Interview Questions You Didn’t Know You Need to Ask

Turnover is expensive.

It can easily cost 1/3 of an employee’s annual salary to replace them, and some estimates quote much higher figures. This is to say nothing of the lost productivity, bad performance, and lost clients that can result from having the wrong person in a given role.

Every business owner and executive knows that hiring is a high-stakes activity, and it’s important to get it right the first time.

However, the numbers are not encouraging here. According to a new book by Bart McCollum and Dr. Gerald Hannah, Ph.D., hair care company L’Oreal tracked the efficacy of their hiring methods and was not pleased with the results. Using traditional interview and vetting techniques, they hired several salespeople and then ended up having to fire 41% of them. The good news, however, is they shifted tactics and tested a Behavioral Event Interview style (BEI) for their hiring decisions, and they had much greater success. With employees selected using BEI, a method based on the research of Dr. David McClelland of Harvard, L’Oreal only had to fire 15% of its salespeople hired.

I sat down with Mr. McCollum – a CEO and cultural turnaround expert – and Dr. Hannah – a longtime business consultant and researcher – to understand how we can shift our understanding of the interview process and come out with successful outcomes again and again.

After all, the best way to reduce turnover is to pick the right candidate as much as possible.

“It’s really hard to interview well,” Bart explains, “and most people are really bad at it. There’s only so much you can know about a person and how they’ll behave and perform based on a conversation.”

Dr. Hannah nodded his agreement.

“Yes, but thankfully Dr. McClelland’s work on ‘behavioral competencies’ led to a whole methodology on selecting top talent. When put into practice, it doubles the effectiveness of the selection process.”

When I asked how this was possible, they explained that typical interview questions are designed to draw correlations from hobbies, attitudes, and answers to hypothetical questions with future performance. It doesn’t really work, because people are going to tell you what they think you want to hear. So what should you be asking a candidate instead?

“Targeted questions,” Dr. Hannah replies. “You’re looking for examples of specific behaviors they’ve displayed in the past. So tell them, ‘Use the pronoun “I,” not “we,” and have them keep their answers to things that have happened in the last two or three years. You might ask, ‘Tell me a time in the last 2 or 3 years in which you experienced failure.’ Then I count to about ten. If they don’t answer by then, I add, ‘Or when you experienced a major, major disappointment at work.’ They’ll come up with something. But what’s interesting is a very talented person will say, ‘I can think of 3 or 4. Which one do you want?’ This shows self-confidence, achievement orientation, and humility, which correlate to emotional intelligence behaviors.”…

If the old adage rings true for your business, it's time you had a conversation with Fidelitas. Fidelitas, the like-minded marketing and PR agency that executes this newsletter, is a results-focused agency that has helped large, 9-figure public companies and pre-revenue startups alike grow with measurable results.

Fidelitas focuses on KPIs that actually impact your bottom line and integrates single channel and full-service solutions for a wide variety of B2B and BC brands as well as non-profits and professional sports teams.

Take advantage of a free strategic audit for qualified businesses when you email [email protected] and mention Sent To Win.

Your P&L will be glad you did.

Feed store and retail chain Tractor Supply stepped in manure last month when internal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) priorities were exposed by conservative activist Robby Starbuck. The store, which caters largely to rural, conservative-leaning Americans, watched in horror as the backlash grew over a few weeks, tanking their stock 10%. On June 27th, Tractor Supply released a statement backing away from DEI initiatives, promising to eliminate DEI jobs at the company and to stop donating to pride parades, among other things…

The Dow Jones continues its historic bull run, sitting now well above 40k after a jump of 500 points, a jump that has seen more than just tech stocks benefiting. The NASDAQ, for its part, is up about 3% on the month. Gold hit an all-time high Tuesday, possibly in expectation to future volatility in the stock, real estate, and currency markets. In other commodities news, Bloomberg a list of “5 Key Charts” to keep an eye on in the global commodities market…

Picture this: seats at a baseball stadium for the whole family, meals and concessions included, wild antics in the game, baby races between innings (yes, baby races. It’s adorable), and all of this for just $35 a ticket. Well, you don’t have to imagine it, because this is the actual price for a ticket to a banana-ball game - sort of a Harlem Globetrotters but with baseball instead of basketball and slightly more of an actual game going on. There’s a reason Savannah Banana games have quickly become a family favorite for entertainment - but there’s a problem. The games are so popular that you simply cannot get tickets, and scalpers are taking advantage of the sport’s growing popularity by buying up the limited seats and jacking up the price to hundreds of dollars each, a practice the Savannah Bananas are cracking down on…

Your weekly chance to test your Bible knowledge! The answer to today’s question may surprise you:

Q: In which book of the Bible does “Onesimus” appear?

Answer at the bottom

TIPS & TRICKS

Dolly Parton: Business Mogul and Country Music Star on Walking in Faith

She might be best known for legendary country hits such as “Jolene,” “Yellow Roses,” or “I Will Always Love You,” but many people are unaware of just what a business mastermind Dolly Parton really is. Her net worth is a jaw-dropping $650 million – which is all the more impressive when you consider how much money this woman has given away through her foundations and charitable giving. Early on in her music career, Parton realized that she needed to own the rights up and down the process, so she started her own record label, bought the tour buses, etc. As a recording artist, she realized the need for vertical integration in an era when this was rarely, if ever, done. She has made quite a career out of television and film, as well, always sharp in her business dealings on the back end of these endeavors, and she owns and operates multiple entertainment venues, hospitality services, and restaurants. 

One of the key elements of her success is Dolly’s penchant for buying up the entire process in a given enterprise. Therefore, if you want to go to her theme park Dollywood, you’ll likely end up staying at her hotel, eating at her dinner-theater business, and buying her merchandise. In everything that she does, Dolly has been consistently able to control the supply chain and the value-added process in every link of the chain.

Dolly Parton is a real operator…

SPONSORED

Keep up with AI

How do you keep up with the insane pace of AI? Join The Rundown — the world’s largest AI newsletter that keeps you up-to-date with everything happening in AI, and why it actually matters in just a 5-minute read per day.

Sign up with one click

• CNBC offers 5 budgeting strategies to combat the challenges of inflation.

• Christian billionaire and philanthropist Bill Hwang found guilty of market manipulation, and defrauding banks.

• A slowdown in consumer price increases in June has some investors optimistic for a future interest rate cut.

• Christian research group Barna releases results of their “Faith and AI” survey, chronicling Christians’ attitudes toward the ethics of artificial intelligence technology.