I’ve personally had experience with those who can “do the job” for a day, but once they are hired, they are jerks to work with or find the job runs so counter to their personality that they’re never happy.

Clarification .. by “soft stuff” I mean career objectives, personality, habits and outlook, etc.

There is a place for “behavioral” type questions in an interview, but they should not dominate. I like to split the interview into roughly thirds: behavioral, the job, and the “soft stuff”.

I think BOTH parts of the “prior performance” dilemma are true. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, but it is better than nothing.

But the real value of “behavioral” questions are as a “truth detector.” It hard for most people to tell detailed, descriptive fabrications about specific things that are supposed to have happened in their past. The person who “led a successful xyz implementation” ought to be able to tell you with some detail about how they dealt with putting the infrastructure together or resolving cost overruns. On the other hand, many more people can make an answer about how they WOULD do something sound good, even if they don’t really have the nuggets to actually do it.

Make sense?

Nah, and I’ve got no financial interest in the prosthetics industry, either :-). I let that post sit overnight, then changed the title and the metaphor 3 times. Finally came back to it because, well, it’s a good metaphor and I figured my readers could handle it.

Thanks for the laugh and (as always) the keen perspective.

As you suggest – and live – I advise my interview coaching clients to take charge in the interview and transform the question/answer session into a true, collaborative meeting.

Most are shy about attempting the ‘do the job’ strategy, but they also see the value in it. We talk about ways they can modify the idea until they become more practiced with it. Ideally, they join the company they want before they become to practiced!

Here’s to you in your continuing crusade to change the hiring procedures of companies. Can’t wait to read more!

(I figured if you could say dildo, I could say crapshoot.)

Interviewers need to become practiced at judging character. A keen nose for BS helps in many avenues of life, including hiring.

Interviewees need to learn how to project their authentic selves in the artificial and often just plain weird setting of a job interview.

Both are easier said than done. But I do think all of us could benefit from taking a lot of this “science” with a huge grain of salt. Relax, people.

I’m going to miss those stupid interview questions, though. They were just so entertaining…..