Interviewing Uncensored: Pink Unicorns versus the Status Quo

In over fifteen years of HR work I conducted and supervised thousands of interviews, coached candidates in preparation and trained hiring teams, not to mention I was interviewed myself. It's time to share some best and uncover some not-so-best practices.

1. Overtraining

Oxford says that literacy is the ability to read and write. In our current varied and multifaceted world such notion would be a painful simplicity. Common literacy includes many other parts of knowledge and behaviour. Proficiency with computers and mobile gadgets, speaking more than one language, the ability to run presentations and work with media now inhabit the sphere of common literacy, as do many other abilities. 

Job Search skillset is also a form of literacy. Various materials on resume writing, interviewing, and negotiation abound. They come in all manner, shape and form, for free and at cost. Today a job seeker is all but obliged to elevate their job search skills with the use of these resources. 

My experience interviewing shows how it can backfire on both parties – seekers and employers. Incidence of this phenomena has gained in occurrence over last few years with the rise in availability and dissemination of job search educational resources. 

Candidates come for interviews so overtrained and overstuffed with this knowledge that they express all but themselves. It takes effort to extract the true person behind curtains of additional behaviours adopted through extensive job search preparation. 

It is a problem for both sides. Traditional interviewing techniques and an inability to see deeper means employers are overlooking real talent. It often feels as though a candidate came for the interview, but only physically. If we, as interviewers, intend to bring the true person behind the candidate afore, we may have to break the interview patterns. It takes effort – to see the potential and to be able to invoke it through the course of conversation. 

Preparation for interviews is essential. My suggestions to a candidate would be to engage in preparation but if your brain cannot absorb absolutely everything then drop this excess and show up as yourself. A top marketing mind once said to me – nothing sells stronger than authenticity. By being yourself, rather than wearing the ‘interviewing skillset’ armor, you favor the odds of getting that unique job which is only there for YOU.

2. Closed Box

The other form of coming for an interview, but not actually showing up is the sense of a psychological barrier. The interview is also a little testing ground to gauge having the interviewee as a part of the team – for both parties. When you show up for real you do face real feelings, indeed you can expect a certain amount of vulnerability.  

Have you ever noticed that after some interviews teams are not able to make decisions? No matter the rigor with which a candidate was questioned, they field with a such abstract presence as to undermine the confidence of an interviewer in making any concrete judgment over their candidacy. It’s possible the candidate did not open up – nobody on the team could identify who they were dealing with. 

I have a saying ‘if the box didn’t open – its contents didn’t matter.’ I coach my hiring teams on helping candidates to open up so they can be better understood. This is because an interview is a sample of how it will feel when they come on board. Some people need a little push, some encouragement and positive feedback, some break the interview pattern so it does not feel like an interview. We were able to hire many more people with this strategy as we had a chance to see them at a deeper level than old school methods would allow. 

3.  Confidence…

…is a double-edged sword. I have seen a legion of candidates show up lacking confidence when they have every reason to be absolutely sure in their experiences. I have also seen people with such lucid confidence that it felt intimidating to share a room with them. 

To carve a finer point: Confidence can be perceived as assertiveness or aggressiveness. Cultural differences make it very difficult to discern the line between the two. 

On the low confidence side, I’ve seen countless poor souls begin an interview already defeated. They’ve shown up to prove to me that they are not worth the job because they’d already defeated themselves before the interview even began. Even my efforts to help them help themselves prove an exercise in futility. When a candidate is not assertive enough interviewers doubt their capability to complete assigned tasks.

To paraphrase Henry Ford: If you think you cannot get that job – you are right; if you think you can get that job – you are right!

If a candidate is over-assertive, over-confident or downright aggressive then the hiring team is likely to question their teamwork and collaboration skills. 

Even outside the interview scenario everyone benefits an awareness of where they stand in the confidence – assertiveness – aggressiveness spectrum.

The same applies for interviewers – a great talent may be missed if interviewers are not able to see through cultural differences and their own bias of what ‘confident’ is. 

4. Anything can be learned / coached

A single interview cannot be grounds for the definite decision of a candidate and their performance. I have seen too many job seekers beat themselves up after a single poor performance. The interview is a steppingstone, learn what you can and move forward. Interviews fall on bad days, it happens. If it happened to you, then it is time for self-care, not for self-beratement. And remember, feedback is always there, you just need to reach out for it and tweak per necessary after every interview. 

On the interviewers side I have seen a lot of cases of labeling and bias and following inflexibility. Far too many occasions have presented an individual losing consideration for other roles where they could possibly be a better fit. Some were not considered a second time for the same role after progressing in their career because their first interview faired poorly. Allow people second chances as they may have learned what was missing the first time; the business itself is likely to have also changed. 

I have taught my hiring teams to assess the ‘coaching-ability’ or ‘training-ability’ of a candidate during debriefing after interviews. If a candidate is lacking certain skillset, we assess whether they can learn it and how fast this can happen. The hiring team can then decide if it is worth their effort. This way we were very successful to identify not only established talent, but also progressive and very promising candidates, who, with minor investment, became excellent additions to the company. 

5. Stress vs. Creativity

A large 2002 study showed significant negative correlation between stress and creativity states of the brain. Simply speaking, you can be stressed or creative, you cannot be both. When children grow in stressful environments they have difficulties learning. 

The interview is an assessment situation, any assessment situation presents stress. By default, it already has a certain underlying amount of stress that consumes brain resources and limits creativity. When we have a stressed candidate on one side of the table and a stressed interviewer on the other, what can go wrong? Practically anything. Here’s a secret for job seekers – hiring teams are also tense.

