Listen More During Interviews, and Talk Less!
Listen during interviews to learn more and talk Less! One of my clients was going to hire a young attorney to work for his law firm. He asked me to participate in the interview process. He told me that he had already had a phone interview with the candidate and unless something terrible happens, he was going to hire this lawyer. I agreed and went to his office the next day for the interview.
The candidate was tall, handsome and looked very professional. He was 27 years old and graduated from a Florida law school. The managing partner of the law firm had a big smile on his face when the candidate walked into the conference room. He looked at me with a confident grin that he had found the right person to hire.
During an interview, it is best to talk less and listen more.
I sat at the conference table and just listened for an hour. My client talked the whole time telling the candidate all about the law firm. Finally, he looked over at me and asked me if I had any questions to ask the young lawyer. I said that I did have a couple of questions to ask him.
My first question was “On a one to ten bases, how competitive would you say you are with one meaning that you are not competitive and ten means that you are extremely competitive? The young attorney said “About a five.” I asked him to explain his answer. He stated that he was never athletic. He studied law because his father was an attorney and his dad pushed him into the law career.
Listen More During Interviews, and Talk Less!
My second question was “On a one to ten bases, how important are the people that work in the law firm important to you, with one meaning not significant at all and ten meaning critical.” The candidate said “Three.” I said, “Why a three?” He said that the clients are the talented people, they are the ones that pay the fees. The people in the office have very little value to him.
I asked him eight other questions about his personality in which his answers were equally as bad. I asked him why he did not want to work in his father’s law firm. He shared with me that he and his father do not get along at all. My last question was why he picked this law firm to interview. He said that my client was his cousin. I stood up at that point, shook his hand and thanked him for his time. As the candidate was walking out of the conference room, he looked at me and said that he felt that he did not do very well with this interview. I said, “You are right, you did not!”
Listen during interviews to learn more and talk less!
My client talked to the candidate for approximately two hours and knew nothing about him. The problem was my client talked most of the time and never listened. This practice is a widespread problem among interviewers. I asked the candidate twelve generic questions about his personality, and he failed the interview. I learned that his father, whom he did not get along with, picked his profession. The candidate was not competitive. If I am hiring an attorney to work for me, I want him extremely competitive. I want him to have a personality that he refuses to lose.
Listen More During Interviews, and Talk Less!
My client was going to hire this candidate, and it would have been one of the worst decisions that he ever made since he started practicing law, which was his words. You cannot just go through the motions when picking a candidate to work for your company. He thanked me many times for showing him how to interview a candidate.
Listen more during interviews, you learn more, and there is nothing more important than hiring the right person.
My name is Robert Curry, and I am an Author, CEO Coach, Keynote Speaker, and Turnaround Specialist. Over the past 20 years, I have worked with more than 70 companies taking their businesses from Loses to Profits.
Please click on the links below to read some my other articles like Listen More During Interviews, and Talk Less!
Poor Leadership and No Accountability
Management by Wandering Around to Increase Profits!
I have recently published two books about turnarounds: “From Red to Black – A Business Turnaround” and “The Turnaround.” Both books are true stories about turnarounds of real companies that I have turned around during my career. In both books, I have shared all my Profit Improvement Recommendations (“PIR’s”). PIR’s helped to grow sales, reduce expenses, improve cash flow, and most importantly, strengthen the management teams.
If the information in this article Listen More During Interviews, and Talk Less! helps you, your family or a business associate, please email me at bob@ceorsc.com and share with me the story.
If you would like to purchase either or both books autographed by the author, please click on the following link: Losses to Profits series.
