Behavioral Interview Training | Effective Interviewing!®

Sep 2018

How to Interview Sales Candidates

Sales candidates often excel at selling themselves, but that doesn't mean they can successfully sell on behalf of your company. Competency-based behavioral interviewing is an important skill every sales manager should master to ensure they hire the right candidate.

Sep 2017

Overcome Unconscious Bias in Job Interviews

Spend enough time in conference rooms — especially in startups — and eventually you’ll hear someone say, “To be successful, you have to know what you don’t know.” While that sounds wonderful, is it possible to know what you don’t know? Actually, where unconscious bias in interviewing is concerned, the answer is yes.

Jun 2017

Tech Hiring Fails Without Behavioral Assessment

Global giants like McDonald's and BMW once seemed invincible. But now, under increasing pressure to stay relevant and ward off competition in the digital age, legacy brands are looking to Silicon Valley for inspiration. As Atif Rafiq, McDonald's former chief technology officer, said in a recent interview, “We think, ‘How would Google do this? How would Amazon do this?’ ”

Feb 2017

Questioning Panel Interviews

Replacing the traditional panel interview with an effective team interview has a lot of advantages.

Oct 2016

Early Social Competencies Lead to Success

A joint project of researchers at Duke and Penn State found that kids who showed specific social competency traits in kindergarten were four times more likely to graduate college and have a full-time job by age 25.

Apr 2016

Our CEO's Tribute to Bill Campbell

Bill Campbell, a person the media labeled as the most influential background player in Silicon Valley, passed away this month at the age of 75.

Jan 2016

Warning: This Article May Be Disturbing

Hiring new college graduates requires some recalibrating of the interview process. Here are some questions to draw upon in your next interview.

Nov 2015

The Fallacy of "Give Me an Example" Questions

If you want to get at the truth about a candidate – any candidate – we caution you against relying on “give me an example” questions.

Jun 2015

Increase Team Performance By 40%

If you don't think a single lazy or incompetent employee can damage an entire organization, think again. Research conducted at several major universities shows that adding just one "bad apple" to a group can drive down performance by 30 to 40 percent.

Mar 2015

The Real Cost of Hiring Mistakes

Some costs of a bad hire are obvious, such as the time and personnel needed to recruit, interview, coach, mentor and develop a replacement. But hidden costs, which don't show up on your profit-and-loss statement, can be far more damaging in the long run.

Feb 2015

Behavioral Interviewing Reinvented

Can a successful, but static business practice gradually lose its effectiveness? In the case of behavioral interview training, a technique that predicts-on-the-job performance far more accurately than other interview training methods, the answer is yes.

Jan 2015

Competency-based Behavioral Interviewing Training

Competency-based behavioral interviewing training is based on the idea that candidates' past and present behavior is the best predictor of how they will behave in the future.

Jan 2015

A Case for Attorney Interviewing Training

Behavioral interviewing training helps attorney interviewers interpret the “how and why” behind a candidate’s answers to their questions. This equips them to predict future performance in those selected to join the firm. Read more articles on the attorney hiring process at Interviewing Training for Lawyers.

Dec 2014

Why Bizarre Interview Questions Go Viral

Brainteaser questions have little value in predicting future performance. In the long run, they may actually discourage top candidates from accepting an offer—the opposite of their intended purpose.

Sep 2014

How Real is the Skills Gap?

Some argue there are currently plenty of qualified individuals in the workforce and that employers routinely overlook top candidates and artificially create a skills gap.

Jun 2014

Google Research Validates Behavioral Interviewing

In a wide-ranging interview that appeared in The New York Times last week, Lazlo Bock, Google’s senior vice president for people operations, praised behavioral interviewing, panned brainteaser questions, and noted that academic accomplishments don't always translate into success.

Mar 2014

Hiring For Competencies

A growing number of top business leaders are endorsing hiring practices similar to our Effective Interviewing!® techniques, which emphasize behavioral qualities over conventional accomplishments.

Dec 2013

Getting Beyond the Resume to Predict Success

Shift focus away from resumes and credentials and learn more about how and why a recent graduate excelled in their studies and relevant activities.

Aug 2013

Competencies for an Evolving World

To make successful hires, organizations should be determining the competencies they need to move into the future.

May 2013

Rutgers Learns Numbers Don't Replace Knowledge

In hiring decisions, a huge number of individuals on a selection committee never replace knowledge and judgment gained from trained interviewers using effective techniques.

Aug 2012

CEO Competencies Needed at Yahoo

After running through six chief executives in five years, struggling web giant Yahoo hired a seventh: Google veteran Marissa Mayer. Although some pundits are betting against Mayer, we think she stands a chance of turning Yahoo around—but only if she was vetted properly.

Jan 2012

Oddball Interview Questions: All Risk, No Reward?

A huge surplus of talented workers and the growing recognition that standard interviewer training techniques don't work very well appears to be spurring the oddball question movement. But do these questions actually achieve what they're supposed to?

Apr 2011

Evaluating Major League Talent

Major League Baseball is currently rolling out a new technology that tracks each player's on-field performance second by second.

Aug 2010

Unfit for Apple

The cultural or organizational fit of a candidate is a critical element in any hiring decision. Let’s look at Mark Papermaster, who left Apple just fifteen months after joining them from IBM.

May 2010

Interviewing Millennials Entering the Workforce

Many employers struggle to adapt to the Millennial generation – which comprise the fastest growing segment of the workforce. Getting to know Millennials better can help you prepare for them in the interview and in the workplace.

Feb 2010

False Credentials for Sale

These days, job seekers intent on gaining any advantage in a tough market don't have to falsify their resumes. They can hire the "experts" at websites such as careerexcuse.com to do it for them.

Sep 2009

YouTube Impacts Behavioral Interviewing

There's been exponential growth in interview coaching services—from outplacement firms to the Internet and most recently to YouTube.

