)
It doesn't do you any good. They just, they're like, I don't know. Billy was there. He can tell you what happened. so don't, so don't, don't do that. But we wanted them to interview all that. The cool part of that was the candidate got a better feel for what the company was like. They really got to experience who am I going to be working with? And a lot of the times are like, Holy crap, those guys are brilliant or they're great or whatever. but here's the thing. Everybody says to me, why do you need that many people to interview with them?

because they're just gonna give you the same answer over and over. I said, that's not entirely true. Here's what's gonna happen. And we did not coordinate questions across all the interviewers, just to be clear about this. What we would find is everyone always started with, tell me about yourself. And then you would do like, tell me something about this or whatever. What you would find is that almost all the interviewers asked very similar questions.

And at the end of the process, then you get everybody who interviewed them together. at Control 4, had a deal. You had to be unanimous on who you hired. And so any one of those people in the interviews could nick somebody. But they would all have to agree. And you don't have to do that portion of it, although I recommend it. But what you do is you get in a room. And what you find out is that the longer the interview went on, the more practice that the answer the candidate becomes.

And you're saying, well, did they change what they said? That means they were lying. No, that's not what they were doing. They were practicing. Right, right, right.

Steve-o (50:45.122)
Greed is not that they're lying. Exactly. They think of something else. Like, I forgot to say this or man, I should have said that. This is is common. Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (50:51.696)
Right.

Right, right. And they get what you hope is that as they go along, they get better and better answers, right? They give better and better answers to those questions, because they're really thinking through it. And they're really trying. Now, we have I have found sometimes where people have discrepancies and what they've, you know, encountered or whatever. But it's very, very, very rare. But then what you find out, and I always found this fascinating is when everybody gets done, almost everybody in that room agrees on who to hire. Like, it is shocking to me.

how clear it becomes who would best fit in, who would be the best person to fit in and who would work best there. So you were gonna say something?

Steve-o (51:27.372)
Yeah.

Steve-o (51:33.698)
Well, you know why that works, because in again, in my study, like when we were doing this study, we found that when the candidate has the opportunity to actually meet some of the people that they're going to be either reporting to or actually working with, not only is the feedback better, but it allows those individuals who are interviewing to really say, can I see myself working with this person? Can I see myself reporting or, you know,

working with this person and telling them what to do or, you know, guiding them, managing them, et cetera. Is this somebody that also is going to fit with my team? Is this somebody that's going to mold well with my team? I recommend, oftentimes I usually recommend as part of that process, have them meet with like two of the team members. Like if you're going to do a group interview, take two or three of your team members for a few minutes and have them just go in and sit down with them and just chit chat. Hey, where are coming from? you're interviewing. Hey,

Tony Benjamin (52:28.326)
Right.

Steve-o (52:30.178)
Yeah, I'm in the role right now or or hey, this is yeah, this is our team. This is what we're about. And it's not even an interview. It's just a hey, here's three of our team members. They're just going to sit with you for a few minutes and just chit chat with them. It's not even part of the it's not really part of the interview. You're not going to get graded on this. You can tell them that if you want to. But having them actually speak with some of the team members as well can be really beneficial. And that's what we found again in this study, that if you're going to do something group wise, make it informal and you will get

Tony Benjamin (52:52.882)
That's it. Yeah.

Steve-o (52:59.456)
a lot more out of that than you would if you had three people in there literally interrogating or twiddling their thumbs or one's drawing, one's taking notes, the other one's asking all the questions, right? So anyway, that was something that we saw that could enhance that for those of you who still like and want the idea of a group interview, make it a little bit informal with actual coworkers and see how that goes.

Tony Benjamin (53:09.254)
bright, right, yeah.

Tony Benjamin (53:25.338)
I love that idea because then that's also the candidates time to ask real questions. What is it really like to work here? Yeah.

Steve-o (53:30.318)
Exactly, and that's what you get out of it. Yeah, that's what you get out of it That's what you want, right? Because the candidate again, they're fish and two they really want to know and I and think about this the reason that mitigates ghosting as well is because the candidate actually leaves and thinks to themselves I could see myself actually working here. I could see myself working with those people if they don't see that Guess what? They're gonna ghost you they're gonna take the other offer. They're going to consider somebody else

Tony Benjamin (53:56.455)
Right.

Steve-o (54:00.482)
And so just like the job ad is important in convincing them that, this sounds like me, here's my resume, they need to leave the interview as well thinking, man, I want to be here. This feels right. And if they're not feeling that, yeah, yeah. And if they're not feeling that, then you're gonna lose them. They will ghost you, period.

Tony Benjamin (54:18.01)
It feels like home or yeah. Yeah.

