How to Hire a Superhero

I hold this possibly crazy belief that we are all superheroes. That we all have superpowers: those things that we do well naturally, that others may find difficult to do. As a hiring manager, interviewing potential candidates, we need to be able to figure out what a candidate’s superpowers are, and how well they might compliment the superpowers of the superheroes that are already on the team.

I’m not an expert or HR professional. I’m just a guy who has spent about 30 years in leadership roles and found some things that didn’t work in interviews, and found some things that worked pretty well. I also understand that hiring decisions are some of the most important decisions we make and being good at interviewing is a superpower itself. So here are my tips for new or inexperienced hiring managers on how to conduct an interview and hire your next superhero.

Assumption: these tips work for hiring “knowledge workers”, people who must think on their feet, solve problems and contribute ideas and innovation to your organization. They may not be as useful if you are hiring someone for a job that requires little skill, training, or experience.

Tip #1

Know what superpowers you are looking for. Don’t get hung up on quantitative qualifications, like a computer science degree or years of work experience. It is good to know if they have such a degree or experience but disqualifying someone based on such criteria means you may miss some of the best talent. Superheroes are often outliers with unusual backgrounds or late bloomers who found their superpower after studying or doing something less suited to them.

Tip #2

Use your superpowers to get them talking. Start out casual and friendly and try to make them comfortable. An interview is like a first date. It can be awkward and uncomfortable, especially if the candidate is nervous or inexperienced at interviewing. Show an interest in them. You might want to tell them what is was you found interesting or appealing about their resume that prompted the invite for an interview.

Every superhero has a villain. Don’t be the villain. Do not make the candidate feel like you are skeptical about their skills or experience or they should feel privileged to get an interview. Don’t scare them off by intimidation or by assuming they are desperate to come to work for you. Find the right balance between making them feel like you are desperate to hire someone or overwhelmed with so many qualified candidates they probably don’t stand a chance.

Tip #3

Look for red flags. You want to qualify/disqualify a candidate as quickly as possible. Fail fast. If there are absolute must-have skills or experience for consideration for the job and there are some questions, based on the resume, go right after this and make sure they are qualified. If they are not qualified, end the interview quickly but gently. Be truthful. Tell them why they aren’t qualified.

I use the same strategy if something surprising comes up during the interview that you know immediately disqualifies a candidate. They may reveal something, because you made them comfortable and they are speaking freely, that makes them unqualified or less qualified than other candidates. If you know you aren’t going to hire them, cut them loose. Again, be gentle but don’t drag an interview on and give the candidate false hope.

Tip #4

Find their superpower. This is the hard one. You can ask them straight out, “what is your superpower?”. I’ve done this and found the results of the direct question are unpredictable. Some people can give you a quick and useful answer. Others will dance around the question for several minutes trying to figure out what the best answer is for you, not the correct answer for themselves. If you have time to play therapist and really work someone through this question, it can be a fun and useful exploration. You will learn a lot about the person through the conversation, although it may not get you to a true understanding of what their superpower is. Odds are, if they don’t know, and you can’t quickly help them figure out what it is, they are not actively using their superpower, which probably means it isn’t well developed.

You may want to take a less direct approach and use exploratory questions, like “describe an assignment you had that really brought out your best effort or showcased your talent”.  You may have to probe for a story that is more relatable to the type of assignments you will likely give to the person you hire. Sometimes you find out that the person could be great for a different position than the one they applied for and you need to explore their interest in that other role.

It is really important to let this part of the interview flow naturally. Don’t force the conversation, or stick tightly to some script you have. You want to understand how this person approaches problems, learns new skills, interacts with other people, deals with adversity, and applies creativity to their work. How are their superpowers evidenced in work they do?

You also want to catch at least a glimpse of what motivates them. You are looking for intrinsic motivators: things that inspire them, or give them pleasure in their work. In general, they say people are more motivated by gaining knowledge or expertise and a sense of accomplishment, than by money or other external motivators. Try to find out what accomplishments they are proud of and what type of company they would take pride in working for. Just getting them to articulate such things can also reveal how sincere they are.

Tip #5

Leave enough time for them to ask questions. I like to ask a candidate, at the end of an interview, if there is anything they wanted to tell me about themselves or why I should hire them that hasn’t come out in the conversation. If they start repeating stuff you’ve already covered, jump in and get them back on track so you can wrap up.

A good candidate will ask what the next steps are. Be honest. Even if they don’t ask, I believe it is best for all if you tell the candidate whether they are still in the running for the job they applied for.

After conducting an interview, review your notes and immediately write down your thoughts and observations. Why did you like them? Why didn’t you like them? What red flags were raised. If the red flags weren’t strong enough to disqualify them, how can you explore your concerns further in the next steps or interviews.

Assess your own performance in the interview. This is how you develop your interviewing superpower. Did you listen well? Did you ask good probing questions? Did you let them down gently and professionally if they were disqualified? This stuff isn’t easy but it is so important that you get good at it if you are going to hire and retain superheroes.

I hope my tips are helpful or thought provoking for you. I’ve also written an article that approaches interviewing and talking about superpowers from the perspective of the candidate. You can check that article out here.

Again, I’m not an expert. Comments and good advice from others to add to this discussion are welcome.