Mar 2009

AIG Talent Management Mockery

What has infuriated most Americans is the $165 million in bonuses paid to the AIG executives who caused the company’s near-collapse. As I see it, AIG isn’t just a financial fiasco; it’s a talent management disaster.

Sep 2008

Interviewing Sarah Palin

Job candidates and political candidates have something in common: they do not like to answer tough questions. One technique they use is to hand a tough question back to the interviewer with a new question of their own.

Aug 2008

NALP Articles and Resources

The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) invited us back for a tenth time to speak at the annual NALP conference on the topic of Millennials.

Dec 2007

25 Years of Interviewer Training

We offer a quick look at some of the greatest changes of the past 25 years and how we've responded to them with our Effective Interviewing!® interviewer training. We also note a few practices and beliefs that we think could use improvement.

Sep 2007

Doing 20% of the Job

Imagine what would happen if corporate methods of assessing candidates were adopted by Olympic judges.

Mar 2007

Helicopter Parents Take Flight

We've been studying selection interviewing practices for 35 years, and we've seen some very strange trends, but it’s hard to top the following: parents are beginning to join their child in their job interviews.

Jan 2007

Addressing the Job Search Marathon

Selecting the right candidate takes time, but if it’s too drawn out, an organization risks losing qualified applicants.

Mar 2006

A Winter’s End to Summers

Larry Summers had superior credentials for the coveted position as Harvard University's president, but his inability to fit in with Harvard's culture illustrates a problem seen all too often when analyzing hiring mistakes in corporate America.

Nov 2005

Uncovering Incompetence

Here are five qualities that interviewers frequently encounter in incompetent candidates: resume fraud, failure to take responsibility/blaming others, evading questions, counter-attack, and a complete lack of the core competencies needed to do a job successfully.

Sep 2005

FEMA Fiasco

We teach techniques to determine a candidate’s authenticity. Among these is carefully screening the resume before any face-to-face behavioral interview.

Jul 2005

Interviewing a Supreme Court Justice

We view the assessment of Judge John Roberts for the next Supreme Court position as falling into two phases - credentials and competencies.

Feb 2005

A $6 Billion First Impression

Your initial reactions to a candidate can be powerful and persuasive, but they can also be spectacularly wrong. Find out how to avoid the pitfalls of snap judgments in an interview and hire effectively.

Mar 2004

Donald Trump and the Ultimate Job Interview

Donald Trump has seven rules of business success that he applies to his show The Apprentice. Our interviewing method is just as successful at revealing problems with prospective job candidates as Trump’s methods.

Apr 2003

Credentials, Competencies, and Common Sense

The March, 2003 scandal at the New York Stock Exchange underscored the importance of defining competencies before you interview a candidate.

Apr 2003

How To Interview and Hire Engineers

What separates top performers from average performers in engineering jobs? The surprising answer is "initiative" as revealed in the Harvard Business Review report on long term research conducted at Bell Labs.

Jan 2003

20 Years of Interviewer Training

Take a look back at the 20–year history of Management Team Consultants, Inc.

Oct 2002

Unconscious Bias in the Hiring Process

After interviewing the interview expert Jim Kennedy, Michelle Martinez explores how to eliminate hidden interviewer bias and make better hiring decisions.

Aug 2002

Defeat Deceit

Worldcom's accounting scandals shook investor confidence and brought down once-mighty companies and individuals. Discover how to potentially avoid a similar scandal by detecting if an individual is unethical during the interview process.

Oct 2001

Coaching Connie Chung

When it comes to interviewing, we can learn from the pros - even if that only means avoiding their mistakes. Connie Chung's highly publicized TV interview with U.S. Representative Gary Condit is a case in point.

Jun 2001

The Flawed Interview Process

Graduate students are spending too much time learning how to take an interview but rarely learn how to conduct one. Look at the problems this presents once those students enter the workforce.

Mar 2001

Does Behavioral Based Interviewing Still Work?

Behavior-based interviewing that relies on give me an example questions is in jeopardy. A number of factors including ongoing talent shortage, increasing diversity, savvy candidates, and declining authenticity threaten the continued effectiveness of this form of interviewing.

Apr 2000

Unfair Advantage

It seems there is no limit to what certain students will do to get ahead. The latest ploy among some college applicants is to claim they need more time to take the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), the primary college entrance exam.

Apr 2000

Top-Tier Firms Turn To Second-Tier Schools

For the first time in nearly a decade, enrollments at the nation's elite business schools - Stanford, M.I.T., Dartmouth, and the University of California, Berkeley - are down, in some cases by as much as 11 percent.

Apr 2000

References: Conspiracy of Silence

Corporate America has its own "conspiracy of silence" when it comes to high-level executives who leave their firms under less than favorable circumstances. Learn techniques for getting a more thorough review of a candidate's past behavior.

Apr 2000

Kiosk Interviews

Some big-name retailers are now using in-store computer kiosks to help attract and retain good workers.

Apr 2000

Building Relationships with Candidates

More and more organizations are building sustainable relationships with target customers. In this talent-scarce market, we think they should also build the same kind of relationships with candidates.

Apr 2000

Team Discussion Fiascos

If you think you've experienced some bad meetings, consider the unorganized discussions of candidates that can sometimes take place at the end of an interview schedule.

Apr 2000

Skill Level: Getting Real

According to a recent study at Cornell University, people who lack certain skills may be more confident of their abilities than highly skilled people.

Apr 2000

Buyer Beware

There is another new trend among young job applicants, according to our high-tech clients. It seems that students called back for in-firm interviews now ask recruiters, "Will I be having any behavioral interviews?"

Apr 2000

Things Don't Always Go Better with Coke

Hiring flawed candidates with the expectation that they will improve once they are on the job can be a big mistake.

