Interview with the hiring manager?What can the interview tell you about your future manager?

*opinion piece

"There are things that are not meant to be talked about but meant to be done [...]. Practice what you preach, or better yet practice without preaching" - Vladimir Jankélévitch

Your manager can make or break your experience in a role. They can make that experience engaging, by creating the context for you to have your biggest victories, or they can make your experience miserable & disengaging, burning you out, and making it the biggest fail in your career. 

The interview with the hiring manager is a better predictor of how that person will be as your manager than how you will perform in your role. 

We all have strengths and weaknesses. The manager is no different. The main idea is to see whether the characteristics of your future manager are compatible with you and if their management style is not in stark contrast with how you prefer to be managed.

For example, in my case, I can easily tolerate a laissez faire style of leadership or even a chaotic one, I can tolerate a leader that does not know how to motivate me or engage me (as I know how to do that for myself), I am ok with perfectionistic leaders, but what really pushes my buttons is if the leader easily judges me as a person or uses shame to drive my performance.

We all have our buttons, things that are highly sensitive for us that are linked to core values. It is a torture to work with someone who pushes those buttons. Choose wisely!

How is the interview predictable for leadership style?

You get to know a person in two meaningful circumstances:

The waiter rule: “You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.”—Malcolm S. Forbes.

The power rule: “Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity; but if you wish to know what a man really is give him power. This is the supreme test.” - Robert G. Ingersoll

An interview is an interaction between two parties with differences in the power. Someone decides if another someone is good enough for a role (the power rule). At the same time in the interview experience you cannot do anything for the hiring manager (the waiter rule) - you have potential in that setting. 

The interview is a great simulation for leadership. The hiring manager leads your performance and creates an experience while being invested with the power to decide your future.  

In the interview you are in a performance situation. The job interview performance. How is the hiring manager leading that experience for you? The simplest question you can ask is this:

“Is the hiring manager creating the context and offering the support for me to give the best performance I can give in this interview?”

This is not about being selected or passing the interview and getting an offer, it is not about special treatment, nor about a comparison with the other candidates. This is just about your experience. After the interview, without knowing the decision, do you feel you had your best possible interview performance? Were you enabled to bring your best self and best performance in the interview?

The answer to this question might predict how your experience will be on the role. Will you be enabled to bring your best performance in that role?

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Here are a few examples of possible predictions based on how the hiring manager is in the interview:

- Did you feel like the interview was about catching you to see how you do not measure-up, with no focus on your strengths? Most likely this will be visible in how you are managed after. It is possible that the feedback you will receive will mostly be about negative traits and radio silence about what you did right.

- Did you notice the hiring manager display disgust when they didn't like something? Disgust is very hard to hide on our face so it is easy to see. This can predict how the manager might give negative feedback and what is their motivation style. If you see disgust it is most likely that their technique is about shaming (“you should’ve …”; “you aren’t …. enough”)

- Did you feel you needed to tip-toe around their reactions? This might predict a "mine-field" type of experience on your role where things explode but you cannot know ahead of time from where.

-Did you have highly ambiguous questions? This might be a predictor of what I call the “mysterious” type of leadership, where there is a constant effort to guess what the manager wants, nothing is clear, nothing is stated. 

- Did you feel that the interview was about impressing the hiring manager? Did the manager had a laid back, passive attitude, no follow-up questions? I call this the “demanding” type. This can tell you about the type of relationship you might have and what will be your role. This type of interviewing can tell you that you are there to serve them, you work for them, your job is to be what they need. It might signal authoritarian style, "narcissistic" style but also the “kiss up kick down” style of leadership. 

- Did you feel if you got it-fine, if you didn’t-bad luck? Did you feel there was no support or guidance during the interview? This is not about having your hand held, it is about common sense support, like eye contact, engagement in the interview, reactions to what you say (like nodding, or confirming), following-up, and building on what you say. If you are on your own during the interview there are high chances that you will be on your own after. If you are performing- fine, if not - you’re on your own. 

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Predictions on the three core leadership competencies:

Let’s look at the leadership skills and how they can be present during the interview. The leader needs to have three categories of behaviors to be an effective leader for you:

1. awareness of self and the other;
2. creating safety and building trust;
3. creating engagement and supporting growth.

All three categories can be demonstrated during the interview. 

