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