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I recently had the opportunity to interview a candidate for an entry level position. It was an "analyst" position, involving fairly straight forward information management and analysis of data. In preparation for the interview, I created several behavioral questions. I thought that they were reasonable in that they asked about exactly the sorts of things that this candidate would be doing. For example:

"Part of performing analysis is a thorough inspection of the data being used. Sometimes, digging into the data changes our interpretation of the results. Tell me about a time when a closer inspection of something changed your opinion of it."

I asked 3 or 4 such questions total. Although the candidate had interned at an insurance company, and got a masters in a insurance related subject, he was not able to draw on his work or education experience to answer my questions well.

I might have simply written him off as a poor candidate except for one thing. The company with which he had interned was my own; the folks who managed him in that position thought highly of him.

So I begin to suspect that my method of writing behavioral questions may not be appropriate for entry-level candidates. Do any of you have experience writing questions for folks fresh out of college?

Any recommendations?

Cheers,
JG

(PS - I tried to write the above question in the format recently recommended by M&M, but I feel like it's missing something. If someone could point out what, I'd be grateful).

HMac's picture

[quote="jgfellow"]I might have simply written him off as a poor candidate except for one thing. The company with which he had interned was my own; the folks who managed him in that position thought highly of him.[/quote]

jg - they thought of him highly [u][b]for doing what [/b][/u]exactly?

Try this: Ask those people the same behavioral questions about his performance.

If THEY can't give behavioral examples to support why they think highly of them, then the problem isn't with the questions....

-Hugh

jgfellow's picture

Excellent question, Hugh. The main observations were that:

1) He was an excellent team player and
2) He had a great learning curve

These are interesting meta-skills and may well mean that he could eventually pick up any number of other, specific skills. I happened not to look for those skills in the interview for two reasons. First, I was asked to focus on other areas. Second, I chose not to get this feedback until after I interviewed him.

You might question my judgment on the second point. I wanted his prior manager's feedback, but I didn't want it to bias my own experience.

Incidentally, his prior manager was not able to produce lots of behavioral examples. His prior manager is a good but typical manager, and therefore documentation is limited. I don't believe that the intern even had a performance review done at the end of the year...

jgfellow's picture

Hugh pointed out that the prior manager may be the one who was mistaken, but my question is still the same. If I am interviewing a college graduate who is "good on paper," but doesn't have any relevant work experience, what kind of behavioral questions would work well?

Or is there some other set of questions that work better than behavioral questions for new college hires?

Cheers,
JG

jhack's picture

They must have done group projects in school. They must have been involved in extracurricular activities (football, newspaper, orchestra...)

These are perfect areas for probing how they dealt with conflict, authority, challenges, and failure.

John

jgfellow's picture

John,

That's the kind of experience that I was hoping my candidate would use. I even said so explicitly. The problem may have been that the kind of behaviors I focused on were so work specific that he was unable to translate them into his college experience.

I was hoping that someone on this board might have experience using questions which bridge that gap between college achievement and work achievement.

JG

jhack's picture

Questions like these are very revealing:

"I see you wrote for the State University newspaper. Tell me about a time when you disagreed with the editor on changes to a story you wrote."

"What approach did you take to create the term project in Robotics 101?" followed by "What would you do differently the next time?"

"Tell me about a time when you had to display leadership while a member of the Lacrosse team."

Without saying so, they about handling interpersonal conflict, project planning, and leadership.

John

HMac's picture

[quote="jgfellow"]The main observations were that:

1) He was an excellent team player and
2) He had a great learning curve

[/quote]

Fluff, fluff, fluff.

Follow-up questions might be:

[i][list]When you say he was an excellent tream player, how did that show itself in his behavors? What did he DO or SAY that made him an excellent team player?

I'm glad he had a great learning curve. What do he DO DIFFERENTLY or more effectively because of his learning?[/list:u][/i]

Here's the great thing about probing for behaviors: a recent college grad has 21 years of behaviors to draw upon for examples. If you think of multiple ways to ask for behaviors (like jhack suggests), and you insist on hearing about behaviors, you'll get behaviors.

It's not that hard - it's just different.

-Hugh

jgfellow's picture

I agree -- I like John's suggestions.

The key difference between his suggestions and the ones I used is that mine were attuned to the sort of thing that happens in my department ("In my department, we often...) . His are attuned to the sorts of thing one does in college ("When one is on a sports team...")

I think that there is something to be said for attuning the questions to the specific job. It places fewer limitations on from where the respondent can draw experience (he may have displayed more leadership experience at the paper than on the lacrosse team). But in practice, it just didn't work. The questions felt awkward as I listened to the answer.

