Why employers must ditch robotic interview scripts

Job interviews are quite absurd and ironic in the corporate, private, accounting and legal sectors if you think about it.

Both sides enter an interview seeking to learn about each other in the spirit of honesty and mutual benefit.

And yet what is learnt is often quite filtered and miles away from full disclosure and transparency on both sides of the table. After 20 years in recruitment and career coaching, I am putting up the clarion call for common sense over nonsense.

What should be direct and robust discussions are generally robotic and packed with embellishments, tangents, egos and irrelevancies. Honesty is curtailed, interrogations strutted, critical information omitted and ignorance, rigidity and arrogance sucks the oxygen and humanity out of the room.

Previous PWC research found that nearly one in four employees leave their jobs within the first 12 months. The cost of this turnover in Australia was estimated at $3.8 billion in lost productivity and $385 million in avoidable recruitment costs. Interviewing processes clearly need an urgent shake-up.

Just like in a Shakespearean play, candidates, employers, and recruiters have a part foisted upon them entering the interview stage with a given character, costume and mask.

Well-rehearsed, inane and trite questions and lines are memorised and tick-and-flick notepads are affixed as stage props. Improvisation isn't encouraged and without agile ad-libbing training the actors just don’t know how to flip the play around to suit different audiences.

Interviewers ask the same well studied hackneyed questions and interviewees answer with the same well studied hackneyed responses.

The Google highway is filled with articles on how candidates should answer difficult interview questions and lists of questions HR, recruiters and hiring managers should ask.

Even when an unusual question is thrown in the mix it is generally irrelevant to the job and culture. Really what has the type of bottle, animal or mountain you resemble have to do with anything?

It's scary that some companies consider such frivolous questions useful in their cultural analysis.

Uncovering who people are behind their masks is a special skill. It’s more aligned with investigative journalism than HR. Andrew Denton was a master of having guests share more information than they intended in his acclaimed Enough Rope series.

Behavioural question techniques (CAR = context, action, result) have been the interviewing approach for over 20 years and the ideology is sound in part. While CAR should still be a component of the interview framework it needs to move away from full reliance.

There are significant risks levels for inaccurate and exaggerated answers due to well-rehearsed and often plagiarised responses. All that glitters is not always gold and a confident rehearsed interview performance does not always coincide with expertise on the job,

Roleplays, hypothetical skills activities, casual catch-ups and demonstrations of competencies and attributes in agile and malleable situations can provide stronger indicators.

Questions are the answers when framed and given at the right time in the right way with the intent of transparency. The below tips will shift the generic:

How to go off script in an interview:

DO reset the mindset from a “candidate versus employer” interview to a new business meeting between equals.

DON’T ask vague “Tell me about yourself” or “Where do you want to be in five years” nonsense-type questions.

Reframe them to exactly what you would like to know. For example, “Tell me about your last few work experiences”, “Tell me about your current career objectives”, or “What elements of your job now can you see as still important in a few years?”

Alternatively, ask about changing career direction in the coming years. This is a very clever way to understand motivators. Every interviewer wants to hear different things and candidates are not mind readers. Not every person is in sales or an extrovert so be fair.

DO encourage an environment of storytelling versus rigid tick-and-flick Q&A.

DO ask “What would you love to learn more about?” Ditch the pathetic “What are your major weaknesses?”

No amount of justification, reassurance or rationalisation will make it logical. There are just far better ways to determine EQ and past triumphs over adversity examples.

DO flip the last question “Do you have any initial questions or concerns?” to the front of the interview.

Answers will steer the interview into a more robust and purposeful exercise IF candidates have taken the time to do their research. If they haven’t, why spend a full hour or so with someone who is disengaged?

Preparation and research are always a two-way street. And of course the question can be asked again at the end.

DO offer a compliment to the candidate when they arrive – this can change the dynamic of stiff conversations.

DO permit candidates to be ‘real’. State upfront that no one or company is perfect (i.e. ditch the ego) and that you want to have a real human chat. And truly believe it yourself – don’t just say it.

DO ask “How would you handle XYZ if it happened?” versus “How did you handle XYX in the past?” Hypothetical “would” questions show up true competencies that cannot be rehearsed.

DO discuss the biggest issue your staff and business face now relative to the job and culture. Be transparent not just the PR silver lining rhetoric.

DO take some interview conversations out into casual settings. A drink, bite to eat or coffee in a bright cheery environment will change the energy.

Try these techniques and I promise that the results will surprise you.

After running a media recruitment agency for 11 years, I rarely got it wrong (hey, I am human, after all) and my clients had exceptionally high staff retention rates.

Are you brave and confident enough to go off script and interview differently?

By Sue Parker, DARE Group Australia