The Road to Character: Eulogy Virtues?vs Resume?Virtues

If you are a career minded person and have an interview in your future, you might want to pay heed to the advice I am giving hiring managers. 

In David Brooks' book, The Road to Character, he writes about resume virtues vs eulogy virtues. He defines them this way,

"The resume virtues are the ones you list on your resume, the skills that you bring to the job market and that contribute to external success. The eulogy virtues are deeper. They're the virtues that get talked about at your funeral, the ones that exist at the core of your being--whether you are kind, brave, honest or faithful; what kind of relationships you formed." 

His point is that eulogy virtues are what make the difference in the long run. And guess what? People with great eulogy virtues make the best employees. 

 I am a recruiter and a staffing professional. I have adapted Mr. Brooks' ideas about eulogy virtues into my interview questions. And here is why.

Sure the first thing I want to know is if this candidate has the resume virtues to do the job? These are, as Lou Adler in his book Hiring & Getting Hired calls them, the things you need on "day one" to survive the job. 

But as research indicates and study after study has shown, most terminations, whether the employee is terminated or quits, are for behavioral reasons and cultural fit...not performance. We know from Daniel Goleman's writings that a person’s emotional quotient (EQ) is a better predictor of success than their IQ. So, if the reason for separation is not for performance then I must believe we do a pretty good job hiring for resume virtues and not eulogy virtues. 

So how do we improve our assessing the eulogy virtues in the hiring process?

 For me it's a two part process. One part is to check references. Find fellow employees the candidate has worked for or with and ask them the EQ type questions. For example. What were they like to work with? How did they work with others? Do they collaborate well? What role did they play in a team environment? How do they handle pressure? What are their listening skills like?  How do they make decisions?

The other part is to do behavioral interviews. Behavioral interviews are full of sentences like this: "Tell me about a time when things were not going well." "Tell me about a time when you had to bring a team together to address an issue." "Tell me how you would solve a problem like this."

I have sat in many interviews with other hiring managers where they spent entire time validating the resume virtues and spent little if any time assessing the eulogy virtues. Afterwards they will make comments like, "He seems like a nice guy." As if that seals the deal.

Show me, don’t tell me. 

When I ask a candidate to tell me about their biggest accomplishment (you might call it a performance based question), what I am really trying to do is get them to show me how they used their EQ to do it.  Did their accomplishment require them to bring a team together? To what level did it require them to communicate, negotiate, collaborate, and cooperate with others? Did it require them to build a coalition? To what level did they understand and anticipate the problem or, their customer and/or employees needs and how well did they respond? What decisions did they make and what informed their decisions? 

As the hiring decision maker, you want to understand the candidate's past behavior. Past behavior is an excellent predictor of future performance. 

 My advice to the candidate.

When preparing for an interview think in terms of showing not telling. Think of your biggest achievement and don't leave the interview without showing that story. Telling the interviewer you are emphatic and a problem solver does not work as well as showing your story in terms of how your eulogy virtues played a role. When you express how you interacted with others and you are able to demonstrate the results in real numbers, now that is a knock them dead interview. 

Sure, the skill sets, knowledge, and experience are important. But these are easy to articulate and evaluate. Defining your character traits, what really matters, takes some commitment and self reflection on your part. If you want the hiring manager to know who you are and what you are capable of, you must know yourself.