Steve-o (54:25.836)
That's why some of those conversations and these interviews are so critical. And I love the idea of moving them around if there's going to be a lot of interviews. I had a manager, actually the CEO back in the day, this was years and years ago when I was just starting my recruiting career and he wanted to meet every applicant no matter what. And some of these applicants, he would have them wait for six hours. And some of these interviews would take place like, yeah, some of these interviews would take place at two and three in the morning. Like it was ridiculous how...

Tony Benjamin (54:48.356)
jeez.

Steve-o (54:54.83)
how much it was this East Coast just, I don't know, I almost want to say cocky kind of feel to it. And yeah, prove yourself and let's see what you're like under pressure. And I get, he was hiring salespeople and he wanted to see how they'd react to that kind of stuff. I get those pieces of it, but there's a point where you've gone a little too far. It's just.

Tony Benjamin (55:02.908)
Prove yourself. Prove yourself.

Tony Benjamin (55:21.17)
Yeah, exactly. But that's the methodology that I recommend for the interview process. And again, when we did that at Control 4, it was amazing. And tip the hat to Allison for teaching me that. But it was incredible.

Steve-o (55:36.748)
Where is she at now? We should have her be a guest.

Tony Benjamin (55:41.054)
I just say, you know, I've offered Allison to come on the podcast and talk to us. And Allison is always she's always a little shy. So

Steve-o (55:46.049)
Okay, okay.

Steve-o (55:50.9)
She's probably way cool and you know.

Tony Benjamin (55:53.028)
She is way, way cool. So.

Steve-o (55:55.106)
Yeah, some people are just so cool that yeah, it'll be really hard.

Tony Benjamin (56:00.379)
She's the VP of HR at KP. So anyways, she's a.

Steve-o (56:04.59)
And we do recognize sometimes companies don't want you to talk on a podcast, which is fine. It is what it is, right?

Tony Benjamin (56:10.458)
Yeah, yeah. Allison is cool. And I if if she ever, in fact, all email her and tell her she got a shout out on this podcast, maybe she'll listen. But Allison is is one of my great H.R. and she's an impressive person and I've always admired her. So but anyways, the point I'm getting at is she taught me that. And I think it's a great methodology to do it.

Steve-o (56:20.4)
That's right.

Tony Benjamin (56:35.986)
In the end, what you need to know about a person in an interview, and this is what we again, what we were coming back full circle a little bit to now is you need to know that they have the skills to do what you want them to or, if Tracy's right, the aptitude, right? The aptitude to do it. And, um, and number two, that they will fit in culturally. And, and I think.

I think that's super important to understand that both of those aspects have to be there. Now, I we all know those companies that use fit to mean you're just like me. And I think I've told the story on here that the guy that was hiring people in the accounting department and I came to him once and I said, I think that you need to diversify the number of the type of people you're hiring.

He's like, why? And I says, because all of them are blonde and about five, eight, and they're all really cute. And he was like, what are you talking about? And I just said, let's walk. I took him around to all their offices. We said hi for two or three minutes. got done. He's like, holy crap, you're right. I didn't even know I was doing that. Ding. Right, right. Yeah.

Steve-o (57:36.878)
They're all like you. geez.

Steve-o (57:52.93)
Yeah, what do we call that unconscious bias? I had a customer service manager once that was that way where where there was this pattern over the course of about six months where he was only hiring and interviewing certain people. And you get to a point from a recruiter perspective. I watched this and I'm like, this is not no, this this can't be done this way. Hold on, we've got to put a halt on this. And yeah, again.

We have to teach our managers what this looks like. What is unconscious bias? Do our managers, can they define that? Do they recognize it in themselves? And if they don't, this becomes a great training opportunity, a great training opportunity. And that's why from a strategic perspective from an HR, we need to be able to recognize and notice these trends, whether they're good or bad. And

Tony Benjamin (58:32.806)
Yep.

Tony Benjamin (58:36.986)
Yeah, exactly.

Tony Benjamin (58:50.556)
Right.

Steve-o (58:51.618)
be able to present to our management team in a strategic way to say, this is why this needs to be addressed. This is what I'm noticing. It's a concern or it's not a concern, whatever the case might be. What do you think, right? This is why I think it's a concern. Here's the laws or rules or whatever. Again, we don't wanna be so focused on the laws and the rules that we're like a chicken little as if the sky is falling, but we do wanna protect the organization, right?

Tony Benjamin (59:20.454)
Yeah.

Steve-o (59:20.83)
And we want to make sure that we don't give people the opportunity to file a lawsuit or whatever the case may be. So anyway.

Tony Benjamin (59:29.072)
Yeah, no, exactly. And, you know, I think I've said on the podcast before that I've never known a company that has been sued over the application process. Right. And then we just mentioned in the EEOC filings a couple of weeks ago an example of that, right. That that was it was a club or something where they were certain certain I think it was women who were being put out on the floor and no one else. Right.

