Conducting an Effective Job Interview

• Getting properly prepped for an interview
• Internal team alignment
• Validating vs establishing fit  
• Identifying the red flags
• Ways to mitigate risk during the interview

Transcript

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[00:00:00] Jake Gorgol: Good morning.

[00:00:02] Gareth Webb: Good morning. How are you?

[00:00:03] Jake Gorgol: I'm good. How are you doing?

[00:00:05] Gareth Webb: Hi. I'm very well. Thank you.

[00:00:07] Jake Gorgol: So we are week two episode two into our podcast. Last week we spoke about organization design and structure. How to kinda get a little more intentional with that. This week wanted to piggyback off of that.

[00:00:18] Jake Gorgol: Go one step further and talk about interviews. And what an effective interview looks like. Again, given your experience in probably a multi multitude of interviews and talking with many clients about interviews. I think you probably have a [00:00:30] unique perspective on what effective or great looks like and where maybe companies go wrong.

[00:00:34] Jake Gorgol: So I guess starting out obviously the interview piece is very important within the job process itself on both ends. What makes a good interview at a high level or why is a great interview, so important to, to nail down?

[00:00:44] Gareth Webb: Yeah, it's the whole premise of the interview is interesting because I think obviously not many people love them, especially being on the receiving end of being the person being interviewed.

[00:00:54] Gareth Webb: And some people can interview particularly well. So there is an [00:01:00] artificial setting almost And so many companies don't interview particularly well, just let people get on with it and tell them to somebody, but there should be a methodology or a structure to it. There should be training but that doesn't always particularly happen. I think that stand out interview is obviously one where there's no red flags at all.

[00:01:24] Gareth Webb: There's maybe there's some parts to the conversation, which are just deem to be [00:01:30] neutral. And it's the candidate has done, has got themselves across. Okay. But then for the most part has just impressed and impressed obviously is the word we get, we hear is yeah, really impressive. And we really it's all very positive language.

[00:01:45] Gareth Webb: And making the right noises and backing it up and giving evidence. So some people are quite slick at presenting themselves and selling their achievements. Others are probably too [00:02:00] humble at times. It's not really the time to be humble. You can be down to earth, but you're only getting an opportunity to present yourself.

[00:02:07] Gareth Webb: So I think like the really good interviews are where there are little to no red flags and there's a lot of strength signals. But basically that you, the person is impressing who they're interviewing. There's a lot of talk about, really good interviews, just being a discussion. I think that's a little bit idealistic.

[00:02:24] Gareth Webb: It, there should be some good flow to it. I don't think [00:02:30] that you are gonna extract enough information to truly evaluate mutual fit. If it's, if it is just a nice conversation or discussion. It should have some pressing points to it that force some truth around, the level of experience or the level of depth of knowledge around a particular subject matter.

[00:02:47] Gareth Webb: So I think a lot of the time that. Think that's missing quite a lot. It's almost, we live in a world where people don't wanna be seen to be challenging people too much for being rude to them [00:03:00] or putting them too much on the spot. And so I think that the interviews are, it's not necessarily too easy, but bit too wishy washy.

[00:03:10] Gareth Webb: They don't necessarily have the structure and the Issues that the methodology to force the issue. So I think like the good interviews are quite punchy, have a good rhythm to them. They delve deeper beyond they don't just take surface value with every answer. And they are probably as, as much as possible evidence based.

[00:03:29] Jake Gorgol: I've marked a few [00:03:30] things for us to touch on a little bit later.

[00:03:32] Jake Gorgol: I think that might be more pertinent down the road in this conversation. So I've bucketed out a few different things just around preparation communication, the interview itself. And I think we can go ahead and wrap up after that. Starting out preparation wise what does a good preparation look like on both the candidate and maybe client end we can tackle both ends?

[00:03:47] Jake Gorgol: Let's start with that.

[00:03:50] Gareth Webb: Yeah. I think it's safe to assume that probably 90% plus of interviews are happening via a video conference type setup. Yeah, [00:04:00] I've interviewed a lot of people in that way to come and work for us and seen and heard the feedback from clients. It's very uh, To have too much of a sweeping statement, but the people that clearly have prepared are therefore the ones that probably want to impress or be part of the organization more, it's not normally a surprise to me that the ones that have reasonably like orderly background and presentation style actually like [00:04:30] actually showcase themselves in a bit more, an orderly fashion as well, and see more organized, more structured.

