How to interview and find a Rockstar

[Music]

the best job i

ever had was sweeping up hair in a

barber shop

for 25 a week

i love that job it wasn’t glamorous

but it was great and i suppose after

that experience i’ve always wanted

people to feel the way i felt

every time i walked through the doors of

that barbershop

this would lead me to a career in human

resources

specifically talent acquisition

for the uninitiated talent acquisition

is a pretty fancy phrase for recruiting

i’ve recruited for large medium-sized

and small companies

and i’ve sold recruiting services to the

same

i’ve sat in on numerous interview and

interview debrief sessions

and of all those experiences one thing

has come home

crystal clear the way in which we

interview people

is broken you can see the carnage

everywhere most notably in

employee and hiring manager

dissatisfaction

a 2019 gartner study showed us that

employee satisfaction

sits at just 13 percent let’s

let’s say that a little differently

87 of employees are dissatisfied with

their work experience

this dissatisfaction is because

companies are hiring people at

all levels within the organization

without actually assessing

if the person can do the job they’re

hiring people

without understanding if they can do a

specific task that they might encounter

in the role think about that for a

second

can you imagine a football player making

the team without a tryout

better yet can you imagine a soldier

going into battle and never being

qualified on their weapon

as someone who went to basic training in

fort sill oklahoma

i can attest that those skills are

evaluated thoroughly

yet in business employers hire people

every single day

without understanding if they can

accomplish the tasks that they need done

this is like crazy

and because of this companies are stuck

in a

cyclical pattern that leads to

unhappiness

and poor performance the lack of

properly evaluating talent

costs businesses billions each year but

more importantly

millions of people spend most of their

days

being unfulfilled and miserable

i suspect some of those people may be

watching today

being in the wrong job hurts the person

it hurts their spouse their children

in their outlook there’s nothing worse

in life really

than waking up every day going to a

place

or zoom where you know you’re going to

be unhappy

instead of spending that time with the

people you love

the psychological toll can really be

immense

when i was 16 i got my first job at

edwards barbershop

i was the barbershop boy

yes and that is the actual job title

barbershop boy and yes i once had hair

i know it’s hard to believe but this

ball head right here

had one of the best box fades of the

1990s

if you don’t know what i’m talking about

box fade all this later on just google

kid and play

if you were the if you were between the

ages of 14 and 18 and that was

barbershop

the barbershop boy position was the job

you wanted

the job entailed going to the barbershop

after they closed to sweep up the hair

but it was much more than that

you ran errands for the barber and

depending on the barbers and you know

how much they had imbibed

you had to keep the change not to

mention you were exposed to some of the

and i mean the best best trash talk in

town

saturday was payday and there were five

chairs in the barber shop

each chair paid five dollars so that

means i got 25 every single week

with that i put gas in my car went to

the movies

hey i was going fancy i even got some

popcorn

that was more than enough for me and i

really enjoyed that entire experience

but i often think back and wonder why

did they pick me

what was it about me that made them

think that i would show up every day

be on time and do what was asked of me

you know life is funny with its twists

and turns because today

i’m compensated to find candidates who

will

show up every day be on time and do

what’s asked of them

about a year ago i was dealing with a

situation that was really puzzling

we’d hired a candidate and i mean they

were fantastic on paper

resume looked fantastic they came from a

great school

in the interview man they blew that away

but the hiring manager had come into my

office and let me know that they just

weren’t cutting it in the job

and that we were going to have to begin

to look for his replacement

as i sat back in my chair my mind went

back to edwards barbershop as it always

does

and i wondered again why did they hire

me

what was it about me that made them

think that i could do the job

see i’ve been going to that barber shop

my whole life

i had my first haircut there and they

literally saw me grow up

they heard about my grades at school and

when there was a time for an opening

they had all the information they needed

to make me an offer

and that’s when it hit me what if

we hired people the way i was hired at

the barber shop

you see i didn’t know it at the time but

going to the barbershop

week after week had given me the ability

to demonstrate what i could do

they didn’t need to ask me hypothetical

questions about things that may or may

not happen

they observed me in my behavior

one way in which the interview is broken

is that the interview depends too much

on talk

and not enough on show i hear people all

the time saying

i want to hire a rock star andrew well