Steve-o (59:47.992)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (59:59.609)
So the EOC was suing him. the point there is just that teach them right, let them know it. And the two things that they need to know are their technical skills or aptitude. And number two, who they really are to see if they fit. And those are the two main things that everyone needs to get out of. There's no, like this is kind of like a resume. Everyone thinks that the perfect resume will get you every job. That's not true.

The perfect resume for a job is the one that perfectly fits the requirements of the job. And it's not the same when you sent to the last company. And the same here goes, right, in that no two interviews can be exactly the same or else you don't really know the people.

Steve-o (01:00:32.728)
Yeah.

Steve-o (01:00:47.342)
And take notes, take notes, write down the names. One of the most embarrassing things that ever happened in my career. And I think I can't remember if I talked about this or not, but we were so excited. We had a woman come in. She interviewed for a role and we ended up extending the offer. Manager's like, yeah, I want to hire this one. And so we extended the offer and two weeks later she started.

I was walking her around the office, introducing her to people, kind of explaining, you know, okay, orientation. And my next goal was to take her to the manager for the next phase of onboarding because she had now filled out all the paperwork. This was back when we were still paper-based, right, for the most part. And when I walked up to the manager, the manager looked at me really odd and I thought, are you okay?

And so I just told her, said, here, wait here for just a minute. Let me get you a drink, whatever. Let's take a break before we hand you off to manager, because we've been doing this for almost two hours now. Let me set you here. I'll get you something to drink and brought her a cookie or something. I went to the manager and I said, what are you OK? And he's like, that's not the one that we're supposed to hire. And he's fiddling through his paperwork and all that stuff. he's.

Tony Benjamin (01:01:55.12)
I think I know where this is going.

Steve-o (01:02:07.914)
Apparently both of the women were named Kate.

Tony Benjamin (01:02:12.85)
Steve-o (01:02:13.966)
And he had completely mixed the two. And and he had no eye by the end of the day, because he had met like eight people. And this is why I talk about this importance of if you're going to have to meet eight people during the day, you better make sure they have their ducks in a row, because he had met with all of those people and liked Kate, but he wasn't sure which one it was. And so when he went back into the resumes, he just grabbed the one. OK, well, here's Kate. And they had somewhat similar backgrounds. There were some differentiators.

but his notes were so all over the place and he didn't really track it well that he ended up having us offer the job to the wrong Kate. Yeah. And, and, and they had, they had different spellings too. Like one was like A-T-E, the other one was like A-I-T. And so completely different spellings too. But, but, but my point is,

Tony Benjamin (01:02:56.946)
That's awesome.

Steve-o (01:03:09.652)
As managers, you also have to teach them how to effectively take notes and make those decisions as well, because sometimes these managers are not prepared for that. And you might have a Kate situation like I had. And that was really awkward. Let me tell you. And, you know, no offense to any Kate's out there. You guys are awesome. But but man, it was it was embarrassing for me. It was embarrassing for Kate. It was embarrassing for the manager.

Tony Benjamin (01:03:23.25)
Kate.

Yeah, yeah.

Steve-o (01:03:36.382)
The good news is, is we did find something else for her that was more appropriate and we ended up hiring the other Kate too. So there is a, there's a, there's a, you know, I don't know, Cinderella story here.

Tony Benjamin (01:03:48.028)
That's a classy way to handle that. Because you could have just, I was thinking, I would have just said, well, you hired her, so there you go.

Steve-o (01:03:56.938)
And honestly, that's kind of what I told him. And but again, he was very serious. He's like, this is not going to work. I don't we can't do this. And I said, OK, well, we need to own the mistake. So how do we own this? And that was when he said, well, this other person in the department downstairs, because we were like we had three floors and he's like, yeah, there's there's another person in this department needs somebody similar to this. Let's go find out.

Tony Benjamin (01:03:59.528)
Yeah, but.

Steve-o (01:04:24.682)
if this would work for them because they haven't posted the job yet. But he had been in communication and so he knew that there was a similar role that was going to be opening up for a completely different department. And it worked, right? Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (01:04:28.199)
Right.

Tony Benjamin (01:04:36.275)
And that's a good, think outside the box and make it work and you still get the employee and all that. That's a really good, it's a really good story. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Steve-o (01:04:44.056)
And like I said, the whole thing was just awkward. I can't even tell you what it felt like that day to see his face and have the candidate right there with me as I'm taking her on the tour. I'm like, boy, I need to talk to the manager real quick. Well, let me sit you down. It was just the whole thing was really awkward. And like I said, luckily it was a good story ended well, right, until we had to lay off everybody. but still it was just, was one of those situations that

Tony Benjamin (01:04:58.259)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve-o (01:05:12.654)
could have been mitigated had the manager understood how to appropriately track the notes and to be able to differentiate between the people and just be honest with himself too, because he actually did like both applicants fairly well. He just felt the other one fit way better and that's what he thought he was getting. So anyway.