[00:04:35] Gareth Webb: you know, You need to think about the way I see it is an interview should be is this is, can I imagine myself working with this person with, for altogether , and you wanna have trust and faith in that person that you are being part of the same team and that as standards upheld, and there's a work ethic and there's a

[00:04:54] Gareth Webb: style that, you are happy for them to talk to a customer if you are not available or interview somebody else, if [00:05:00] you are not available. So I think it's just a standard thing. So the things that we try to tell people to do to just mitigate risk is is a tidy, clean background or you don't have that say you are like a younger person living with friends and it's stuff in the background.

[00:05:17] Gareth Webb: And have just a neutral, clear background that just removes the ability for people to be overly judgemental, because you are being judged. Then there's like lighting there's dress code there's [00:05:30] one of the things that gotta be irritating me is when people have their camera off to the side. So they might be looking at you on the screen, but you are looking at them.

[00:05:37] Jake Gorgol: So it's kinda like what we're doing right now.

[00:05:40] Gareth Webb: Yeah. So some like self awareness. Yeah. Around. Engaging the person you, if you've got 30 minutes or 45 minutes or an hour, that should be real valuable time. So to spend the time preparing if you were to go into a face to face interview, last one, I did I did phone call, video [00:06:00] call, and then onsite pre COVID.

[00:06:02] Gareth Webb: And yeah I didn't dress as I would dress to go to work. I just, but I didn't dress wearing, wear a suit or anything like that. So I we've had, it is strange because everyone knows that once you're working with each other, you'll be dressed like this in a t-shirt jeans, or shorts, or whatever. There are companies still prefer that someone has a collar or a jacket.

[00:06:23] Gareth Webb: I don't really understand that personally. I think start off is best to start a little bit on the smarter end of the [00:06:30] spectrum.

[00:06:30] Jake Gorgol: It's always smarter than you might normally dress on a given Workday.

[00:06:33] Gareth Webb: Yeah. Unless they tell you otherwise. So we always say to people, Hey, look, we're a super casual informal dress code environment.

[00:06:39] Gareth Webb: But then having said that it is always quite nice to see people that are slightly a notch above cuz you're like, okay, you're taking this seriously. So again, there's some artificial dynamic going on. I think it's completely fine for people just completely dress as they would at work. And if they wanna wear an angry bird's t-shirt and that's what they wear, [00:07:00] that's fine.

[00:07:00] Gareth Webb: But you run risk of not necessarily trumping other candidates for that reason, which seems, some people say it's a big reason. We've joked about this before, but we've had people turn up to a zoom interview walking on a treadmill during the interview for a director level role. Seems bizarre choice to me. Do that when you could just wait and do it afterwards or before.

[00:07:23] Gareth Webb: And it just, yeah, so you just, you need, both sides need to feel comfortable. So prep should be good. I think you should just [00:07:30] try to present yourself in best light. Seem orderly. Obviously it goes without saying, but it doesn't, because it always happens where people just not prepped on the role in the business enough. So companies love it when you know them inside out and you make that clear like financials, products, pricing, having used the product and like problems with sign up flow or problems with , certain features, functionality that just shows that you care and that you, therefore, probably be better at the job, cuz you've got some curiosity [00:08:00] levels that are required in the technology space. And then for clients who are interviewing the worst is when they just turn up to the interview and they're, haven't even looked at the person's profile or resume or notes and they're going in and wasting time on the fact finding up front.

[00:08:16] Gareth Webb: And so we try to make sure that the interviews. The fact finding a lot of the fact finding has been established and it's far more about the deep dive into fit . The perfect interview is obviously where you think there's, you [00:08:30] believe there's fit. It looks like there's fit. Let's just prove it rather than, oh, I'm not sure if there's any fit, like I'm gonna now start have the conversation and yeah.

[00:08:38] Gareth Webb: Wasting people's time. Cause they've probably answered all those questions. Anyway, when they've been screened. If you think about whether they've spoken to us or they've spoken to an internal talent team people giving you giving the five minute life story is painful multiple times, especially if somebody's interviewing for a few roles.

