Use Past Behavior to Predict Performance

It's a great feeling of success when you hire the perfect person for the job. Hire the wrong person, however, and you're haunted with questions about what failed during the interview process. How did you miss the signs that this wasn't a good fit?

Behavioral interviewing is a technique you can use to avoid this scenario. Developed in the 1970s by industrial psychologists for frustrated employers, behavioral interviewing helps you zero in on a candidate's experience, behavior, knowledge, skills and abilities. The theory is that by focusing on particular aspects of a candidate's past behavior and performance, employers can predict how the candidate will behave in future situations on the job.

More traditional interviewing styles rely on the interviewer's gut feelings for final decisions. Whereas traditional interviews are often only general reviews of what appears on a candidate's resume, behavioral interviews help elicit specific details to assess a candidate against a job's success factors — the key skills and abilities that are necessary to perform all aspects of the job. Getting details about how a candidate performs in specific situations lets employers delve beyond the resume chatter into concrete functional and self-management skills. That knowledge levels the playing field for candidates because employers now have a standard set of objective criteria they can apply to all candidates.

Behavioral interviews use a combination of probing questions. These types of questions require the candidate to answer with more than a yes or no response or simply confirm information. Instead, the technique gets candidates to reveal the rationale for decisions and show levels of motivation.

For example, an open-ended question might begin with: "Give me an example of …" or "Describe …" to force the candidate to expand on previous experiences and actions. "Why" questions, such as "Why did you decide to …?" help employers see beyond the action into the reasoning techniques a candidate uses to make decisions.

To use this technique effectively, it's crucial that the interviewers prepare in several ways:

• Have an in-depth understanding of the position. Know the job description intimately, get a grasp on performance standards for the job and create a list of the capabilities and characteristics that top performers exhibit. This list will serve as the criteria that you'll use to evaluate all candidates.
• Develop interview questions that assess whether a candidate possesses specific skills, behaviors, and abilities that are necessary for the job.
• Use the majority of the interview to probe for details that focus on the job's mandatory success factors.
• Assess the candidate against the criteria you've established for job success — not on gut feelings.

These days, more organizations are recognizing the value of behavioral interviewing. If you'd like to learn more, contact Lisa Santangelo at The Connors Group at 201-537-0033 or lisa@theconnorsgroup.com for additional information.