 Did you feel you had the manager's attention?

This skill is about being able to stay present and connected to the present reality. It is about the leader’s ability to not be hijacked, overwhelmed or disconnected by personal beliefs or emotional reactions. 

It is when the leader is aware of what they really say and what they really do and at the same time are aware of what you say and what you do while putting aside personal biases, judgements, prejudices, preferences.

What to look at?

You can see this is the interview based on how present the hiring manager is in the interview. Do you feel you have their whole attention? What kind of attention are you getting? 

You can see this by how aware are of their words, actions and reactions. Do you feel the hiring manager is aware of what they say? Are they aware of how they feel and how it impacts them? Do you see them not making assumptions and interpretations about you? 

Do they ask clarifying questions to make sure they understand what you mean? Do they formulate their questions specifically? Do you know what they are asking about or do you feel the questions are ambiguous? Are they clear about what they are assessing and how? Do they state explicitly what they want to assess you on during the interview? Do they tell you explicitly if you answered their question? Do they stop you when they see that you don’t answer their question?

***You can also ask them to describe their leadership style. You can compare what they say with how they act in the interview. For example, if they say that they are focused on coaching you and offering you support, did you see that in their behavior towards you during the interview? Actions speak louder than words.

What can you infer about the presence of this skill? 

If the manager demonstrates this skills during the interview there is a very high possibility you will see it in reality. You will most probably have clearly stated expectations (in formal objectives or day to day), you will be able to get a clear description of the desired performance and the criterias on which your performance will be assessed, the manager will probably be able to state explicitly the feedback with clear examples. You will probably not have miscommunication or misunderstandings, you will not be expected to read their minds. If the manager pays attention to you than it is more likely that you will have a personalized approach to your performance or development needs.

If you see that they are aware of themselves, of how they act and react, most probably you will see improvements in their actions and strategies in time, maybe hear apologies when it’s the case. 

If they are aware it is very likely that you will see less unexpected emotional outbursts or prejudices about yourself. You will see less haste to judgement and labeling of your character. 

Did you feel safe to express yourself during the interview?

Psychological safety is crucial for engagement and performance in a role, as only when we feel safe we can bring our whole selves and our best selves into what we and only when we feel safe we can engage and care about what we do. The skill to create safety means that the leader is able to notice early if someone is not safe in a situation and is able to intervene to create the safety needed for self-expression. 

What to look for?

Did you feel safe during the interview? Did the hiring manager create a safe environment for you to be able to find the relevant answers? Did you feel safe to be transparent and authentic? Did you feel respected as a person? We might not be able to pinpoint exactly what made us feel unsafe but we can see the signs we’re not. We have a whole nervous system that is remarkably able to detect cues of threat, we call it the gut feeling. 

What can you infer about the presence of this skill? 

How safe we feel during an interview is dependent a lot on how we approach that interview, but it also depends on how the manager handles your ques for lack of safety. The interview is a high stakes situation where results depend on how you perform, just like working in the real context. How the hiring manager creates safety and how they handle what stresses you during the interview can be a predictor of how they will handle high stakes situations on the job. Did they ignore your stress signals? Did they notice what stressed you? Did they do things to help you relax and feel safe (like provide reassurance, provide feedback on how you were performing during the interview, connect with you as a person, smile, show warmth)?

Did you feel you can trust working with them?

Building trust is crucial in leadership, because we only allow influence from people we trust. Building trust means the manager really knows who they are (no delusions) and are able to make themselves known (transparent and authentic). We trust people who walk their talk. Being trustworthy directly impacts how we collaborate with others, what kind of collaboration we use (collaborating; using people; manipulating; constraining; being submissive)

What to look for? What could it predict?

How was the interview? Did you feel you both collaborated to create the most relevant interview experience for both of you?

The first thing that shows this is pre-interview preparation, from both sides. Did the hiring manager attentively read your application? Did they look at your L-in profile or portfolio? Did they expect you to know about the role and the company? Did they meet those expectations in their preparation for the interview?

Did you feel the interview was one sided? Did you have equal time to ask your questions or had any time at all? Did it feel like you were the only one who needed to make a good impression and sell your skills and expertise? Did you feel that the person interviewing you waited for you to deliver and did not deliver the same involvement or the same input as you? Did you feel like the interaction was about collaboration, where both of the experiences and impressions were equally important and equally supported?