[00:08:52] Gareth Webb: So just making sure that like you're validating fit rather than trying to establish fit is potentially how I would [00:09:00] expect

[00:09:01] Jake Gorgol: validating versus trying to establish during the interview process.

[00:09:04] Gareth Webb: Yeah yeah, cause everybody wants more time back. So just again, just spending a five, 10 minutes in prep will make.

[00:09:11] Gareth Webb: 30-40 minute interview, whatever duration far more significant and meaningful for everybody. And also people, people remember a good interview experience, even if they didn't get their job. Like it's, It's a really good learning sometimes. And yeah, like if that helps you further, along with that company or with a different [00:09:30] company, you can.

[00:09:30] Gareth Webb: You, you wanna feel like it was a learning experience?

[00:09:34] Jake Gorgol: Yeah. On the client end I know last time we spoke, it was more around org design and determining what, the attributes are that I must haves versus some of the nice to haves. How does that play into this like preparation end on the client end?

[00:09:47] Jake Gorgol: Where does that fall within the interview process? Does that continue throughout? Is that part of the fact finding, what does. To string those two together.

[00:09:53] Gareth Webb: Yeah you're trying to, again, like going back to what I just said about validating, you're trying to gather [00:10:00] evidence of data.

[00:10:01] Gareth Webb: Not the whole, tell me about time when is great, but it's doesn't, you're not gonna find might get a good answer, but it doesn't necessarily help you establish fit. I'd much prefer people to talk about or give and produce good examples at work.

[00:10:17] Jake Gorgol: What a good example of that?

[00:10:18] Gareth Webb: Oh using you as an example, like we, when we said, okay come and talk to us about how you would the first 3, 6, 9 months, and put that not necessarily a business [00:10:30] plan, but just like a flow of work that you would want to try and achieve some results tied to that.

[00:10:35] Gareth Webb: And then, so you presented in a way that showed you'd gone and done research gone actually created some copy and talked about some growth strategies, growth metrics. I'm there for sat there for an interview, but it's not, it's more of a, Okay, I'm enjoying seeing how this person's thinking and the quality of output is there.

[00:10:54] Gareth Webb: I think, the preparation from a client is that it's what are the things you're assessing [00:11:00] for against going back to position itself and the description or the profile, the role what do, what evidence do you need? What signals are you trying to acquire? What are the red flags? So stuff like like a lot of our clients don't want people just from huge companies, cuz they believe that they're over resourced or not scrappy enough.

[00:11:19] Gareth Webb: You're trying to find evidence of scrappiness or um, resourcefulness, how can you isolate that? And, you'd probably, I personally like to go beyond just [00:11:30] having a wordy answer. So can you show us some of that stuff which it depends on the role as well. So engineer engineering is quite straightforward.

[00:11:37] Gareth Webb: You can run a coding exercise, or you can look at product and ask someone to talk through code or write some code product. You can ask someone to write spec. Potentially show you some designs. Sales, marketing, more like administrative functions, a little harder to maybe assess for, sales, arguably is the hardest people say that all the time, but you are looking for evidence [00:12:00] and therefore the preparation means that the questions have to enable people to arrive at an answer.

[00:12:05] Gareth Webb: And then, knowing what good answer is. And then thinking can you, after, can you, after an interview go and debrief with your team and explain why the person's a yes, no, or maybe. I quite like the idea of, you know, like, uh, strong yes, a yes and unsure, a no, and a strong no, cause then you have kinda a sensible continuum of conviction.

[00:12:27] Gareth Webb: It's very surprising to me that we still get [00:12:30] some people with a strong yes, and some with a no, or a strong, no.

[00:12:33] Gareth Webb: And so how does that happen? That's the bit that I'm baffled by. If everybody's been briefed properly on, especially for a Director or VP level role. So we had it recently for a VP role and the chief customer officer was a strong yes. And she is not an easy person to interview with. And the VP of strategy was a no based on he, he was an overall, I like the guy he's smart, but his [00:13:00] experience is not what we need right now.

[00:13:03] Gareth Webb: And yet the chief customer officer was emphatically strong yes on all points. So how on earth does that happen? So that means they just haven't prepped properly. They haven't sat down. They haven't established consensus. They haven't agreed on these are the things that the person needs to do and be good at.