Mar 2000

SF Examiner: The Rising Decline of Authenticity

Evidence shows that a growing number of job candidates deliberately mislead potential employers.

Oct 1999

Training Magazine: Invented Lives

Do you ask job candidates to describe real situations they've faced and problems they've solved? Good idea. But what if the stories they'are telling are bogus?

Oct 1999

Blue Chips Fight Back . . . Fast

In an effort to halt the "brain drain" from prestigious consulting firms to obscure startups, traditional consulting firms are resorting to radical new tactics.

Oct 1999

Job Search Revolution

This is our last newsletter of the millennium so we thought it was fitting to take an in-depth look at three trends that are revolutionizing the job search.

Oct 1999

Make Hiring a Priority

In the eighteen years since Management Team Consultants, Inc. was founded, recruitment and hiring practices have changed enormously. Unfortunately, one thing that hasn't changed is senior management's lack of commitment to hiring people the right way.

Jan 1999

Pitfalls of Competency Selection

Selecting competencies can be a problem for people who jump on the "competencies bandwagon" too quickly.

Jan 1999

Skeptical? Ask Yourself These Questions

Suppose you're interviewing a great candidate: top school, top of the class, top references. But suddenly something is said that sets off a few alarm bells, something that seems a little over the top, even for a wunderkind. What do you do now?

Jan 1999

Good News for Reference Checking

Last year Hawaii became the thirty-second state to enact new reference checking laws. The intent of this legislation is to provide immunity to employers who in good faith provide "information or opinion" about former employees.

Jan 1999

Decline of Authenticity

The combination of well-prepared or disingenuous job seekers and inadequate interview procedures has made many employers vulnerable during the entire hiring process.

Jan 1999

Ethics: Another Y2K Problem

USA Today reported that a significantly greater number of teens admit to cheating and lying now than in the past. This make the problem of dishonest candidates much worse.

Jan 1999

Be Prepared for Prepared Candidates

Traditionally, students have been able to find information about prospective employers through their school's Career Placement Office.

Jan 1999

Who Can You Trust?

Deception among job candidates, which can range from misleading statements on resumes to outright lying in interviews, is shockingly widespread.

Jul 1998

Interview Training and the Escalation Game

One of the most consistent trends in interview training is the ongoing need for interviewers to stay ahead of increasingly shrewd and sophisticated candidates.

Jul 1998

Why Stress Interviews Don't Work

There is absolutely no evidence that the ability to deal with a stressful interview situation is an accurate predictor of the ability to deal with job stress. In fact, the opposite may be true.

Jul 1998

Degree or Not Degree

Approximately one out of every 12 applicants, even those who are seeking executive level positions, will claim to have college degrees they do not have.

Jul 1998

Cost of Hiring Mistakes

As salaries for top business people continue to climb into the stratosphere, companies will find themselves paying increasingly high prices for poor hiring decisions.

Jul 1998

Felicity = Duplicity

One of the most talked-about stories in Hollywood these days is an eye-opening example of what can happen when interviewers make unverified assumptions about candidates. It's the saga of Riley Weston, until recently a writer for the teen drama Felicity.

Jul 1998

Credentials Trap

Before you promise a candidate a salary higher than that of some NBA players, consider the case of Craig Spradling, a former associate at a prestigious New York law firm who made $48,000 his first month on the job by illegally trading securities.

Jul 1998

The Rules are Changing

It seems that MBA graduates are getting smarter every year - if not about mergers and derivatives, then at least about the ins and outs of interviewing.

Apr 1998

Taking Guesswork out of Hiring

According to a recent article in The Harvard Business Review, nearly 40% of new management hires fail within the first year. Why the high failure rate? Research suggests, in the majority of cases, the answer lies in a poor fit between new employees and their corporate cultures.

Apr 1998

Competency Madness?

We have been promoting competency-based interviewing skills for so long, we sometimes forget how new and exciting this approach is for some companies. And while we're happy that so many businesses are adopting what we believe is a superior approach to interviewing, we're also disturbed by the extremes to which some organizations have gone.

Apr 1998

Plugging in Information Seekers

We recently heard about a simple interview test one high-tech company uses to separate information seekers from assumption makers. We highly recommend it - it's fair, job related, and effective.

Apr 1998

Wheel of Death

There is no established correlation between a candidate's ability to withstand job stress and the stress of an interview.

Apr 1998

Negligent Hiring: Hire at Your Own Risk

The recent epidemic of work-place issues from harassment to violence has spawned a whole new kind of litigation - criminal prosecution aimed not just at offenders, but at the people who hire them in the first place.

Apr 1998

Credit Checks: Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

Although it seems almost everyone has access to your credit history these days, there are strong legal restrictions on how credit information can be obtained and used in hiring.

Apr 1998

Negligent Non-discloser: No News is Bad News

Suppose you learn that a former employee has threatened a co-worker at his new company. Can you be held liable? The surprising answer is "maybe."

Apr 1998

The "Net Generation" Grows Up

These days, almost everybody in business has their eye on the "Net Generation," the aptly named, computer-savvy young people born after 1978.

Jan 1998

A Second Look at First Impressions

In our seminars, we try to stress how unreliable first impressions can be, and how easy it is to be misled by a single encounter with a candidate.

Jan 1998

Building Ethnic Networks

All candidates bring unspoken questions to an interview, but diverse candidates have unique and specific concerns.

Jan 1998

How We Learn

Experienced trainers know that seminar participants bring varied learning styles to the classroom.

Jan 1998

Online and "Just-in-Time" Interview Training

Online learning is what education should be: a responsive, ongoing process with tools that are available when you need them.

Jan 1998

Interview EDGE Featured as Website of the Month

The leading publication of the executive recruitment industry, Executive Recruiter News, recently chose interviewedge.com as its "Web site of the Month."