The way the collaboration happened during the interview might be a strong predictor of how it will be after the interview. Did you find you were treated like an adult? How were the different perspectives or even disagreements handled? Was there equilibrium in the interaction? Was it more about you or more about them? Whose needs mattered most? How were they balanced? Did they lead the interview? What style did they use when leading the interview? 

Did you feel they cared about you and your experience during the interview?

One of the crucial things in leadership is about caring. People follow and allow influence from leaders they know care about them.

What to look for? What could it predict?

Did you feel that during the interview the hiring manager cared about you? Did you feel they cared about your experience in the interview? Did they care to know you? Did they care to understand and get to know you professionally?

If a manager does not care about your experience during recruitment, it is very likely they won’t care about it after you get the job. This allows for easier “throwing under the bus”, no representation above (I want to give you a raise but the big bad management does not), no care for what is important for you (skill, career path, pain points, etc).

Care is one of the hardest things to fake. There is a great expression of this in an article I love: “No certification, course or book can teach you how to emulate authentic care.”. Care increases in a relationship but when being invested with a leadership role caring is step one.

Engagement building skills are about being able to get to know the person in front of them, taking the time to do it, getting to know what about the job experience might be meaningful or absorbing for them, being able to relay that back to the person. 

Supporting growth is about being able to notice where support is needed, what kind of support is needed, and being able to offer that support is crucial for the employee's experience to yield professional victories. 

What to look for? What could it predict?

How did the hiring manager talked about the interview? Did they describe how the interview will go from the beginning? Did they tell you what is the rest of the selection process like?

Did they ask what kind of support you need to be able to have your best interview?

Did you feel they tried to motivate you for the role?

How did they talk about the role? How did they talk about their leadership style? How did they talk about the project? How did they talk about the team?

Did they say anything about these topics? Did they describe how the experience of working on the role/project, with them and the team is, or did they just talk about tasks and salary expectations? Did they talk about how the experience on that role can be absorbing? Did they say how it can be meaningful for you? Did they try to create in you enthusiasm for the role or for the project?

How a manager talks about a role, during the most crucial interaction (when they sell the role) tells you a lot of their motivation style. If they only mentioned salary, most probably this is what you can expect from them. "You have a contract and you get paid, what more motivation do you need?" When they did talk about the role or the project, what did they say? Did they talk only about results? This might mean that their motivational style is transactional - only results matter. How they chose to talk about the role during the interview relays very well how they will engage you after you are on the job. Maybe that is actually the best you will get. I remember a manager I shadowed during the interview, he was so good at creating excitement and engagement for a role, describing the experience people will have and how meaningful the work is, that one of the candidates joked by saying "If I didn't need to pay rent I would do this for free".

Did you feel they care about your professional growth?

This might be the hardest thing to assess during an interview, the methods managers will use to support your professional growth. However, what you can see during the interview is if they take on that leadership responsibility.

How do they support you through the interview? Do they coach you on how to answer and what you can bring to the discussion? When you struggle or you mess something up, how do they react? Do they offer support or are you on your own to save yourself from drowning?

How do they talk about the role? Can they articulate how the challenge and your skills match? Do they bring up during the interview how you will grow in the role? Do they know how skill fitting is the role for you? Do they talk about challenges you will have that will expand your experience and expertise? Do they ask about what is in your plan to develop in the future? Do they ask what are you working on right now in terms of skill development? Do they mention training budget? Do they mention if there are people who you can learn with and from?

If there is no discussion about growth it might as well mean that the attitude is "you are there to deliver". Yes, that is true, but skill-challenge fit, progress, skill development, or skill stretching experiences are crucial for your professional path and for you role satisfaction.

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Gut check: it is possible that in the haste and emotions of the interview you will not be able to literally do an assessment of all these skills. However, after the interview, after you caught your breath, stay for 15 minutes and ask yourself this:

Would I choose for this person to be my manager?

Most probably you will have some situations where the answer will be a "hell yeah!" or a "hell no!", for everything in between list carefully all of the things that would make you say "yes" and all of the things the will make you say "no", and regardless of your decision remember that it was you who decided to enter that relationship. Mitigate for the no's and enjoy the yeses.

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