No Salt

Never put salt in your food before you have tasted it. That is the lesson conveyed to me by a senior executive over lunch a few years ago. It took me going back to the job market and scoring a few interviews for it finally to sink in.

That piece of wisdom comes from a story that goes somewhat like this: "This R&D Company was looking for researchers. So after initial triage, they took all the candidates out for lunch and observed them. Those who put salt on their food before tasting it got immediately disqualified, as they are not curious for trying different things."

I know better than to call out a senior stakeholder laughing out pleased with himself. Still, I also have that thing in me that has to say something: "I don't know, doesn't that oversimplify the thought process of someone that you are essentially contracting to be smarter than the recruiter setting up those rules?" Maybe I don't know that much better.

Of course, I eventually stepped back and let him have it, but that thing never sat well with me for a few reasons.

First and foremost, when contracting someone to do "brain-work" of whatever sort, playing coy with them from the start seems like setting up the wrong environment from the get-go. I understand that there is this expectation that people will not be forthcoming when their interests are in the line, but psychological games are dangerous territory. Also, if there is a trust issue, why to even consider that person as a candidate at all?

At the time, I decided not to make that argument because I believed it to be such a given with people that no criticism would ever make a dent. So I led with the second point: If they are contracting people to use their minds to their advantage, how can they assume to outsmart the candidates like that? Maybe those candidates see the circumstance as a more complex scenario that the interviewer perceives, or perhaps they researched the place. Perhaps that's a characteristic behaviour they have when nervous, or maybe they are doing it on purpose to demonstrate decisiveness.

In my mind, it boils down to an egocentric idea that one person's intellect can dissect another's and find the markers of the skills and personalities targeted. Not that this is a phenomenon particular to job interviews, we all do it in our day-to-day. We look into our own experiences where we identify specific characteristics and project those in others, driving much of our relationships. Except that we pay a social cost for being wrong in our personal lives, while in the short interaction of an interview process, the relationship never has a chance to mature.

I left my long term employer just before COVID, which meant staying home for the whole of 2020, and only really engaging with interviews for a new role around April 2021. This last period was an eye-opening experience, as I got to live the part of "the person under evaluation". My profession's particularity requires someone strong with management and relationship and very proficient technically, which means I need to demonstrate both extremes.

Like most people, I can usually tell when a conversation went well or when it did not, for whatever reason. Still, I found myself puzzled about how many times I interviewed for technically similar roles, and I would either get feedback saying: "Very senior, but not technical enough." Or "Solid technical knowledge, but we need someone more senior." While during the interview, I could see no sign of whether either was a concern from the interviewer. That's when it stroke me: I'm putting the salt at the wrong time.

Years ago, that senior manager told me how the job market predominantly chooses candidates, not through intelligent and open conversations but subterfuges and profiling. Borrowing a principle of measurement devised by industrialisation for an entirely different purpose.

To be clear, measurement is not the issue. As a STEM professional, I cannot overstate the importance of it. Still, the means used to translate abstract and subjective concepts into objective ratings that can be measured is questionable at best. Which means the whole process might be not only ineffective but detrimental to its purpose.

Maybe the "Information Era" needs its own breakthrough on managing intelligence, as the "Industrial Era" developed the measurement principles we now use for everything.

It took the "Industrial Revolution" roughly two centuries to become what we recognise today and create a culture that permeates all our business environments. I have seen a few analyses that make the case that today's world changes about ten times faster. If that estimation is correct, we are on the brink of change, and the people embracing the "Information Revolution" now are the visionaries that will lead us into this future.

That assumption seems to hold some truth when I consider the times I have been interviewed by people who embraced having the most open conversations and started the engagement from a position of trust. They invariably are senior executives with brilliant careers who clearly know what they are after.

Also, I am a Brazilian living in the UK. The food always needs more salt here.

#peopleandculture #interviewing #seniorleaders