Tony Benjamin (01:05:22.045)
Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (01:05:31.611)
Well, and here's how I do that when I do lots of interviews back to back is I write something down about what they're wearing. You know, red, red dress, you know, white sneakers or I don't know, whatever it is. I try to jot something down about them. I just.

Steve-o (01:05:38.808)
Mm-hmm.

Steve-o (01:05:47.598)
If I had guys come in, I'd write down the ties sometimes. Like, red tie with the purple polka dots.

Tony Benjamin (01:05:53.404)
Right, right. Just something that triggers your brain to remember who it was. And then and then usually I write if they say something unique or something like that, I write that down, too. I'm a big fan of writing down unique phrases or words that they keep coming back to. And anyway, it just jogs my memory and who they are and a little bit about them. So it was hopefully that helps. But I think it's important and we're I think this is drawing to this to a close, but

think it's important for us all to stop and think that we think that just because they have the skills to lead, they have the skills to interview. that's the no. And learning how to find the exact right person is a it's an acquired skill and you have to develop it over time. And anyone who to anyone of your managers who just says, I know how to interview. I don't need any help.

Steve-o (01:06:32.523)
Not true.

Tony Benjamin (01:06:52.187)
I just know him when I see him. That is the manager that you want to watch the most closely. Because they don't generally know. And especially when they say I just know when I meet him. No, what you're doing is you're having a physiological reaction to someone who thinks just like you or acts like you or has the same interests as you. And you put a halo around them and off they go. And it doesn't matter what they really say.

Steve-o (01:07:16.0)
Isn't that called the halo effect?

Tony Benjamin (01:07:18.067)
It is called the halo effect. That's right. But that's that's the point is, is, is that is, is those are the people you want to watch the most. But again, it's a skill that you need to teach people and develop in them and all that over time. So, all right. I think we did a pretty good job, right. About about bursting a few bubbles and knocking a few things around and.

Steve-o (01:07:43.631)
Well, and I'm hoping, you know, for you, those of you listening, that you got something out of this. Some of our mistakes and crazy things that we've gone through, but also, you know, some real stats and real data that I love some of Gallup's data on this. Like I said, when I was doing my own research and I did all these interviews with the managers, not only was I able to compare it to Gallup, but even one of the schools down in Southern Utah confirmed with me one of the teachers that was there, Chris.

Healy, she came up to me and confirmed what I had also discovered during that process that, oh yeah, we have seen similar things in our own research that they've done. And so I've literally had three different studies, if you will, just based on the one that I did and the other two, confirm what we found. And so there is some relevancy and some real data here that can actually help. And that study, just so you know, was done in 2022.

On my part, I don't know about Gallup and the Utah Tech University that had done some studies there. But my personal study that I did with this particular organization was in 2022. And so it was fairly fresh. It wasn't just something that was like 20 years ago and now we're just talking about it. This was fairly fresh. And it was right after COVID, which was kind of interesting to see how that was panning out. And you know.

Tony Benjamin (01:08:42.171)
Okay.

Steve-o (01:09:05.912)
Things always change. I love studies like this, but I also like to keep things ongoing. You may find in your own organization that there are things that work and things that don't work. And so again, this is where you have to take the opportunity as an HR professional and find it out. Find out what actually works and benefits the organization.

Tony Benjamin (01:09:11.025)
Right.

Tony Benjamin (01:09:26.067)
Exactly. And I want to say, keep track of how many people, right, over the course of two years or whatever, how many people you hired and how many were bad hires and then start to evaluate why they were bad hires. Right, right. Keep track of how many left within the first six months. I think that's a pretty reasonable time frame. If they leave in the first six and you could even say the first year, depending upon your history or your industry. But how many leave in the right, right.

Steve-o (01:09:40.046)
It's a good stat. Yeah, it's a good stat.

Steve-o (01:09:53.504)
Yeah, retention averages, things like that.

Tony Benjamin (01:09:56.18)
But you just, how many left within the first six months? And track that over time. And it should be getting better and better and better. And again, you know, do it the right way. Find that methodology. I gave you mine at how I recommend doing that. you know, when I brought, bye bye.

Steve-o (01:10:10.68)
And there's so many out there, right? So like, I know there's a popular one called the STAR method. Have you heard of that one? So I'm in school right now, so I'm getting some of these acronyms. The STAR method is where you recognize the situation and you set the stage. You describe the goal or challenge or the task at hand. And then you explain the actions that need to be taken in order to accomplish that task. And then you share the outcomes of that action, right?

Tony Benjamin (01:10:16.946)
No.

Tony Benjamin (01:10:21.969)
Right, right.

