Joe M., President of a company in Virginia, called me yesterday. His company is doing a lot of recruiting and interviewing, but he said that their successful close rate with the candidates they wanted was too low. H asked if I had any ideas or suggestions. (Smart CEO, he already understood that hiring is akin to selling.)

I asked Joe how good his people were at asking the tough questions. Joe said that he wasn’t sure, but if I wouldn’t mind sharing them with him he would definitely follow up.

I had to laugh, because, as I told Joe, that’s the same question that new hires always asked us old-timers at the recruiting conferences I used to attend. The rookies, with notebooks in hand, were prepared to write down a long list—when, in fact, one sentence covers the subject:A tough question is any question to which you don’t want to hear the answer.

Simply stated, it means asking something that will bring a negative answer when you want a positive one and vice versa—in effect killing the deal.

Here are some sample tough questions and their potentially deal-killing answers:

• Q: Does the project turn you on?
  A: Not particularly.
• Q: Do you feel this is a good career move for you?
  A: Actually, I did something similar two years ago.
• Q: What made you decide to interview with us?
  A: The headhunter said that you you’d take me out for a great lunch.
• Q: Do you like our location?
  A: Well, it’s about an hour from where I live.
• Q: How soon after accepting can you start?
  A: I’m in the middle of a project and would have to finish, and I’d like to take a couple of weeks off—say, about three or four months.
• Q: What kind of compensation package do you want?
  A: Well, I just got a raise, a promotion, and a large stock grant and currently I have six weeks of vacation, and I’d like to improve on that.
  
• Q: Our salary range goes to $80,000.
  A: Oh, I’m currently making 95 and have a review due in a couple of weeks.

The important thing to keep in mind about tough questions is that if the response is going to kill the deal you might as well do it sooner rather than later. It will kill the deal just as quickly after all the interviewing is done and an offer put together, but you will have wasted a lot more time.

Just as important, by getting these problems out in the open, often they can be solved. Your company may have policies in place already or the flexibility to address a certain problem creatively, but this can only happen if you know about it! Further, the discussion itself is valuable. You learn more about a person’s priorities, ethical structure, style, and personality when discussing difficulties, and solving them is the beginning of the bond that is the basis for the most productive relationships.

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 22nd, 2006 at 3:11 pm and is filed under Business info, Communication, Hiring, Retention. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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