WHY – Our gut is often right!

Have you ever finished conducting an interview and had a strange feeling that there might be something “off” about the candidate but you weren’t quite sure what it was? Have you ever finished a meeting with one of your employees, having something in the back of your mind that you couldn’t quite place your finger on, but you knew “something wasn’t quite right?”

Malcolm Gladwell in his book titled “Blink”, describes this powerful concept of how our subconscious is smarter than our consciousness and how our bodies are sensing thousands of inputs (body language, facial gestures, tone of voice, pauses in our speech, etc). It is these senses that our subconscious is interpreting but our consciousness hasn’t yet pinpointed the issue. Based on our life experiences, the subconscious part of our mind is connecting these data points to past experiences and thus, is literally physically telling us “something isn’t quite right.”

You may have said this, or may have heard other leaders make a comment such as: “I have learned to trust my gut when hiring people.” So, this type of thinking has some merit, but this approach by itself is dangerous. Basically this concept describes that there was something about the interview that you couldn’t quite put your finger on, but your subconscious picked up on something. Unfortunately, this is also where leaders typically make the mistake of making a snap judgment to either hire or not hire the person based on this “feeling”. This could lead to lawsuits and it may be difficult to prove you were fair in your approach. In my experience, without development in this area many leaders have a difficult time describing why the candidate wasn’t a good fit. A skilled interviewer should be able to clearly articulate the key requirements of the role and how the person’s skills and experience matched up with those requirements.

Here are a few practical tips to being a more effective interviewer:

1. Prepare for the interview, by reviewing their CV/Resume and preparing 5-7 key areas most important for the person to have experience and skills in.
2. Use behavioral based questions to get maximum amount of information in the shortest time. Past examples are often a better predictor of future behavior. Behavioral based questions are simply taking a specific competency/area of focus and asking the candidate to give you an example. E.g. “Please give me an example of a time in which you led a difficult project?” Use the same base questions for each candidate.
3. Record the critical information about the situation, action they took, and their results. Use probing questions to ensure you have enough information for each competency/focus area. While the person is sharing their experience, is typically when your gut starts to react. Focus on recording both good and bad information. Train your brain to actively listen and probe deeper to get more data. This is what will help you evaluate and qualify whether this is the right candidate in an objective way and uncover what your subconscious might be trying to tell you.
4. For each candidate evaluate and qualify each competency/focus area with specific notes and add a rating of (Does Not Meet, Meets, Exceeds) compared to the requirements.
5. A summary of your interview can be recorded on notepaper, an interview form, or within some automated interviewing tool. It doesn’t have to be fancy. What’s important is a consistent objective process that helps you get maximum information in the shortest period of time and to be able to evaluate whether the person has all the key things necessary to be the best fit for the role. This approach can be used to compare candidates side by side.

In the past, while your “Gut” may have been right, helping you avoid a poor hiring decision, it is far better to know “Why” you sensed something wasn’t right. Many leaders make the mistake of not exploring more and being able to qualify this information. By using the above steps, you can train yourself to be conscious of the signals you might be sensing, and be able to articulate “Why”. In this blog posting, I have focused on how your “Gut” plays a role in the interview process. This concept is applicable in both interviewing and many other situations of dealing with people. With practice you can train yourself to be more conscious of what you are sensing and “Why”.