The art of appreciation

Maybe my LinkedIn experience is unusual, but I’ve seen a lot of stuff recently providing 'advice' for interview candidates. I think that’s really important, but I so rarely see advice for the other side—about how to interview—which surely, is just as important?

I have been an interviewer six hundred and thirty two times.

The first time I interviewed someone for a job was at 17—it was for the position of Religious Studies teacher at my all girls grammar school in Dorset, and my impossibly cruel Head of Studies picked four of us to interview the teachers for the position. I think the power went to our head somewhat, and it exposed to me the incredible and high-pressure world of being able to decide the course of someone's career. Of course, our official feedback to our Head of Studies was “We don’t feel any of these candidates are going to be intellectually stimulating enough for us”; yes, we were 17.

Most people I know have a story about a terrible interview—from university applicants challenged to do the interview facing the wall, to CEOs asking candidates to do the interview at 6AM to “fit it in”. An interview often says more about the organisation than it does about the candidate, and in a world where you are fighting for the best talent, how you interview really matters.

Here’s what I’ve learned about being an interviewer:

1. Everyone thinks they are good at interviewing. All too often, senior managers think they are amazing at conducting interviews—they think they know the role inside out, and they can’t wait to grill someone. What actually happens is they sit there talking about themselves for the first ten minutes, then ask a series of underprepared questions, and then hope that the candidate has a really interesting question about them so that they can big up their own career a bit more. It’s an exercise in ego, and if you haven’t seen this happen—then it’s probably because you do it.

2. Find out how someone thinks, not what they already know. There were many times an 18 year old would sit down in front of me in prepping for university interviews, with all the arrogance in the world (often from private schools), and I could see through them within two and a half minutes. I’d be nice and ask something about a book they’d read, or a topic they would understand, and then I’d ask a real 'Oxbridge' question like “Do holes exist?”, and watch them crumble in front of me. There’s not much joy in that process, but it so quickly tells you whether someone is able to recite back to you what they know from rote learning, or whether they can actually think. I still enjoy asking questions that encourage thinking rather than knowledge recall, because realistically, being able to adapt to new contexts is a much more useful skill in the work place.

3. Every culture is different—there’s no one interview technique. The Amazon hiring process is famed for being military-level efficient and intense. It is both of these things and it is great... for hiring Amazonians. I see a lot of “don’t bother learning about the company or sending a thank you email after the interview” for Amazon, and it's absolutely true that they couldn’t care less about that. If, however, you’re interviewing to join a start-up of ten people, these two things become absolutely essential. If you’re conducting an interview process it needs to be entirely suitable for that organisation; the Amazon one gets amazing Amazonians, because things like thank you emails are non-existent in that culture, too; if you interview with a founder of a start up and you don’t send one, then you’ve missed the point entirely.

4. Prep. There is nothing more disrespectful than an interviewer who 'wings it'. By the time I left my job in education, I had given almost a hundred interviews for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics—but that didn’t stop me taking the time to find out about the candidate, work out the questions I would ask that might be relevant and interesting, and write everything down before hand. An interviewee has given up time to speak to you and apply for your organisation—they deserve your full attention and your time in return.

5. Don’t be late.

6. Reflect the role in your style, and your patience. All the time I hear “I just don’t interview well, I get nervous”. That’s absolutely fine for some jobs—if you are going to be working alone in a basement analysing blood samples. It is not fine if you are client-facing, or you are going to need to work with a team, or deliver presentations. If you can tell someone is nervous, be kind, and get the best out of them. If they are overconfident, see how they respond to live feedback. If the role is for head of a sales team, it’s fine to ask them to pitch themselves to you—if it’s to a behind-the-scenes job building a website, then asking them to “Describe what your epitaph will be?” is probably going to be a waste of time.

7. Be kind. Once, I was interviewing for a sales role at a company, and I asked “What made you apply for the role?”. They replied “It's full-time”. This was at around the six-minute mark, and the interview was meant to be half an hour. It was a car crash, and they couldn’t have been less interested. I could have strung it out, delivered some brutal feedback or fed my own ego for 24 minutes, but I didn’t. I thanked them for taking time out of their day to come in, wished them the best of luck with their search, and told them it wasn’t going to be a match. There’s a lot of ways in the interview process to be a dick, but try not to be.