You want to pass an interview successfully? Find a way to relax and consciously focus on the learning, not on the assessment part. The ‘learning’ attitude will take everybody further. Entertain an attitude of curiosity about the company.

You want to hire creative people? Find ways to relax the interview situation and make it more of a conversation than an assessment. Entertain an attitude of curiosity about the candidate.

When you put efforts into having a more creativity-targeted interviewing style the benefits will be huge; you’ll get to see more of the candidate’s real personality, you’ll determine how they might operate as a part of the team, the decision-making process gets easier, there are more chances to highlight the person in multiple roles beyond merely the interviewee in front of everybody.

I coach all my teams to make sure every candidate leaves their interview in high spirits, everybody should be thanked for their time, offered feedback, and communicated the timeline for the follow up. We are all human and a job seeker is somebody who experiences rejection significantly more acceptance. An interview is just an episode, make sure your guests leave the boardroom on a good note. Candidates will move on with their lives, if you cannot add happiness to it, at least avoid damage – be nice. 

6. Agenda

Yes, an agenda is required, it must be flexible enough, but it has to be there. More specifically – both parties need an agenda, just in case one came unprepared.

It helps to relax the atmosphere when an agenda is presented at the beginning of an interview. It can be very simple; who is asking questions at what part of the meeting and what is the focus of the questions? It helps to connect with the person and allows a little time for everybody to settle into the environment. Think of eye contact, body language and set a common mental frame for this encounter.

If it is not a panel interviewing, but a one-on-one series, then each interviewer can very briefly follow up on the previous conversation, maintain the present and prepare the future.

Important note: An agenda does not have to be followed after being announced! Yay! For both ends of this process: Do what you need to do to get the best out of this interview through its process, even if it means severe digression. Yet, when we play out major points of the agenda, it keeps the meeting in a predictable flow and adds comfort. 

7. Preparation 

I have seen unprepared candidates. Plenty. Yet, I must declare that unprepared interviewers are a bigger problem at times. A resume unread, a meeting room not booked, questions not built, decision-making grounds not established. In my professional view it strikes at an organization’s reputation. Candidates will judge you too. How you as a business do this you do everything. For job seekers who end up in a situation like that, take management of the circumstances under your control; speak about your strengths and about the role, this will work in your favor. 

Unprepared candidates ultimately communicate their disinterest in the role. A few minimal items for preparation include:

·      Job Description / Resume – read it

·      Information about the company – read the About page of their website and Wikipedia page if available

·      Financial data about the company – high or detailed level (what is more appropriate to the role)

·      Latest largest news about the company – what are the positive, are there any negative?

·      Geographical presence of the business and whether the role is global

·      LinkedIn profile of the person/s who will be interviewing

·      Any technical preparation if necessary (ex. Coding, case studies, simulations)

8. Deadly assumptions of the first interview

Try as we might, nowadays we’re not likely to find a hiring process consisting of one interview. I’ve seen so many treat their first interview with the utmost priority and the proceeding interviews with an assumption that they’ve been hired. Until there are signatures on the offer there are no guarantees. 

Job Seekers, please treat EVERY interview as the first one, even if it is the sixteenth and you are fully familiar with every floor in the building. 

Should a candidate appear to take subsequent interviews for granted, it will be interpreted as entitlement or arrogance. From this single aspect of the interview process I have seen less qualified candidates chosen over those more qualified. If you are less qualified, you’ll need to compete harder rather than taking any success for granted. 

Yet a deadlier assumption comes from the interviewers. If a candidate passes the first (usually the longest) interview, every next interviewer assumes said candidate has been greenlit! Every subsequent interviewer engages less and less in due diligence of the candidacy as they rely on the previous interviewers. This pattern takes the most ridiculous form when a candidate is presented by an external agency – every subsequent interviewer may fall into the dangerous assumption that the recruitment agency checked every box! Approximately 6-8 months later that new employee is laid off as ‘not the right fit’ where the ‘fit’ was not checked in the first place. Dare I mention how much money the business spent on all the subsequent hiring and onboarding?

Talent seekers – treat every interview as the first one, do your due diligence, you are cutting costs for the business and saving a lot of time for everybody. 

9. Decision making

This item applies to hiring teams and not job seekers.

Indecisiveness

If candidates had to go through 16 interviews and nobody on your side made a final decision – something is broken: Nobody keeps anybody accountable; there is no benchmark or check list for cross-referencing candidates; interviewers are failing to provide feedback immediately after the interview and later they cannot clearly recall their impressions, etc. It is remarkable how easyly these items can be fixed, but it’s excruciating how rarely they do. 

Wasting time

Companies spend incredible amounts of time interviewing. Seriously. I would love to run the following experiment: Hire a cost estimator and analyze ten hiring processes within one year for one company. I suspect the waste on cost would be at least a quarter. Employers need to do a better job exhausting internal candidates before they go external. There is often no need to interview external candidates because they are rich in their own workforce. This is also respectful to external job seekers who won’t need to spend their time chasing dead-end vacancies. 

Embracing a candidate

When interviewers come prepared and embrace a candidate, rather than search for a pink unicorn, they get a chance to assess what value a candidate can bring. This sets the stage for both honest, substantive feedback and positive employment relationships. How interviewers approach dialogue with candidates shows whether they are open to recognizing potential for change or reinforcing the status quo. Pink Unicorns are often the people who challenge the status quo the most. 

In conclusion

I would like to see less cumbersome and overwhelming job/candidate search processes for both parties. I would like to see creative people and creation manifest, not poor interviewing techniques and stressed candidates.

We never know where we shall meet again, or at which side of the interviewing table we shall sit, so keep it professional at all times. 

Katerina