Testing the Waters Want to get an idea of how prospective employees may perform on the job? Use a situational interview, and take them on a test run.
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When Kim Lopez was looking to hire a director of strategicpartnerships last year, she gave the most promising candidate onelast hurdle to jump: Develop and lead a partnership strategysession involving Lopez and her executive team-a task thesuccessful applicant would do on the job. The candidate prepared astellar presentation and handled the brainstorming sessionconfidently and diplomatically. He got the job.
"We wanted to know we had somebody who could think, andthat's hard to discover in the interview," says Lopez, 37,CEO of Remedy Interactive Inc., a 4-year-old ergonomicssoftware company in Sausalito, California, with 12 employees.Today, the company, which helps clients such as GE, Intel and Visastreamline their ergonomic programs, is incorporating the ideasfrom that presentation into its business strategies.
Lopez is a fan of the situational interview, a hiring methodgaining popularity. Situational interviews help companies getbeyond the resume to see how an applicant reacts in a real-worldscenario. The situational interview takes many forms, such asasking an applicant to deal with an angry "customer"played by one of the interviewers or, as at Lopez's company,having an applicant pose a step-by-step strategy to handle abusiness problem.
The situational interview is just another way for companies tomake a good fit, in terms of both skills and character, with newhires. According to the Handbook of Industrial andOrganizational Psychology (Davies-Black Publishing), thesituational interview is reportedly 54 percent accurate inpredicting future job performance, while the traditional interviewis just 7 percent accurate. Situational interviews are used in awide variety of jobs today, says Mark Clark, assistant professor ofmanagement and organizational behavior at AmericanUniversity in Washington, DC. "It's a good thing,because we're realizing what a fallacious process the[traditional] interview can be."
Lopez says she incorporated situational interviewing techniqueslast year after making a few bad hires-in one case, a salesemployee who set the company back seven months in its salesinitiatives. She believes the company is making better hiringdecisions with situational interviewing, and she now regularly usesit with a traditional interview and reference checks. "Mostpeople exaggerate in [traditional] interviews," she says."[Situational interviews] have been veryinformative."
But situational interviews can create sticky situations. Youmight lose good applicants who decide that going further in theinterview process isn't worth the time and trouble. Lopez saysshe's had a few irritated applicants tell her the company is"weird" for asking them to make presentations. Andshe's had to convince people on her executive team who wereworried the interviews would turn off great candidates.
Those aren't the only potential problems: Companies alsorisk selecting for specific personality traits and creating aworkplace that lacks diversity and teamwork, says Linda Finkle, whohelps companies do situational interviews as the owner of Innovative Solutions Group LLC, a consulting firm inPotomac, Maryland.
As with any hiring situation, you have to be aware of legalissues, says Larry Lorber, a labor and employment partner with lawfirm ProskauerRose LLP in Washington, DC. If a rejected applicant files adiscrimination complaint, you'll have to show that the test,and what it measures, is related closely to the position. "Aslong as you keep it as close as possible to what would beexperienced on the job, it's not going to be a legaltripwire," Lorber says.
Another challenge is finding a real-world scenario that willgive you enough information to make a good hiring decision. Make alist of the skills needed to do the job well, and develop anassignment based on it. If you're hiring a salesperson, drawreal-life examples by having your salespeople tell you aboutdifficult sales calls and using these as role-playing situations ininterviews. Give applicants an opportunity to ask questions aboutthe assignment in advance and a chance to refuse before theinterview, Finkle says. This will keep you from annoying applicantswho feel they've been set up unfairly.
You'll also have to decide how to score these interviews. AtRemedy Interactive, each person on the executive team evaluates anarea they feel comfortable scoring-preparedness, confidence andnegotiation skills, for example-on a scale of 1 to 10. A totalscore is added up before they debate an applicant's pros andcons. "This takes some of the subjectivity out of it,"Lopez says. It's also putting the company in a good situation:Annual sales are now in the seven figures.
