Self-awareness

We are assessing you on it in an interview.

Many a times, I am asked this question by professionals I interview, that is it the psychologist in me that makes me spend as much time on person’s behavior & self-awareness assessment as on technical/functional skills, or is it an usual interview step in my organisation. I thought I will share my answer with a larger audience. Because the question is much valid.

The answer is both of the above.

In today’s world of technology, data analytics, AI and ML the ‘differentiating lever’ for a professional is rapidly moving from mere intelligence, process-orientation and operational excellence to meaningfulness that your right-brain adds to the matter from your instinct, rhythm, perceptiveness, visualization and qualitative context. The right brain works together with logic and reasoning of the left brain in a beautiful synergy to create each person’s unique attributes. Being aware of that ‘self’ is good wisdom, that we call self-awareness. In the space of cognitive psychology it is said that, it's not an all or nothing phenomenon, but recognizing one's own face appears to be a preferential ability of the right hemisphere.

So during an interview, and especially at mid-management layer, when I ask a potential employee, “what are the situational trigger at work place that ticks you off?”. The mere degree of response opens up insight into how a professional handles oneself in various work situations. I have received variations of answer to this one question.

• “nothing much really, I am pretty much in control most of the time” (Or are you tad less passionate and involved in your projects. Or do you have a blind spot that you do loose it sometimes)
• “tight deadlines, constant nudging by supervisor on deliverable derails me. I need my own pace” (a linear person, not to be put on a project management or in an agile product development role where sprints are shorter and evolving faster. Would be great for maintenance role though, driven by SOPs)
• “a meeting where only one person talks and everyone listens & people are not encouraged to participate” (is someone who likes to be structured, meticulous, works on goals and agendas and has confidence to put across a point in a group set-up. Wouldn’t work well with a dominating manager, neither with a talkative manager)
• “one-on-one meetings and feedback sessions, irrespective of the matter” (interesting insight into oneself. Is it due to low self-confidence or self-doubt. Would this person be right for a project lead role?) 

Of course, such question lead to deeper dialogue to do justice to a generalized understanding of a professional. It then leads to an obvious next question, “how do you deal with such situations knowing that it tests you.” Degree of self-awareness again plays an important role here in a process called, self-moderation. It helps you get the best out of the situation. There are no right or wrong answer to such questions, neither such are solely the deciding factor of whether one gets the job or not. However, knowing interviewee's level of self-awareness certainly ensures a conscientious decision in an interview process.

The point is, as interviewer we are able to make right decisions and position a person in the right role (person-role fitment), when the person demonstrates fair degree of self-awareness given other qualifiers for the role are good. Selecting a right candidate for the right job, unlike the way it is understood, is not just interviewer’s responsibility. It is also candidate’s responsibility to allow the interviewer to understand oneself in a most candid and open manner.

Self-awareness in general makes us a deeper, more confident person. While knowing and accepting one’s strength is empowering; knowing and accepting one’s vulnerability is not a sign of weakness. We really do not need to turn our back to it. If there are blind spots and others bring it to us, give it a hearing at least. It opens up a completely different level of maturity in leading our everyday life. As we grow (read age), we become less frantic about knowing and accepting our vulnerable ‘being’ anyways. But younger we start, better we live.

Ironically, I do meet a lot of candidates who try and give socially-desirable answers to my questions. To my surprise the most popular reply at the mid-level interviews to the question earlier in the article is the first one on the list. And that’s when my job as an interviewer challenges me. I need to pull out more tools from my bucket to run my assessment.

What tools…let me keep that one for my next write-up.