Steve-o (01:10:38.638)
They call it the star method because what you're trying to do is you're trying to to have the candidate set the stage for the story they want to tell describe the goal and challenge that they went through Explain what actions they actually took to resolve the conflict or solve that challenge And then what was the outcome at the end of the day the results? And so that that's like a methodology that I've seen a lot of Organizations use and like I said, it's a common when they teach in school as well. But yeah

Tony Benjamin (01:11:07.709)
No, I think that's really good. if we were going to go on for another hour, I'd say, let's get into behavioral interviewing and what that really means. yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the way I train candidates, people looking for jobs, is I call it PAR, problem, action, result. And you never tell a story without a PAR, on PAR. You're on PAR like golf PAR.

Steve-o (01:11:14.316)
Yeah, we could do another episode on that all by itself for sure. So, yeah.

Steve-o (01:11:24.693)
there is a

Steve-o (01:11:28.524)
Yeah, yeah. No, that's cool. So that that reminds me there is there is a guest that we had a central Utah that talked a lot about behavior. We should totally have her on. I'll have to dig on that one. That would that would be a great episode. So, yeah, I'll have to I'll dig on that one. But anyway, OK, we've got our segment, right? Let's our segment. I'm excited about this segment.

Tony Benjamin (01:11:43.549)
Very cool, very cool.

Okay, there you go. So, okay, that's right.

Tony Benjamin (01:12:09.349)
All right, all right. It's the HR in life segment. Me too.

Steve-o (01:12:11.276)
I I love that music. Yeah. Well, I love it because it starts out as kind of like this rock and then it becomes Yellowstone. It's kind of cool.

Tony Benjamin (01:12:19.559)
You

Tony Benjamin (01:12:24.179)
See, there you go. There you go. The older I get, the more I'm into Southern rock, right? Which kind of has a country edge to it a little bit. well, not twang, it's, I don't know, maybe twang. Maybe that's, I don't know. I really like it. It's the blues root stuff that I really like. So, all right, Steve, you've got the HR and life segment tonight. Go.

Steve-o (01:12:32.962)
That little twang.

Steve-o (01:12:44.546)
Yeah, no, that's cool. Okay. I have this story today and this is so fresh on my mind because it literally happened over the weekend to my daughter. So here's the story. My daughter, and I won't tell what company she works for. I may have told this before where she works, so I don't want to reveal that, but if you go back and listen to episodes, maybe you know. But.

She is working for a company and she's obviously a full time in school right now, right? She's in the Air Force and doing a lot of things there and trying to actually trying to get into the Air Force, right? And is doing forensic science and all that stuff. Well, they recently have been increasing her hours at work because they have been short staffed. Makes sense, right? That's kind of usually what happens. The problem is, is she has requested of her manager, especially in the next two weeks,

because she is about to have her finals. And there are a few classes that she really needs the study time for. She needs to focus on them. She knows that she's struggling a little bit in those classes. And so in her mind, I need the time. And so she goes to her manager like she should, and she requests the time off. She is part time. She's not full time. So she's working about 24 hours a week, okay?

Tony Benjamin (01:13:52.999)
And we should say she's part time. She's not full time. She's part time.

Steve-o (01:14:00.088)
She goes to the manager says, look, I'm going to need less than 15 hours for the next several weeks. I've got finals coming up, school. You're giving me way too many hours. He was working, you know, about 15, 20 hours a week anyway. And then it just has gradually increased over time. And so managers say, okay, cool. Yeah. Let me know the hours and stuff like that. And so she gives her some of the days information. Like these are the days I cannot at all. Obviously here's some of my exams coming up. And so

Saturday, she gets her schedule and sure enough, is scheduled. Half the days are scheduled on when she had requested off. And when she messaged her manager, the manager said, well, I understand, but you're scheduled and so you'll need to find your own replacement. And that was the conversation. So thoughts. And I can tell you what I shared with her, there's the story.

Tony Benjamin (01:14:55.475)
I

You said punch your boss in the face, didn't you? That was your advice. Punch your boss in the face.

Steve-o (01:14:59.938)
What do you tell your child? No, I actually said egg is house, but you know, toilet paper, all the things, but toilet paper first and then egg.

Tony Benjamin (01:15:09.459)
And that egg, right. It doesn't hurt the pain as much when you do it that way. You know, that's an interesting point. And I've had this too. Your kids come to you and you're in HR and you need to give them HR advice, right? And you're just like.

Steve-o (01:15:14.529)
Right.

Steve-o (01:15:28.898)
Yeah. How many of you have had your children or somebody come to you because you're in HR and they're asking for advice?

