People lie in interviews. It's a fact, get over it. Sometimes they're small lies, like stretching the truth of what their experience is. Sometimes it's a big lie, like why they left their old job. They're also on their best behavior when they sit across the desk from you. They want to make a good impression.
As an employer, you want to be able to predict how a new hire will fit into your company, and examining the candidate behaved in the past is the best way to figure that out.
Back when I worked for the coffee company everyone loves to hate or loves to love, we introduced a new way for managers to interview potential employees. It's called behavioral interviewing.
From the interviewer side of the table, the old way to interview looked something like this:
Interviewer: If you had a difficult customer who was causing a distraction to other patrons, how would you deal with it?
Interviewee: Well, first I think I'd make sure they were calm, then I'd buy their drink for them and go sit with them and talk through their issues in a calm manner.
Looks pretty good at first glance, until you realize that anyone can tell you what you want to hear. So behavioral interviewing takes a different approach. The same question might look like:
Interviewer: Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult customer who was causing a distraction. How did you resolve their issues?
Interviewee: The first thing I did was to invite them to sit down. Then I asked them to explain what was troubling them, and after talking things through with the customer they understood why they have to wait in line to get their drink. I gave them a coupon for a free drink next time they come to the store.
This looks better -- why? Because it talks of actual rather than hypothetical experience. It's something you can actually check with their references.
Candidates who cannot point to times when they were able to demonstrate desirable character traits might not be people you want to employ.
Katharine Hansen, a lecturer and Master Resume Writer, has written extensively about behavioral interviewing. On her website,
Quintessential Careers, she says:
Behavioral interviewing is a relatively new mode of job interviewing. Employers such as AT&T and Accenture (the former Andersen Consulting) have been using behavioral interviewing for about 15 years now, and because increasing numbers of employers are using behavior-based methods to screen job candidates, understanding how to excel in this interview environment is becoming a crucial job-hunting skill.
The premise behind behavioral interviewing is that the most accurate predictor of future performance is past performance in similar situations. Behavioral interviewing, in fact, is said to be 55 percent predictive of future on-the-job behavior, while traditional interviewing is only 10 percent predictive.
Behavioral-based interviewing is touted as providing a more objective set of facts to make employment decisions than other interviewing methods. Traditional interview questions ask you general questions such as "Tell me about yourself." The process of behavioral interviewing is much more probing and works very differently.
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