[00:13:21] Gareth Webb: So that for me is just a real sad waste of everybody's time when there's probably really good intention there. And they're a good company. They're a public [00:13:30] company. Cool products, smart people, but just the basics of their internal coms has meant that someone is now not even them or us, but like some poor person has wasted potentially five, six hours of their life.

[00:13:43] Gareth Webb: Yeah. So there should be this ongoing cadence of here's what we're trying to do. Here's how it should be done here. Here's what we want to hear in a debrief. I don't think people do that. I think it's all done on a whim which is honestly quite disappointing especially at that level.

[00:13:59] Gareth Webb: So yeah just [00:14:00] everybody has to spend a little more time preparing for how they interview what they want to, how they want to make a decision and how the census is built.

[00:14:08] Jake Gorgol: Let's talk really quick about.

[00:14:10] Jake Gorgol: I guess, how what does an ideal process look like? When it's too long and then how many people ideally, should be involved, or is there a good answer for that?

[00:14:20] Gareth Webb: Yeah, obviously not too many and not too few is the basic answer, but it doesn't mean you have to have hour long blocks with- say there's five people.

[00:14:28] Gareth Webb: You don't have five hours. The [00:14:30] beauty of zoom is that multiple people can be in the room without being in the room. So I think one, you have panels that exist, which I don't think that's a bad thing cuz that's what it's like at work. , Mm-hmm , you know, group meetings or group sessions. I would say depending on the size of the company, anyone who's working with, the person who is gonna potentially

[00:14:53] Gareth Webb: be reliant on that person or have some ownership over their output, should probably [00:15:00] meet them to a degree. You could do a four week process or a senior level role and have two people a week and just keep that momentum going. There's times when that doesn't happen. You can easily have 2, 3, 4 people go into a panel to interview somebody.

[00:15:13] Gareth Webb: Again, that just has to be prepped slightly so that it's not free for all. I personally think doing ones and twos, like so one on one interviews really good for like deeper conversations, and if that's the person you're gonna work more closely with, that should happen. And then maybe if the person, if they're less [00:15:30] involved with who they're interviewing, but it's important that they meet them, then maybe they go into a group interview,

[00:15:35] Gareth Webb: so there's two or three people, maybe four interviewing on a zoom. And just as long as everybody knows, okay, nobody can overly dominate the situation and make sure you've got your two, three questions are important to you. So I think in terms of an actual duration of process, we see positions get filled in two weeks, like still quite senior level roles, but maybe they're more individual contributor roles.

[00:15:59] Gareth Webb: So it's [00:16:00] establishing that they can do the work and they wanna do the work and the hiring manager's approving. If it's a leadership type role, yeah, 30 days to four weeks is doable. Probably unfortunately on average, probably slips to more like 30 to 60 days, but still pretty good. There's some that would go over that, that there shouldn't really be need if everybody's got everything in order.

[00:16:24] Gareth Webb: I think 30 days is like four weeks is a good one a week. Like one stage per week for four weeks.

[00:16:29] Gareth Webb: Got it, I was gonna

[00:16:29] Jake Gorgol: [00:16:30] ask if that equates to a certain amount of rounds Sounds like you kinda answered that though.

[00:16:32] Gareth Webb: You could do more than one in a week. So it is just assuming most people have jobs, families, hobbies, asking somebody to do say an hour on a Monday or a Tuesday, and then another hour, a Thursday, Friday, it's doable, but it's potentially you if you're expediting and that's fine, but I would say one a week is reasonable.

[00:16:53] Jake Gorgol: We've touched on communication a little bit, but I'm curious to get your thoughts on [00:17:00] ways that the interviewer can properly help set expectations with a candidate, just to make sure that, the level of transparency is high and the process feels like they know what's coming throughout the process.

[00:17:12] Gareth Webb: I

[00:17:12] Gareth Webb: mean, so we always ask them, look our clients, what does that look like? And it's 50 50, whether they've thought about it or not, which again is not ideal.

[00:17:22] Gareth Webb: It's a red flag. So if they've thought about it and they'll have it laid out, ideally it's documented in some shape [00:17:30] way, shape or form. Like beneath the spec. So some clients have already thought about that. Some they're formulating it and some they say, look, it's gonna be a stage with the hiring manager, a round with the teammate.