Jan 1998

When Bad Things Happen to Good Questions

You're interviewing a candidate who has just moved here from the East Coast. It seems natural enough to ask about the move, but instead of just breaking the ice, your question unleashes a flood of personal information. What do you do?

Jan 1998

Pushing All the Right Buttons

These days, interviewers need to know how to push a candidate's "hot buttons" - that is, appeal most directly to her wants and needs - by describing a job and the company in terms of that candidate's specific accomplishments, competencies, and goals.

Jan 1998

Desperately Seeking Skilled Workers

More than ever, employers are finding that it pays to focus on skills, not ethnicity or gender. As one CEO puts it, "You simply want the best people you can get."

Oct 1997

GPA: What Does It Really Mean?

Educational achievement should not be the sole criterion for deciding who to interview on campus.

Oct 1997

Welcome to HirePath Online Interview Tools

Introducing HirePath® online interview tools: a unique concept designed for subscribers to access online interviewing tools that help them update their interviewing skills quickly and easily.

Oct 1997

Our 15th Anniversary

Management Team Consultants, Inc. takes pride in completing 15 years of successful business with this past year being the best year yet.

Oct 1997

Meet the Integrity Check

The Integrity Check Interview, developed by UCLA psychiatrist Mark Goulston, is based on the idea that it requires real concentration to tell a good lie.

Oct 1997

Phone Screens: Time Savers for Busy Managers

The phone screen takes only 15 to 20 minutes of your time, and can save you, and unqualified candidates, hours of wasted effort later on.

Oct 1997

Now You've Got Them, How to Keep Them

You've worked hard, spent a lot of money, and beat out some pretty impressive competition to hire that young genius from Stanford. But now that you've got her, is there any guarantee she'll stay for even a year or two? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding "No."

Oct 1997

Electronic Interviewing: Press the Star Key

With the twenty-first century just around the corner, it was probably inevitable that someone would come up with the idea of automated interviewing. Sound far-fetched? Not at all. But automated interviewing has a few major drawbacks.

Jul 1997

Competency Cards

Once again, necessity proves to be the mother of invention. In this case, one of our clients wanted our menu of behavioral competencies on forty-eight separate cards. They thought – and they were right! – that this would help their employment group and department managers reach a quick and clear consensus about what qualities an ideal candidate should have.

Jul 1997

Diversity Competition Will Heat Up

A little over a year ago, voters in California and the Texas courts struck down affirmative action programs in their state university systems. The impact on the pool of diverse candidates was disastrous and swift.

Jul 1997

Diversity Interview Training

Ever wonder why companies with a "check-off" mentality don't see much change in behavior around the diversity issues? It may be because they are not committing the necessary time to diversity training.

Jul 1997

Training the Pros

Management Team Consultants, Inc. has again been selected by the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC) to deliver our Effective Interviewing!® seminar to its member firms.

Jul 1997

Competing With Microsoft For Talent

It may not be the most ethical way to compete for prospective employees, but Silicon Graphics' approach is certainly creative. They use their Web site(sgi.com/staffing/University/Career Resource/sample questions.html) to post the standard interview questions used by their larger competitors like Microsoft and Intel, along with the appropriate answers.

Jul 1997

Detecting the Con Artist

We recently had an experience that proves the importance of checking a candidate's references. We learned the hard way that even the most experienced interviewers - in this case, us - can almost be taken in by an expert and determined liar.

Jul 1997

How Bad Interviews Impact Hiring Results

An interview can profoundly affect the candidate's decision to join or not to join a company.

Jul 1997

A Quick Study?

In a fast-paced, technology-driven workplace, it's not enough for employees to know their stuff. They also have to be quick learners who can easily assimilate new information and then use it in fresh and unexpected ways.

Jul 1997

Recruiting on the Internet

Today's job candidates are turning to the Internet for a fast, easy way to find the positions they are looking for.

Jan 1997

Not Winning the Gold

"You don't win silver, you lose gold."

Jan 1997

Identifying Management Style

Management style matters. What works in one theater of operations can bomb in another. That's one reason why behavioral competency interviewing is so important and effective.

Jan 1997

CEO Feedback on Effective Interviewing!®

Executive watchers were shocked to learn that Alex Mandl, president of AT&T and heir apparent to the CEO job was leaving to join a tiny technology firm. He's the number two guy at a $50 billion company who is essentially moving to a start-up with no customers.

Jan 1997

Pushing Back on Slick Answers

According to an article in the New York Times, job gurus advise their clients to avoid revealing anything unflattering or personal. The result? Thousands of executives now approach interviews armed with an arsenal of slick, self-serving responses.

Jan 1997

Spiro Agnew: A Really Bad Hire

It's said that if you can remember the 1960s, you weren't there. Probably no one better proves the truth of this adage than Spiro Agnew, one of the most forgettable characters in the corrupt Nixon administration.

Jan 1997

Spotting Dishonest Candidates

It's harder to be deceptive in an interview where even the most polished dissemblers may be betrayed by their bodies.

Jan 1997

Beware the "Workaholic"

It pays to be wary of job applicants whose resumés experience is top heavy with overtime; people who consistently work fifty to eighty hours a week may not be such superstars after all.

Jan 1997

Competencies: Self-confidence or Arrogance?

A thorough understanding of behavioral competencies and sophisticated interviewing techniques can go a long way toward determining which candidates are hot prospects and which are just hot air.

Jan 1997

Revving Up for the Talent Shortage

The shortage of engineers and developers is forcing companies to woo workers with the kind of extravagant promises usually reserved for professional athletes.

Jun 1996

Employee References

A recent court decision (Cox v. Nasche, et al.) limits the risk of defamation suits when an employee signs an information release waiving liability against the provider of information about his or her employment. We recommend that employers use these releases.

