Once upon a time, not very long ago, brain teaser questions seemed to be the thing. After all, Google and Amazon were successful, and they asked brain teaser questions, so companies around the world started asking them, too.
Then Laszlo Bock (no relation), the senior vice president of people operations at Google, told the New York Times that those brain teasers were “a complete waste of time.†Google stopped using them. Now what?
Bock says that “what works well are structured behavioral interviews, where you have a consistent rubric for how you assess people, rather than having each interviewer just make stuff up.” Jamie Winter, who is the Manager of Selection Solutions Group at DDI, agrees, adding the following.
“you can have the greatest interview questions in the world, but if they are not linked back to the job, your interviewers are not properly trained, or there is not a process to integrate all the interview data, then those questions will be no better than Google’s brainteaser questions.”
Companies that are great at hiring develop a process that works for them. Then they follow the process, rigorously and every time.
It’s absolutely important to have a process that helps you make wise decisions about potential hires. It’s vital to have your hiring process tied to what you expect a candidate to really do on the job. It’s necessary that your process reflect your culture so you hire people who are more likely to fit. But there’s one more important thing.
Discipline is the secret ingredient that makes it all work. You need discipline to follow the process in all detail every time. And you need discipline to not settle when the process yields a candidate who doesn’t meet your minimum standards.
A finely honed hiring process is important. But the discipline to follow it rigorously is how you make sure it works for you.