[00:17:42] Gareth Webb: And then a final with, let's say like the top decision maker and then maybe have another conversation with hire manager again, just to recap. That's pretty sensible. Yeah, let, turning people up front really helps. Or we've heard all the horror used to be a really great thing that like Google did so many steps because they had the [00:18:00] highest bar and it, there's so many applicants, they wanted to whittle people out that way.

[00:18:04] Gareth Webb: And then obviously Amazon's the same. I think all of those things are changing now. So short shortening is pretty common. Yeah.

[00:18:12] Jake Gorgol: Let's circle back a little bit on you've touched on the interview process itself in terms of preparation, showing up what to wear, that kind of stuff. I wanted to touch on two things. You brought up -red flags, just to dig into that a little bit more identifying what those are.

[00:18:26] Jake Gorgol: What does that look like?

[00:18:27] Gareth Webb: I think. The big [00:18:30] thing with red flags is making sure, just making sure the person knows the not so great pieces about the role or the business and the challenges, because people are gonna have to deal with that.

[00:18:44] Gareth Webb: And that doesn't change and it doesn't mean it's gonna be fixed with the hire. I think not enough new companies downplay a role. Deliver like the sort of double pitch, which is okay, this is the opportunity. These are the problems we have. This is what we need fixing [00:19:00] and we, and then how might somebody do it?

[00:19:03] Gareth Webb: And then what happens to the business longer term things get fixed. There's too much Everything's great. This is great company. You should definitely come work here. You're gonna crush it. There's not enough of the underlying. No, actually we have these problems. Mm-hmm ,, that's why -

[00:19:17] Jake Gorgol: A little dose of realism.

[00:19:18] Gareth Webb: Yeah. Big dose of realism. And that will make some people run a mile, which is a good thing. But they're smart people that enjoy those kinds of challenges should gravitate towards them. So I think red [00:19:30] flags should be: okay, what do. You should be establishing, what can you do, what can't you do?

[00:19:34] Gareth Webb: What will you do? What, won't you do? And then are we gonna work together to figure this out? If someone's got like a different style, like a more abrasive direct style or they're gonna rub people up the wrong way at the business? Or is that good? You need more of that. So the people in the business know the business best.

[00:19:52] Gareth Webb: It's their job to inform the people interviewing of what they're getting themselves into. I think [00:20:00] for me, red flags are for example, with us, it there's we want people who are personable. But I don't want anyone like anyone that's too nice. And doesn't seem to have a reasonably thick skin is not gonna do well here because it's hard work and we're an early stage business and we, things are tough and we're changing direction and we're figuring things out.

[00:20:19] Gareth Webb: So there's some people that are absolutely suited to certain types of companies and environments. Whether they believe that to be the case or not not everybody knows themselves well enough to know exactly where they're gonna [00:20:30] be a great fit. And then and then some people are more adaptable and malleable.

[00:20:33] Gareth Webb: So the red flag thing really for me is okay, yeah. I just don't believe this is going to work based on the evidence on what I've heard and style or. Based on what we need. And another, so another good example for that would be clients of ours looking to hire leaders, but those leaders must be doers and they don't have tons of resource, even in some of our bigger clients where they're moving really fast.

[00:20:57] Gareth Webb: They're trying to do a lot, but there's not [00:21:00] big departments or teams that they can use to get work done. They don't want people who are pure strategists. They want people who can execute. They want to know that person's happy, executing and talk to customers or building, or we have a product management hire going on at the moment client hiring a bunch of product managers and they've been very, very, very, very strict around having evidence that those product managers have been and sat and talked to and worked with customers, not just

[00:21:28] Gareth Webb: theoretically developed [00:21:30] products. And so we're, that's their red flag. It's like, okay. To talk about like how you redevelop a product from a conversation with a customer. Now, it sounds straightforward, but not everybody has some people just take data and then try stuff and get the data and then reiterate.

[00:21:45] Gareth Webb: So there's truly trying to get red flags out of the way early. I'd say that's a final point on that is you should do that. Establish the no-nos and the red flags really early cause finding them at the end of a [00:22:00] four week process is an absolute waste of time again.

[00:22:02] Jake Gorgol: I think we are coming up on time. So I wanted to go ahead and. Wrap things up. I think what I wanted to do is just do a quick recap of, main takeaways we spoke through today for, both the client and candidate. You wanna take a stab at it?