Jan 1996

How To Spot A "Falling Star"

Former Kodak CEO Christopher Steffen is a prime example of what can happen when management focuses exclusively on the contributions a strong candidate can make and ignores that candidate's inevitable limitations. We believe that in evaluating any candidate - no matter how desirable or dazzling - it is essential to consider limitations as well as strengths.

Jan 1996

Detecting Derailers

In our ever-optimistic American culture, the emphasis is usually on the positive. It's no wonder, then, that most hiring decisions focus on a candidate's strengths. But as several articles in this issue show, it's imperative also to consider limitations - things that can really derail someone on the job.

Jan 1996

Diversity Interview Training: Changing Attitudes

We are always looking for ways to assess the impact of our training programs, and in September 1995 we began measuring changes in attitude among participants in our Interviewing Today's Workforce® seminars.

Jan 1996

What Ever Happened to Common Sense?

Unfortunately, the advice some attorneys give their corporate clients may make it impossible for managers to realistically assess any prospect, and for any candidate to get a fair hearing.

Jan 1996

Savvy MBAs

These days, future MBAs learn more in the classroom than accounting and marketing. Many prestigious business schools now offer courses in interviewing, career planning, and networking as part of their regular curricula.

Jan 1996

Competency Chasers

We believe in interviewing the old-fashioned way. Each interviewer learns as much as possible about every candidate. All interviewers elicit a wide range of competencies that reveal strengths and limitations, and they look for repeated patterns of both.

Jul 1995

When Bill Walsh Speaks, Business Listens

Former San Francisco 49ers coach Bill Walsh considers the hiring process "possibly the single most important act of top executives," but he also calls it a "crap shoot." He has some sound advice for improving the odds.

Jul 1995

Unconscious Bias in the Interview

If you think you are impartial and open-minded, think again. The latest research on unconscious bias and how we form impressions about those we first meet suggests we do this much faster than we realize.

Jul 1995

How Do You "Go the Whole 9 Yards?"

Interviewers need to be careful about the use of idiomatic phrases, slang, or jargon when interviewing applicants who speak English as a second language.

Jul 1995

High Tech Women Get High Marks

Female executives traditionally have been in short supply in high tech firms, but technology-driven companies are currently hiring more senior executive women than ever before.

Jul 1995

The Interview: Friendly or Adversarial?

An interview should not be a cross-examination, and interviewers need to refrain from the kind of courtroom theatrics that bring witnesses to their knees.

Jul 1995

Computer Snoops Find "Delete" Doesn't = Gone

"Computer snoops" retrieve "deleted" information - some of it presumably erased years ago - from hard drives.

Jul 1995

Poor Pilot Screening: The Real Fear of Flying

For years, economists have been predicting that the United States would experience a shortage of competent employees by the end of the century.

Jul 1995

Body Language Indicted

As evidenced by the reading of the O.J. Simpson verdict, body language is "guilty" of failing to accurately predict behavior.

Jul 1995

Selling the Candidate

If there is strong competition to fill technical positions, you may be required to sell candidates on your organization before you interview and evaluate them.

Apr 1995

Spotting Competencies

John Kotter, Harvard Business School professor, spent twenty years tracking the careers of 115 MBAs from the Harvard class of 1974. In his book, The New Rules: How to Succeed in Today's Post-Corporate World, he describes how these students survived the downsizing, restructuring, and globalization that characterized two of the most volatile decades in American business history.

Apr 1995

First Impressions

For better or worse, first impressions count. They influence our choice of friends - sometimes even of partners - and they play a major role in the hiring process.

Apr 1995

Diversity: The New Bottom Line

Despite rollbacks in affirmative action, nothing can alter the fact that today's global economy demands a diverse workforce.

Apr 1995

Diversity Equals Productivity

Two comprehensive new studies offer convincing evidence of a link between diversity and profit.

Apr 1995

Required: A Passport Plus Competencies

Businesses have traditionally staffed their overseas branches with people who have technical expertise or top management skills. Now, however, it appears to take more than professional savvy to be successful abroad.

Apr 1995

Hassle Arrests

A "Hassle arrest" is an unwarranted police harassment that never leads to a conviction. This is a fact of life in minority communities and one of the reasons why it is illegal to ask job applicants about their arrest records.

Apr 1995

Computer Scan or Computer Scam

Major employers - such as Disneyland and Ford - are increasingly relying on technology to simplify the hiring process.

Jan 1995

Genius Competency

What could Thomas Edison, who was known as the "world's greatest inventor" a century ago, have in common with today's top software developers? Quite a lot as we recently discovered.

Jan 1995

Padded Credentials by Colleges

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal reports that colleges routinely exaggerate the average SAT scores of incoming students.

Jan 1995

Hire at Your Own Risk

The financial world has recently been rocked by a series of events that underscore both the risks investors run in the marketplace and the risks management faces when making hiring decisions.

Jan 1995

Top Ten Candidate Bloopers

A recent survey asked managers in more than 100 large corporations to describe their most unusual experiences interviewing prospective employees. Here are some of their replies.

Jan 1995

College Degree Required?

These days, most job descriptions - even the most entry-level - call for a college degree. This makes complete sense from a screening standpoint, but the risk is that the pool may grow too small for some really big fish.

Jan 1995

What Attracts "Shakers and Movers?"

It can be a real mistake to equate a lack of company knowledge with a lack of motivation. Focus instead on selling top candidates on the talent of the team they will join.

Oct 1994

Competency-based Interviews Predict Job Success

In our last issue, we promised to explore Harvard behavioral scientist D. C. McClelland's work on competency and predicting job performance based on people who are clearly successful in their jobs. Here is that discussion.

Oct 1994

Conducting the Behavioral Event Interview (BEI)

One method of developing the competencies described by D. C. McClelland is by conducting Behavioral Event Interviews. The objective of a BEI is to get very detailed behavioral descriptions of how a person goes about doing his or her work.

