10 Tips For Conducting Behavioural Interviews On Campus
[ November/December, Vol. 16, No. 11/12 ]
By Cindy Moser, Editor
With this year's campus recruitment season well underway, employers who rely on behavioural interviewing to hire the best people for the job may be finding themselves in an untenable position. The competition for students available for work upon graduation next spring continues to remain very strong. This leads to an almost overwhelming temptation to abandon some of the tried-and-true behavioural interviewing techniques that ensure a person is the right fit for the job and the organization. Behavioural interviewing looks at a candidate's past behaviour in similar work situations to get an indication of how well he or she will perform in the future. It is based on the philosophy that, because a person's "root" behaviours are unlikely to change very much, the greater the degree to which core characteristics match the characteristics needed to do the job well, the greater the likelihood that the person will succeed in the job. These root or core behaviours include things such as attitudes, self-motivation, persistence, maturity, capacity to learn and temperament. Applying behavioural interviewing techniques during student interviews poses some unique challenges. That's because the best predictor of future performance is past performance in similar job situations (although varied situations demonstrate how deeply rooted the characteristic is) and in recent situations (although past situations demonstrate how long-standing the characteristic is). Students may have few, if any, similar or recent job situations from which to cull relevant examples of past behaviours. As well, some employers hire students without a specific job in mind, which makes determining the needed core characteristics problematic. Yet, if employers facing these challenges abandon behavioural interviewing techniques, they may end up hiring people who cost them more money in the long run. There's little advantage to hiring a whiz kid right out of university or college who ends up leaving the job a few months later because he or she doesn't fit the job or the workplace culture. Michael Gravelle, Vice-President at The McQuaig Institute, sympathizes with the tug-of-war campus interviewers may find themselves facing. But he urges hiring personnel not to abandon their behavioural approach to recruitment when hiring on campus. To that end, Gravelle offers this advice.
1. Define the behaviours that indicate likely success in the job - or at least in the workplace culture. As with all behavioural interviewing, the first step is to define the core characteristics that are most likely to lead to success in the job. These can then be used to develop interview questions that, given the relatively short period of time available during an interview, will help determine if the job candidate possesses these characteristics. When the specific jobs into which students are to be hired are known, job analyses can be used to define needed skills and behaviours relative to key responsibilities, performance measurements, degree of supervision and teamwork, work environment (e.g., dead-line pressures, client contact, autonomy, etc.), opportunities for growth and more. The results of behavioural tests can also be used to determine the traits exhibited by people who have succeeded in the job. When the specific jobs into which students are being hired are not known, the next best thing is to determine the basic core behaviours needed to do well within the workplace culture or, for that matter, within most jobs. "There's some basic qualities that are required to work effectively in most work environments," says Gravelle. He includes among these emotional maturity, a positive attitude, and the ability to put company and client needs ahead of personal needs.
2. Use interviews to probe candidates about their core behaviours. Because the best indicators of core behaviours are those displayed in similar and recent job situations, and because students may not have such experiences to draw upon, "interviewers have to be creative," says Gravelle. "They have to determine how a student would display the preferred behaviours in their current environment." An interviewer might try and get job candidates to talk about volunteer work, association/club/team activities, university/college group projects and previous summer and/or part-time jobs. For example, a student who is enrolled in a technical program, such as computer sciences, might be able to talk about a class project that mimics, in some way, the type of work he or she may be asked to do as an employee.
3. Consider giving out behavioural questions to candidates ahead of time. For many students, campus interviews represent their first foray into the world of "getting a real job." Some will be very nervous in the interview, which may impede their ability to answer questions as well as they might. To overcome this and to level the playing field, some employers actually give out their interview questions ahead of time - by posting them on their Web site, for example. Some employers might say that this gives away too much and that they like the idea of job candidates coming at questions fresh. Gravelle understands this reasoning. It is, after all, the approach taken by most employers. However, if there are questions to be divulged ahead of time, behavioural questions are the ones to choose. That's because they ask students about their actions in past situations - and, unless they lie, they can't really fake their answers.
4. Supplement behavioural questions with situational questions, but be aware of the latter's limitations. Situational questions put job candidates into hypothetical work situations and ask how they would handle them. Sometimes, says Gravelle, these may be needed to gather evidence of potential behaviours during work situations when students do not have similar previous work situations to draw upon. He gives an example. Let's say a computer graduate is being interviewed for a technical support position. The graduate's technical skills are not in doubt, but the person has never worked in a support position before, and the interviewer wants to get a sense of the person's core traits when it comes to interacting with people. So the interviewer might pose a work problem that is likely to arise on the job: "A key client, a large and important one, calls. The client is angry because a product is not working as promised by the salesperson. The lead technical support person who would normally take this call is not available. How would you handle the situation?" Situational questions are not as well suited to determining core behaviours because they ask what a person would do instead of what they have done. And sometimes people know what they should do, even though they would be unlikely to do it. Nervousness is also an issue here, says Gravelle. Situational questions favour those candidates who are most relaxed in an interview and the fastest on their feet. "These people will always give a much better response than an individual who is nervous and uncomfortable in the interview," he says. "However, the ability to be relaxed and quick on the feet, although assets on the job, may not be as strong indicators of success in the position as having a good work ethic and a positive attitude." Giving out questions ahead of time to allay nervousness - if an employer is contemplating this idea - is not really a viable solution when it comes to situational questions because candidates can go and figure out the "right answer." Therefore, Gravelle recommends that interviewers using situational questions be aware of the potential effect of nervousness and be prepared not to weight the responses to these questions too heavily (unless, of course, the ability to think quickly is a strong predictor of job success).