Tony Benjamin (01:15:36.006)
Right, right. And then there's the percentage of time they actually take your advice, which is hilarious in and of itself. But having said that, no, it's I think I think it's it's hard to do because if you're me and you think, there's this really bad situation, you're like, I'm going go in and tell them right now that if they don't shape up, I'm going to sue them. That's kind of my attitude, like, you know, but, you know, my daughter, she wanted to

Steve-o (01:15:58.787)
Ha

Tony Benjamin (01:16:06.463)
she wanted she wanted a job and she was pretty young. I want to say she was 16 at the time she wanted a job. And there was a motel here in town that paid you by the room. And my daughter's like, Hey, that's a pretty good idea. It was ready $7 a room. Okay, $7 room, which which is chicken feed in and of itself. But so I said to her, Okay, yeah.

Steve-o (01:16:27.53)
Wow.

Steve-o (01:16:33.39)
This is last year, huh?

Tony Benjamin (01:16:35.763)
It's a couple of years ago. Yeah. So anyways, yeah, just to. But anyways, wow. OK. Sorry. Now I'm getting old. OK, here's the here's the point, though. And I said to my daughter, I said, how how long does it take to clean a room? And her answer was, well, when you first started, it takes you about an hour and 15 minutes, hour and 20 minutes. She goes, but after you get good about it, you can probably do two or three, you know, two, two and a half an hour. That's what she told me, I think. And I was like, OK.

Well, when you're really good at it, then you can have the job. You can take the job. She's like, Dad, what do you mean? I said, don't do it. Don't do it because these girls who these young girls who go in there, they're not making minimum wage. Like if you think about that, right, it's seven twenty five an hour. You got to make at least seven twenty five an hour or else you're not making minimum wage. I don't care if they pay you piecemeal or whatever. You have to make minimum wage at a minimum. And they were not doing that. And so

Steve-o (01:17:18.818)
Yeah, at that rate. Yeah.

Steve-o (01:17:31.554)
Yeah, that's why it's a minimum wage.

Tony Benjamin (01:17:34.79)
Right, right. And I was like, no, no, you're not you're not working there. My dad said, Dad, but all my friends, I'm like, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Aside from that, a 16 year old working at a motel is probably not the greatest idea. But having said that, there you go. That's that's a good one. Or my daughter's other job. And they were a national company. They should have known better that for her Christmas bonus, they bought her a lottery ticket from Florida. That was my daughter's Christmas bonus.

was a freaking lottery ticket. She was 17. No, she did not win. Ding. She was 17 and they gave her a freaking. That's right. But think about it. Her job was in Vernal, Utah, and it was a lottery ticket from Florida. Right. So anyways, there you go. That that's the.

Steve-o (01:18:06.094)
Did she win? Did she win? she can't even play. 17. Wow. That is a manager who really understood his staff.

Steve-o (01:18:24.863)
You can't even gamble in you.

Tony Benjamin (01:18:32.199)
that I don't know, I find it's really difficult. But these are the sorts of things that, know, at least I can answer them for my kids and keep them out of trouble. So what did you tell her what?

Steve-o (01:18:38.286)
Yeah, the sad part about this is, and I told her, said, look, you have a couple of options here, Katie. You can go ahead and let them know, look, I've already requested those times off for a reason. Because in my mind, I'm like, it's not your responsibility to find your replacement when you already in writing told them. Because I asked her, well, was this in writing or were you guys just having a conversation? Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (01:19:03.697)
and they

Steve-o (01:19:06.702)
I was like, was this in writing? And she says, well, it wasn't in writing, but yes, it was because I texted them and I let them know my schedule. said, that's in writing. That's okay. You did it in writing and you told them this is what I could work. This is what I can't work. So therefore you have every right to say, Hey, I told you, I can't work these. And it's not my responsibility to find a replacement when I've already requested these days off based on my current needs. And you know, they,

And I told her, the other option is, know, if you get fed up enough, you could just quit. You could leave if they're not willing to accommodate knowing that you have this issue already. And what's weird is they were they have been really accommodating for almost the last, what, eight, almost a year now, actually, because I think she started working there last summer. So it's almost been a year. And for some reason now it has changed, maybe new management or something like that. But it has suddenly changed.

and the manager is just saying, it's on you to find your own replacement. I get when managers do that, especially in the retail restaurant world, like I get that where you leave it on them. But if you're going to leave it on the employee to address that, you need to provide the means for them to be able to try to find a replacement, right?

Tony Benjamin (01:20:10.365)
Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (01:20:27.449)
Or here's even a better idea. Don't tell them that they won't have to like be upfront about it. Right? No, this is the expectation. So when she comes to you and says, Hey, I've got this and I got a study and blah, blah, blah. And you say, okay, that's fine. I'm going to schedule you, but you have to find your own replacement for when you can't, can't work. Tell them that upfront. Don't change your mind when you get into it go, Holy crap, I can't make the schedule work.