Oct 1994

Making Competency Work

The first annual Competency and Performance Conference (Boston, November 1994) revealed the growing interest in competency-based tools by private and public sector organizations in America and internationally. Related issues in the use of these tools were also highlighted at this meeting.

Oct 1994

World Cup Competency

When Brazil defeated the U.S. team in the World Cup Soccer playoffs this summer, they illustrated a key principle behind the focus on competencies.

Oct 1994

Hollywood Calling

We recently received a call from a major Hollywood studio asking if we could help improve a new TV talk show host's interviewing skills. We gladly responded to the request.

Oct 1994

Organizational Culture and Candidate Fit

Despite the importance of the concept of organizational culture, many companies find it difficult to accurately define theirs. In his recent book, The Reengineering Alternative: A Plan for Making Your Current Culture Work, William E. Schneider, Ph.D., uses four models or types to define corporate culture.

Apr 1994

Useful Information or Stereotyping?

Sometimes there seems to be a fine line between providing useful information and using stereotypes to describe groups of people.

Apr 1994

The Biggest Minority

In many U.S. cities, the white population is no longer the majority. In fact, current demographics predict the ethnic population will grow seven times faster than the white population.

Apr 1994

Predicting Future Success

Two bi-coastal studies on MBA graduates support thorough behavior-based interviews of potential employees rather than grades, exam scores or other numerical values.

Apr 1994

Men, Women & Computers

If women and men communicate differently, is this difference reflected in their attitudes toward computers? Some gender communication experts emphatically say yes.

Apr 1994

Technical Interviews

Here are just three of the several approaches used by technical experts at our client companies to assess technical competence.

Apr 1994

Hiring by Computer Models

Leading business schools are now using computer models to analyze certain management issues, such as hiring decisions. By combining mathematical equations with game theory, they can model the behavior of corporate leaders whose decisions affect others in the company.

Jan 1994

Just Wondering...Who's Interviewing?

When Bobby Ray Inman withdrew his candidacy for the post of Secretary of Defense, Senator Bob Dole of Kansas remarked, "You kind of wonder how they picked this person. Seems to me that maybe the President or somebody who recommended him to the President should have had a closer look."

Jan 1994

Lessons From a Sixteen Year Old

An effective interview progresses from knowing what someone did to understanding how and why he or she did it. This second level of understanding adds value to any interview and is the basic premise behind behavior-based interviewing.

Jan 1994

Down In Dallas

The Resumé Factor is least likely to predict on the job failure. A better predictor is the Performance Factors - Intellectual, Interpersonal, and Motivation.

Jan 1994

Costly Assumption About Disabilities

The Rhode Island Department of Mental Health, Retardation, and Hospitals (MHRH) recently lost a discrimination lawsuit to the tune of $100,000. Why? Because the Department made the assumption that an obese woman was disabled and thus would not be able to perform the job for which she had applied.

Jan 1994

Gender Bias Starts Early

Why are there fewer females in science, math, engineering, and technical disciplines? At least one reason may be the way girls are treated by their teachers.

Jan 1994

Start Right, End Right

Many interviewers believe it is efficient and appropriate to start an interview by telling the candidate exactly what they are looking for. That might be a good way to buy a house, but it's not usually a good way to hire an employee.

Jan 1994

The Continuum Question

We've heard that college placement officers and outplacement counselors have begun to advise candidates on strategies to counter the "continuum question."

Jan 1994

Should I Ask It?

Here is a quick check you can use on your favorite interview questions to make sure they are legal. There are three criteria to consider when deciding whether or not to ask a question in an interview.

Jan 1994

Software Changes Corporate Culture

A new form of software called "groupware" may be changing corporate culture by freeing employees from the limitations of traditional hierarchies and creating new ways for people to work together.

Jan 1994

Smaller Companies, Bigger Decisions

In previous years, employers reduced and expanded staff in response to the ebb and flow of business. But that cyclic pattern of layoffs and rehiring has changed.

Oct 1993

Hiring Teams

Much has been written recently about the need for shared values as a way to provide direction in reorganized companies. If all hiring committees shared certain values, we predict there would be fewer meetings, faster decisions and better selections.

Oct 1993

Value(able) Predictions

Effective interviewers know that learning a candidate's values can lead to better predictions of motivation and behavior.

Oct 1993

Double Standard Still the Standard

Forty years ago, overt racism was acceptable and Jim Crow laws distinctly marked the lines between races. Although the U.S. has changed laws and educated workers to embrace diversity, subtle discrimination occurs every day.

Oct 1993

The New Values of "Generation X"

Interviewers need to be ready to adjust their questions and techniques for a new generation of workers with new values now entering the workforce.

Oct 1993

Will the Real SAT Please Stand Up?

The acronym SAT now stands for Scholastic Assessment Test, not Scholastic Aptitude Test. This change is a response to criticism that the SAT does not measure a person's "aptitude" for higher education.

Oct 1993

Insiders' Interview Questions (Part II)

Jim Kennedy asked Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC) members to submit their favorite interview questions. Here is part two of some of the most interesting questions he received.

Oct 1993

Night Owls Wanted

In today's 24-hour market-place more companies are turning to shiftwork schedules to respond to customer needs.

Oct 1993

Legal Lunacy

Recently, a self-defense class for women at Stanford University was cancelled after an anonymous complaint of discrimination against men.

Oct 1993

Empty Promises...Empty Pockets?

Employees have gained new legal ground in holding recruiters to promises made during the interview. "Under-promise, over-deliver" seems to be the message to recruiters from recent lawsuits.

Oct 1993

Reassessing the Obvious

Brooks Mitchell, founder of Aspen Tree Software, has come to the conclusion that positive qualities don't always make for good employees.