[00:22:19] Gareth Webb: Yeah, I'd say so. The client end, my takeaway is the prep and the internal coms before you even get going.

[00:22:28] Gareth Webb: So around [00:22:30] internal coms about position itself, and then the assessment. And how you carry those columns through the process. Like discussing before what's gonna be a yes. And then what does that mean and how do we prove it? And then what's gonna be a no and the same, like why? You should not have, you will always have it, but you shouldn't have too many examples of someone giving a really strong yes,

[00:22:55] Gareth Webb: and someone giving a no for the same position, the same interviewing committee. [00:23:00] You may have a neutral and a no, or a neutral and a yes. You shouldn't have a strong yes. And then a no, especially when the, no is more to do with what's needed in the role. That should be really clear. So clarity and definition on role on fit and assessment criteria and how you agree.

[00:23:18] Gareth Webb: And then I think also with the clients is not being afraid to. Not being deemed or perceived to be too nice about it and having a really fluffy, nice conversation. That's not helping anybody. Gotta be courteous and [00:23:30] professional, but it's gotta be pretty challenging.

[00:23:31] Gareth Webb: And good candidates will want feel challenged anyway. On the candidate side, sounds boring, same thing like prep, and I think the thing that candidates need to be aware of is. These people are in interviewing, quite a few folks. Probably more so now with zoom, so you have to stand out, you have to engage, smile, be authentic,

[00:23:53] Gareth Webb: but professional. The fine line, which some people are too professional. Some people are too, probably too authentic or themselves. [00:24:00] You want to showcase that and find out for yourself as well- is this a place I wanna work? There's a style of these people. And just because they're challenging, you doesn't mean it's they're not good people to work with.

[00:24:11] Gareth Webb: So I think that the prep, the clarity and brevity of coms and the examples that you have and then obviously, but again, it's not sounds obvious, but it doesn't happen, but enough is just questioning at the end. There's no [00:24:30] way you have no questions, even after the best interview. And if a person's been really thorough and explaining stuff to you, there should, there's absolutely no way there should be no questions because you are coming at it from your own line of thinking during that 30, 40 minute interview .

[00:24:45] Gareth Webb: There's no way you should have a single question to ask. You should almost have those questions going into the interview. If they got answered then fine. But there's probably still things you'd like to know. There's real detailed nuances about a team working or plan or [00:25:00] issues that the business has had.

[00:25:01] Gareth Webb: I think there's like the prep, there's the execution of interview and then there's the questioning at the end. Those I think are what make a really good candidate stand out. Yeah. There's no, it doesn't have to be perfect. It just you just have to reduce there's like risk mitigation. So like we talked about it just don't nothing too strange or red flag esque walk, walking [00:25:30] on the treadmill during your interview, I would say is completely unnecessary.

[00:25:34] Gareth Webb: Even that is what if that is what you do at work all day, every day. Having a really. Messy big, like cluttered background. Doesn't do you any favors, like you could just sort that stuff out and push button these days? Yeah. Little,

[00:25:49] Jake Gorgol: Blur the screen.

[00:25:50] Jake Gorgol: Yeah, exactly.

[00:25:51] Jake Gorgol: Awesome. And this will be really helpful conversation.

[00:25:54] Gareth Webb: Hopefully. It's an ongoing battle. There's definitely people out there that are like natural as that interviewing and are very [00:26:00] composed and then on a client side anyway, and then there's offenders out there.

[00:26:04] Gareth Webb: Yeah, I think it's the big takeaway, I would say if I was like managing big team, a big company, doing a whole wave for hiring, like just be respectful of time, be respectful of people's energies, be respectful that they may be going through tough time if they're , even if they're in a job and they're trying to change jobs, it's really stressful.

[00:26:20] Gareth Webb: And then if you're a candidate be respectful of the executive's time and energy do the prep, do the diligence, treat it like a business [00:26:30] transaction, which is what it is and treat it as a learning experience. And you can't go too far wrong if. Have that mindset.

[00:26:36] Jake Gorgol: Awesome.

[00:26:36] Gareth Webb: Cool.

[00:26:37] Jake Gorgol: Thanks.

[00:26:37] Gareth Webb: Thanks very much.
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