Steve-o (01:20:47.202)
Yeah, tell them that up front.

Steve-o (01:20:55.394)
Yeah. Because then as a manager, you're just scrambling, trying to fit in the gaps and what have you. And I get it as a manager, you're probably overworked and overwhelmed. And maybe you're the one covering the shifts because you don't have other people to cover the shifts right now. You know, this particular organization she works for, they have a pretty stringent testing that happens before the employee can actually start because they have to prove certain things that they're capable of before they can actually start working. And I remember when my daughter went through that.

I thought, wow, that's actually kind of cool that they do that because then you know, you have a solid employee that knows their stuff. I thought that was actually pretty cool. But now that they're struggling to try to fill roles and in a way to kind of taking it out on my daughter to just fill the gaps where they go, that's where I kind of have to put my foot down a little bit. And so just told her, I was like, look, this is where you become an adult. This is where you need to make your adult decisions and you need to decide what is in your best interest.

is at school or keeping this particular job that's not willing to work with you, knowing that they were had been working with you for quite some time and were very well aware of your limitations and schedule. Where do you go from there? Right. And and, know, I I talked a little bit about at will employment and stuff like that, which, you know, doesn't really mean anything to her. Like trying to explain all that and.

Tony Benjamin (01:22:07.665)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tony Benjamin (01:22:18.035)
Right, right.

Steve-o (01:22:19.65)
You know that that's not them. That's not the effective. Let me just tell you that's not the effective way to talk to your kids about employment in Utah. Just gonna tell you right now. Just leave the at will stuff out of it. It doesn't help. Yeah, so.

Tony Benjamin (01:22:26.355)
Right, right. Yeah. No, no, I that's yeah, that that's funny. You say that way. I've had that conversation with my kids, too, on occasion. But no, and I think and it doesn't have to be your kids, right? It can be the neighbor or whatever down the street. I don't know about you, but people come up to me all the time and hey, is this legal for an employer to do this? And and my answer is always OK, I don't know all the circumstances here. I want to lay that.

Steve-o (01:22:55.47)
Correct?

Tony Benjamin (01:22:56.399)
Here's the law and generally what it means. How does that apply to you? Right. And I

Steve-o (01:23:02.39)
And it's not enough to go ask AI to answer it for you. It's just it's not. I'm getting a lot of that lately. I don't know. Are you guys seeing that? Like are you seeing that as you talk with employers? I feel like there's a lot of people right now that are simply using AI and then they they use the AI to say, well, this is what AI says. So therefore you should listen to me. And and they're they're doing this argument back and forth. And it's like, well.

Tony Benjamin (01:23:05.989)
No, no, that's...

Tony Benjamin (01:23:24.627)
All

Steve-o (01:23:29.122)
why don't you go back to AI and say, let's pretend you're the employer. How would you react to the same situation? You'd be surprised what you get. Then it puts a whole different perspective on it. So yeah, just remember, AI is there to make you look like the rock star. So you should totally play the devil's advocate and see what AI tells you then. Then it might put you in your place a little bit.

Tony Benjamin (01:23:46.388)
Right, right. No, and the other thing about AI and employment questions is you have to say what state it's in, sometimes depending upon which state you're in, which county you're in. And then you have to say, then you say, exactly, and then you want to say only.

Steve-o (01:24:02.712)
Sometimes even the city in some cases like in California, know, municipal codes.

Tony Benjamin (01:24:12.123)
review sources for this answer that apply to this area. Like you have to specifically instruct it because it will give you California law or New York law or something like that. And then you're way off.

Steve-o (01:24:22.424)
Yeah. Well, and here's the thing. Did you know that a lot of those language models pull their data from places like Reddit and LinkedIn newsletters and things like that? Like, so you also have to remember that not all of that data is 100 % fact. It's just simply questions that people have asked. And because you labeled it as a question in the search engine or in the, in the, in the AI model,

Tony Benjamin (01:24:32.303)
Yes.

Steve-o (01:24:49.268)
It looks for that question elsewhere and then just gives you the answers that seems to appear. This is why checking the facts, knowing where the sources came from and actually verifying is so critical. And I fear that too many, especially this younger kids, Younger generation are almost using AI as a crutch, but they use it just like Google. They ask it questions instead of what AI was intended to

And that is to act, know, I don't know help you with generative AI and generate information and knowledge But not take away your ability to find really answers. I don't know. I don't there's just a whole lot there to unpack Yeah, so much there to unpack anyway That's our segment

Tony Benjamin (01:25:28.115)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got to be super specific. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, there you go, everybody. That was, that was, that's our segment. Yay, and everybody's happy.

Tony Benjamin (01:25:44.311)
Not the giant amount of cheering like, you know, for a guest, but yeah, there you go. Let's just clap. That's right.