Jul 1993

Talent...It's the Real Thing

Have you ever wondered why some highly experienced people you hired in the past simply did not work out? Sure, experience is important but what's often more important is the talent to do the job.

Jul 1993

Martians to Appear Weekly

John Gray, Ph.D., author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus is expanding his concept into another dimension television.

Jul 1993

Equal Pay All Talk, No Act(ion)

Thirty years after the Equal Pay Act, women's salaries still lag far behind men's. At times, the pay gap has actually widened from one year to the next.

Jul 1993

Insiders' Interview Questions (Part I)

Jim Kennedy asked Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC) members about their favorite interview questions and wrote the results into an article for Executive Recruiter's News.

Jul 1993

Keeping the Candidate Out of the Driver's Seat

Here are two of the most commonly cited problems interviewers face and some of our solutions.

Jul 1993

Wanted: Transferable Skills

As companies attempt to reengineer the way work gets done, HR professionals and managers find they must be able to evaluate transferable skills when interviewing candidates.

Jul 1993

Worker Burnout:Tick, tick, tick . . Kaboom!

The drive for better margins in a low inflation economy has forced many companies to cut staff. But as people leave, the work remains. Employees who get to keep their jobs find they have more work and fewer resources.

Jul 1993

The Challenges of Internal Hiring

Management Team Consultants has observed that in an effort to make the best use of their most valuable resources, current employees, companies are shifting their hiring focus from external to internal candidates.

Apr 1993

An Optimistic Outlook

Dr. Martin Seligman's research shows that success is not necessarily achieved by the most talented individuals. Rather it is realized by talented people who are also very optimistic.

Apr 1993

Executive "Fit"

The recent turnover of an Eastman Kodak CFO after just three months on the job dramatizes the issues companies face when hiring outside people for senior positions.

Apr 1993

Clinton Knows "No"

Following President Clinton's recent meeting with Boris Yeltsin in Vancouver, a reporter released some notes from this event. According to the reporter, one of Clinton's comments to Yeltsin was, "Sometimes the Japanese tell us 'yes' when they really mean 'no.' "

Apr 1993

Brooks Brother's Blunder

In a recent job bias suit, Brooks Brothers was accused of discriminatory hiring practices, and in order to settle the embarrassing case out of court, had to pay some hefty fines.

Apr 1993

Men are From Mars

Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus (1) is the intriguing title of a current New York Times bestseller authored by John Gray, a neighbor of ours in Marin County, California. The ideas in his book confirm many of our own experiences in relationships, and have relevance to principles we teach in two of our seminars Interviewing Today's® Workforce and Diversity at Work.

Apr 1993

Glass Walls Support Glass Ceiling

While women and people of diverse backgrounds have been pounding on the infamous glass ceiling, glass walls have been built up around them.

Apr 1993

"Pssst Employees...Here's How to Sue Us"

California might be in the forefront of what may occur across the nation regarding sexual harassment. As of January 1993, a law in California requires every employer to teach their employees about sexual harassment.

Apr 1993

Gambling on Gerstner

Louis Gerstner, former chairman and CEO of RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp., was chosen to take over "Big Blue." Hoping to dig out sagging stock values and failing profits, IBM board members chose Gerstner to start shoveling.

Jan 1993

Answering Unspoken Questions

Many interviewers base part of their assessment of a candidate on the quality of the questions the candidate asks in the interview. However, how many interviewers realize that in the face of increasing diversity, more candidates will be seeking answers to "unspoken questions?"

Jan 1993

Expand Your Cultural Comfort Zone

Have you ever been in an interview situation where you experienced discomfort with the candidate because of some difference between the two of you? We teach individuals to recognize this feeling and how to expand their cultural comfort zone in order to remain objective as interviewers.

Jan 1993

Silence of the Interviewer

Silence can be a valuable tool to an interviewer when used correctly in an interview.

Jan 1993

Abandoning Responsibility in the Interview?

Concerns about a person's honesty and judgment are important to any employer, yet questions about family and personal life are illegal in job interviews. Find out how interviewers can legally gain valuable facts that can help them avoid situations like the following unpleasant story?

Jan 1993

Success Strategy of a Presidential Interviewer

Larry King made a mark on the world of politics when he interviewed all three major presidential candidates. What made his interviewing style so successful and so unique? It was his ability to gain the trust of the candidate.

Jan 1993

Double Bind on Campus

Now more than ever, recruiters must be educated before they arrive on-campus. Such training should include techniques for understanding and responding to the growing diversity among students.

Jan 1993

Productive Telephone Screens

Here are a couple of ideas for productive phone screens for candidates when time is limited or the number of prospects is large.

Jan 1993

The Hiring Thaw

Previously stagnant employers may be surprised by the surge of job openings, and by the nature of today's diverse workforce.

Oct 1992

Breaking the Ceiling

"The Glass Ceiling Initiative," a study done by the U.S. Department of Labor, found that there are three significant factors contributing to the glass ceiling in American corporations.

Oct 1992

15 Percent of What?

Only 15 percent of net new workers will be white males. How often has that phrase been quoted since the publication of Workforce 2000?

Oct 1992

Wrong or Just Different?

In Interviewing Today's Workforce® seminar, participants learn a number of techniques for expanding their "cultural comfort zone." One such technique is to view differences as merely "differences," without labeling them right or wrong.

Oct 1992

Grade Inflation Soars

Interviewers will need to see more than a high grade point average (GPA) during college recruiting. Grade inflation has been occurring in America for the last twenty-five years according to Newsweek magazine.

Oct 1992

Wedding Rings Off or On?

Felice Schwartz found that married women students routinely removed their wedding rings before job interviews with on-campus male recruiters. Why? The women students believed that male recruiters used this formula: "Woman = Baby = No commitment."