5. Vary questions from candidate to candidate. It is not uncommon for students to go back and share questions with colleagues who are still to be interviewed. Gravelle recalls one client who hires engineers on campus. On the second day of recruiting, the client found that the candidates seemed much more prepared and relaxed. The client later found out that the students up first were divulging the interview questions to those following them. Therefore, situational questions should be varied from candidate to candidate. And, unless the employer is giving out questions ahead of time to create a level playing field, behavioural questions should also be varied to prevent some students from having an edge over others. Some employers might argue that all questions should be the same in order to ensure fairness. But fairness comes when employers ask about and evaluate the same types of core behaviours among all candidates, Gravelle says. That does not mean the questions asked to gather this information are necessarily the same. Indeed, behavioural questions should be tailored to the various activities on each candidate's résumé to search for examples of core characteristics that are predictors of success in the job or workplace.
6. Be very wary of putting too much emphasis on appearance and gut feel. Personal appearance and professional demeanour which Gravelle refers to as Level 1 characteristics - are, by and large, the least likely to determine how well someone will perform in a job. Skills, education and job experience - Level 2 characteristics - usually have more of an impact on job performance. But core personality traits - Level 3 characteristics - are the most likely to determine future success. This belief, as mentioned, is one of the cornerstones of behavioural interviewing. The temptation to put too much emphasis on Level 1 characteristics is always present, but it is especially great in campus recruiting, says Gravelle. That's because the students graduating from the same program basically come with the same or very similar Level 2 hard-skill qualities. "Therefore, Level 1 traits - and the 'gut feelings' about a candidate to which they give rise - tend to have a much greater impact than they normally would," says Gravelle.
7. Remember that some students will have a hard time making the transition to the workplace environment. School is very individualistic. "A student can be the CEO of Myself Inc. and get through school just fine," says Gravelle. "But what happens when that person comes into a company and is starting at the bottom of the ladder? That is one of the things that is often an issue in student retention." Gravelle says interviewers need to ask questions that will help determine if the individual is going to be able to start on the ground floor and support the efforts of others on the job. For example, interviewers might ask about summer and part-time jobs to find out if candidates actually rolled up their sleeves and did tasks that might otherwise be considered "beneath them."
8. Be honest about the nature of the entry-level job. Interviewers may be reluctant to be honest about the jobs for which they are hiring for fear of "turning off" potential recruits in a tight labour market. But if interviewers aren't honest, they stand a chance of hiring a disillusioned employee who ends up leaving almost immediately. "When dealing with people who don't have a strong perception of what working life is all about, employers have to be more frank about some of the less attractive elements of the job because it's not worth it to hire people who are going to leave right away," says Gravelle. "But it's a delicate balance, because employers also don't want to make it seem like it's going to be hell working at the company. The best course is to make candidates aware that they are going to have to start at Point A, on the ground floor, but that there is real opportunity for career advancement."
9. Leave time to evaluate each candidate. Campus recruiting can be tough. Interviewers are expected to meet with a lot of candidates in one day. That makes it all the more essential, says Gravelle, to allow time between interviews for the interviewer to take notes. "Otherwise, they will be stuck at the end of the day trying to remember what candidates looked like, and that shouldn't have an impact on hiring decisions." Time is also needed between interviews so that the interviewer can get excited about the next candidate. The interviewer should spend a bit of time reviewing the candidate's r�sum� to remember what it was that made the organization take notice in the first place. "If this isn't done, it's inevitable that the candidates who show up at the end of the day will make far less of an impact than the ones who showed up at the beginning of the day," he says. "Interviewers have to be aware of their own personal exhaustion." One way for interviewers to find those extra minutes, Gravelle suggests, is to not use up all of the time allocated for an interview when it becomes apparent after two or three key questions that a candidate is not going to make the first cut. "I strongly recommend getting tactfully out of that interview," he says.
10. Send the strongest interviewers to recruit on-campus. Because of the challenges posed by campus recruitment, companies should send their best interviewers. That may not be the person who will end up managing these future employees. "The manager may not be disciplined enough to keep the interview focussed on what's important," Gravelle says. "Instead, this person should conduct interviews after the final cut is made, back at the workplace where mistakes can be made and there is time to recover from them." One earmark of a disciplined interviewer, Gravelle adds, is that he or she knows when to keep quiet. "Candidates should be doing 80 per cent of the talking," he says.
Michael Gravelle, Vice President,
The McQuaig Institute®.
mgravelle@mcquaig.com
The McQuaig Institute® helps clients make better hiring decisions through behavioural assessment and interview training. Michael can be reached at (416) 941-9418.
(This article appeared in the November/December 2000 issue of Hiring & Firing. Reprinted with permission of CARSWELL Thomson Professional Publishing. www.carswell.com)