Steve-o (01:25:48.547)
Just claps. Yeah. None of the woo woo, yeah woo. It was just, yeah, golf claps.

Tony Benjamin (01:25:56.027)
Yeah, right. So, yeah, well, you know, you know, well, well, Steve, I got to say, I'm enjoying this a lot and I'm very grateful for everybody tuning in and everything. And hopefully this has been a little bit helpful. If you haven't gone and seen Project Hell Mary yet, you need to get out there and see that. So we talk about it on the on the podcast a little bit.

Steve-o (01:25:58.444)
I see how you are.

Steve-o (01:26:16.75)
It's a good one.

Enjoyed it.

Tony Benjamin (01:26:21.104)
Yeah, that was really good. If anyone else sees the preview for He-Man, please double check that one too. You can tell me how I got that preview wrong. No, I believe you. I just think that you can comment further.

Steve-o (01:26:30.062)
Tony doesn't believe me.

He probably used AI to search for swords. That was probably his problem. He didn't provide proper context or anything, right? That's why HR had to pull him in. You're not following our AI policy, he man. Or wait, what's his name? What's his real name? I forgot.

Tony Benjamin (01:26:38.214)
That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right.

The actor?

Steve-o (01:26:52.374)
No, no, no, not the actor. He-Man has a normal name that is not... I'm gonna have to, because it's...

Tony Benjamin (01:26:56.666)
Yeah, Steve's gonna look it up. See, I told you I'm about three or four years too old for him, man.

Steve-o (01:27:02.926)
that's right.

Tony Benjamin (01:27:06.716)
Yeah, yeah. See, I was more I was more the Saturday morning cartoon guy who watched Dungeons and Dragons. So on Saturday morning, cartoons.

Steve-o (01:27:14.626)
Yeah, yeah. Adam, Adam was his name. I should have remembered that because it was named after the first man on the earth, right?

Tony Benjamin (01:27:18.29)
That's right.

And he had the Page Boy haircut.

Steve-o (01:27:25.644)
Yes, yeah, Prince, Prince Adam of Eternia, son of the king. Anyway, yeah. So Adam was probably not using AI appropriately there when he was trying to find his sword. I guess we'll find out when we watch the movie, right? And give you the update.

Tony Benjamin (01:27:29.35)
That's right. That's right. There you go.

Hahaha.

That's yeah, when you watch the movie and come back and give us a full report, that's that's right. I don't think I I don't know. I don't even know if I'll watch that when it comes on Netflix or something. That's probably when I'll skip over. I did watch a good movie, though, the other night. And if you're an HR, you'll get a kick out of it. It's called Unfrosted. It's got Jerry Seinfeld in it. And it's a comedy unfrosted. It's a comedy about

Steve-o (01:28:03.799)
unfrosted.

Tony Benjamin (01:28:09.297)
the origin of the pop tart. It's hilarious. Like really funny. The origin of the pop tart. And it is it's silly fun. That's right. It's silly fun. I think it's on Netflix and it was it's pretty cool. So there you go. Anyways, thanks, everybody. We we really appreciate you jumping on with us here and hope it's been a kind of a fun and

Steve-o (01:28:12.897)
Wow.

Steve-o (01:28:16.494)
Okay, there we go. All of our listeners, let us know.

Tony Benjamin (01:28:34.523)
and insightful and again, maybe you share this with your managers or whatever and or that sort of thing, but hopefully it was helpful. And, you know, keep your ears peeled. There's some cool people coming up and all that that you're really going to like. So anything you want to add to that, Steve?

Steve-o (01:28:49.666)
Yep. No, I'm good. You know, I was going to yell, have the power, but I better not do that.

Tony Benjamin (01:28:54.067)
All right.

Tony Benjamin (01:28:57.747)
Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. When a child faces a serious illness, the entire family feels the impact. Thrive Life Project steps in to lighten the load, delivering nutritious meals and engaging STEM kits directly to families homes, completely free of charge. It's more than support. It's a community of care. Learn more at the thrive life project.org. That's thrive life project.

So I want to make sure I got that right. was it's not the Thrive Life. It's just Thrive Life project. So anyway, shut up. I think I said it once in that read. Yeah. So anyway, it's a Thrive Life project. There is a link to it. There is a link to it in the show notes. Everybody can look there. They can they can be edumacated all they want to. So, OK. Anyways, I guess what that means now.

Steve-o (01:29:35.778)
Were you saying that before?

Tony Benjamin (01:29:58.054)
If I can get the button ready, is that we're going to go out same? That's right. Thank you for listening to today's podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a five star review on your favorite podcast app comments or questions for us. Email the podcast at the HR Life podcast at gmail.com and we'll talk again soon.

Steve-o (01:30:01.72)
that we're gonna go out the same way we came in, guys. Here we go.