if you want to hire a rock star you need

to see them perform right

barry gordy just didn’t sign five

brothers from gary indiana to motown

immediately

sight unseen he made them audition first

instead of looking at interviewing as

some

stale rope process let’s look at it like

a live

show a concert to hire the best

the interview is currently constituted

will need to change

so that candidates can shine candidates

will need to show their experience

aptitude and their approach to the role

by being put in situations

to perform instead of wondering how a

candidate

would react to a situation you’ll

literally be able to see how they would

react

doing anything less is like hiring

someone

with blinders on and what makes this

approach work is its simplicity

most of us use this approach in our

everyday lives and don’t even know it

in fact i’m sure some of you might have

even used this approach to find your

husband wife

or significant other follow me down

memory lane

let’s go back about a month into that

steamy romance of yours

did you ever say hey let’s take a

weekend trip together

if you did you knew this was a test

in that scheming mind of yours you were

thinking

if we can spend three hours in a car in

an entire weekend together

this thing might actually work well if

you did that

then you were the hiring manager and

your partner

was the candidate there’s a

misconception out there that

hiring is some hr activity

in my view hiring is a business activity

just like you on that trip hiring

managers need to have

skin in the game having a great business

profile

or resume does not a great employee make

coming from a great school should not be

the determining factor in one getting a

job

furthermore coming from a great school

does not inherently mean that you’re

better

smarter or have the aptitude to do a

specific task

the only thing that should determine if

someone can do the job is

wait for it their actual ability to do

the job

the next way in which the interview is

broken is in its lack of equity

managers have a penchant to focus too

much on what i call the

i like them philosophy hiring managers

fall in love with candidates

with the same background skills

sensibilities

and personality traits listen

i get it i like me too

but the stakes are too big here for that

kind of myopic view when it comes to

hiring

companies large and small are seeking to

solve the problems of tomorrow

or help other companies solve those

problems and to hire someone

based on whether we like them or not

is unscientific it’s unproven and it’s

ineffective

study after study after study has shown

us that the

i like them philosophy breeds

homogeneous environments

that hurts business growth and

negatively affects company culture

when i was waiting for hours and i mean

hours to cut the hair i used to have

it’s fair to say that i didn’t have a

lot in common with my future bosses

for one i didn’t have facial hair

i still don’t but two i wasn’t married

and i didn’t nearly have their life

experiences

there were always newspapers around the

barbershop and

i would always race to get the sports

section but i never could get it

but there’d be a business section there

so i’d pick that up and read it

you know i’d later hear the owner of the

barbershop mr edwards go

that boy even reads the business section

he didn’t know it at the time and i

never told him

but he valued someone

who was different he liked someone who

had a different

perspective on things

if you want to hire a rock star you need

to see them perform

24 hours before the interview send the

candidate an email

outlining a problem that you’d like for

them to solve let them know that they’ll

have 10 minutes to present that

their solution and that they’ll be asked

questions by the interview panel

even give them time for an encore let

them know that

they’ll be given a problem while they’re

there that they’ll quickly have to

decipher

present back to the team and they’ll be

asked questions on that

the whole process should take about an

hour or so simple

effective and it would allow you to

evaluate candidates

equally and in many different aspects

before i get the job at the barbershop

they’d always send me to the store to

do something for them get them a soda or

some food

i always brought back what they needed

with i might add the correct change

they were able to evaluate my ability

to do the job and my trustworthiness

now am i saying that we need to hire

people and wait months and years like i

was hired at the barbershop

absolutely not but what i

am saying is that if we value talent the

way we say we do

then we need to understand that their

happiness is important

to their well-being and by doing so

we’re making a commitment

and if we’re making this commitment

we’re going to be forced to do things

differently

act differently think differently

whether you’re looking to interview a

potential spouse

or an employee putting that person

in situations similar to the ones

they’ll be in if they get the job

will reveal how they will perform this

is very different than asking

hypothetical questions about things that

may or may not happen

the interview doesn’t have to stay

broken

turn your office into a barber shop and

let the live show begin

thank you

you