I'll go with John's suggestion in the future.

Thanks!

JG

jhack's picture

One nice side effect of the "Tell me about yourself" question is that it can allow you to modify your planned questions. If the candidate talks about being made editor at the newspaper (or captain of the Lacrosse team) you choose that as the basis of your leadership question.

The problem with questions about what happens in your department is that the candidate [i]has never worked in your department[/i] and can't tell you anything about it. Behavioral interviews are designed to find out what [i]they did[/i] and then you extrapolate from there to the situations you know.

You craft the questions to your job needs (leadership, etc) but construct them in a way that allows the candidate to describe what they have done in the past.

Have you checked out the members-only cast from June 2007, and the recent cast on creating behavioral questions?

John

kklogic's picture

We like to do a gentle lead in with questions like:

Tell me your greatest accomplishment and why. They'll ask "personal or professional." We respond, "either."

Tell me about a time where you missed a deadline.

Basically, things that aren't necessarily job specific. You'll still gain insight into behavior. It doesn't need to be about behavior as it pertains to performing a specific action in your specific department. You're looking for how they think, how they'll act (behave), etc. I think you might be trying to mix a skill test into a behavioral question.

jgfellow's picture

John,

I have listened to the recent podcast but not the other. The recent podcast is what gave me the idea about tailoring questions to find those skills specific to my department (I should listen again and make sure that I got the gyst right).

Jhack wrote:

[quote]The problem with questions about what happens in your department is that the candidate has never worked in your department and can't tell you anything about it. Behavioral interviews are designed to find out what they did and then you extrapolate from there to the situations you know. [/quote]

If you re-read the original question that I listed as an example:

[quote]Part of performing analysis is a thorough inspection of the data being used. Sometimes, digging into the data changes our interpretation of the results. Tell me about a time when a closer inspection of something changed your opinion of it.[/quote]

You will see that I am not asking them to describe anything in my department. I am framing the question in terms of the kinds of skills I need to see demonstrated through behavior. Would you agree that the question was designed to find out what they did?

KKL,

I definitely see the value in such questions. They just don't guaranty that you will get the kind of behavioral evidence that behavioral questions produce.

I think that you have to strike a good balance between various kinds of questions in an interview. When you only have 45 minutes, that can be tough. But neither kind of question alone will get you a complete picture.

Cheers,
JG

jhack's picture

[quote] "...Tell me about a time when a closer inspection of something changed your opinion of it."[/quote]

That's a very good question, absolutely. It wasn't my intent to impugn that question in particular but to make a broader point. Apologies for being unclear.

And if a candidate can't find something in their past to answer that question, well, keep looking!

John

jgfellow's picture

I'm with you there John, this guy probably isn't the guy for the position.

I also agree on broader point: Especially with the college kids, I think that I may have to increase focus on their experience, at the expense of my required skills.

Next time I set up an entry level interview, I'm going to move in that direction.

Cheers,
JG

iandstanley's picture

[quote="jgfellow"]Excellent question, Hugh. The main observations were that:

1) He was an excellent team player and
2) He had a great learning curve
...[/quote]

#1 appears positive

However, #2 it would be positive if they had said that he OVERCAME a great learning curve.

As it stands, #2 suggests that he knew next to nothing when he joined and does not comment on whether he was capable of achieving the knowledge required by the learning curve.

Not being in the interview, my view would be

- poor answers
+ team player
- He had a great learning curve that he may not have overcome

Overall, I'd pass on this candidate

canuck's picture

I'm late to the party on this one, but since I just had a similar situation It's on my mind.

Basically, you're looking for patterns of behaviour here.   What traits did the person display at school, or in their outside activities, or in their part time jobs while at school?   Focus on the traits/behaviours that are relevant to what you're hiring for and see if the person has (or hasn't) exhibited them repeatedly in different situations.

If the person has clashed with professors or managers, you'll want to find that out.   If they missed their essay deadlines at school, you'll want to know that.  Conversely, who were their favourite teachers and why?  That question would tell you a lot about how they prefer to be managed.    How did they handle a big end of year project?   (Did they attack it with a plan or did they scramble at the last minute and miss the deadline?)

I find it really frustrating to interview someone who comes highly recommended from other areas of the business, only to have them give a dud interview.   It's hard to get people to answer in terms of accomplishments, especially because a lot of people don't approach an interview the correct way (in terms of preparation).

I'm more forgiving the less experienced they are - I'm happy to take a few trusted managers' opinions and weight that more heavily than interview performance in some cases.    If you're convinced there's potential there, then there's a lot of value in giving someone a big break.   It builds loyalty and a desire in the candidate to perform well.

My 2cents anway.