Oct 1992

Women Take Action

In a recent and highly publicized scandal, sexual harassment charges against the Navy Tailhook Association resulted in two Navy admirals losing their jobs and a third being reassigned. Add to this the earlier resignation of the Secretary of the Navy and it is obvious that considerable damage has been done to the Navy's reputation.

Oct 1992

10 Years and Going Strong!

Management Team Consultants, Inc. will celebrate 10 years of business this December, and what a decade it has been!

Oct 1992

Facing Intuitive Concerns

An interview is ending, but you still have an intuitive concern about the candidate. You suspect that the candidate is holding something back, misrepresenting achievements or truly lacking a required skill. Your intuition is telling you something is wrong. What do you do?

Oct 1992

Off-the-Wall Interview Questions

What are Madonna and a Big Mac doing in an interview? Interview EDGE™ seminar participants continually recount off-the-wall questions that they hear in interviews.

Oct 1992

How's This for Quick Response

On-campus interviews provide a great opportunity for companies to make an impression on soon-to-be graduates entering the workforce.

Oct 1992

"We're Not Hiring!"

Many companies today are downsizing and restructuring, and new positions are being filled with internal candidates. This so-called "inplacement" is occurring more frequently and taking on importance in many companies.

Jul 1992

ADA: General Guidelines

Four specific actions to prepare interviewers for the ADA are briefly summarized here. Informed interviewers will be responsive and make better hiring decisions.

Jul 1992

ADA: Coming Down the Pike?

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires "physical accommodation" of disabled workers and new behavior in the interviewing and hiring process. Find out how companies that don't comply may face protests and negative media coverage.

Jul 1992

Then and Now . . .

Problems public school students say they face in the 1990s: drug abuse, alcohol abuse, pregnancy, suicide, rape, robbery or assault.

Jul 1992

Sexism - From Denial to Action

Awareness and action on feminist issues seems to be moving along a continuum that has important implications for interviewers. Recognizable touchstones along this continuum are DenialCollusionAwakeningAngerAction.

Jul 1992

Cookie Cutter Interviews

Many campus interviewers use the same questions all day long. By learning in advance how the interview will be conducted, savvy students gain a definite advantage over other students seeking the same job.

Jul 1992

Improve Your ROI 56%

By building family concerns into worker benefits, accommodating companies are starting to decrease female turnover.

Jul 1992

ADA: Essential Functions

Although the Americans with Disabilities Act repeatedly refers to "essential functions" of a job, nowhere does the Act actually define "essential functions." The ambiguity of language may be a problem when employers write job descriptions.

Jul 1992

ADA: Legal Questions

With the ADA becoming effective this month, most interviewers will be concerned about the legality of some common interviewing questions. Follow these guideline to keep your interviews legal.

Jul 1992

ADA: Reasonable Accommodations

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the requirement for "reasonable accommodations" in the workplace for persons with disabilities.

Jul 1992

Interviewing and the ADA

8 answers to common questions about the American Disabilities Act, a comprehensive piece of legislation designed to protect 43 million American against discrimination in the hiring process.

Jul 1992

Looks and the Law

Santa Cruz, California is the first, and only, town in America to pass a law forbidding discrimination in employment practices based on appearance.

Jul 1992

The BMW Message

As product life cycles continue to shorten, the need for frequent and continual retraining of workers will increase. Moral: hire retrainable workers.

Apr 1992

The Billion Dollar Parking Ticket

When America worries about quality in the workplace it really is an issue of quality service as well as quality products.

Apr 1992

Street Slang

Next time you ask your staff to run the competition out of the water, think about the dictionary definitions of the words you are using.

Apr 1992

Whither White Males?

To some people, white males have been the only protected class in terms of hiring practices over the last 200 years. Accordingly, some would say, they should be excluded from today's new diversity initiatives.

Apr 1992

Diversity at Work

The workplace is a haven for misunderstandings, especially from culturally-based communication differences.

Apr 1992

Three R's at Work

When English is spoken as a second language (ESL) there are likely to be problems in communication and understanding. But what about EFL when English is a first language?

Apr 1992

Performance Reviews and Diversity

Management Team Consultants, Inc. published an article on performance reviews in Cultural Diversity at Work. We specifically focus on conducting culturally inclusive appraisals.

Apr 1992

MBA Parents

Does your company have a progressive paternal/maternal leave policy? In the words of John Naisbitt, "This is becoming a generational issue not a gender issue."

Apr 1992

Initiative - Who Has It?

Most college recruiters search for some evidence of initiative in candidates. If you don't find examples, could you say the person lacks initiative?

Apr 1992

Fraudbusters

Recently, Fortune performed some research on the "New Crisis in Business Ethics" (April 20, 1992). Their research showed that 50% of respondants under 30 cheated in college and 12-24% included false information on their resumé.

Apr 1992

Write or Wrong?

You have a right to know if a candidate can write well. It's better to learn this in the interview process than after you hire them.

Apr 1992

"My Time to Relax"

The selection interview is one of the most demanding tasks you will face any day. If you think it's a time to relax, we suggest you look for better ways to build a break into your day.

Jan 1992

Diversity: As American As Apple Pie

Diversity means taking advantage of new and multiple opportunities. In a historical perspective, this is how American business has benefited from diversity.

Jan 1992

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

The ADA aims to eliminate barriers to employment attitudes of employers as well as physical access. As interviewers we need to focus on what the job involves, not the disability of the applicant. It is also timely for all of us to check our attitudes and assumptions about disabled workers.

Jan 1992

I Am What I Am

In our Interviewing Today's Workforce®, we mention a current trend whereby diverse candidates are less willing to be "acculturated" to mainstream standards.

Jan 1992

Testing Today, Interviewing Tomorrow

As current students learn to handle open-ended questions in school exams, they will also be more confident and effective when hearing them in job interviews. Eventually, interviewers will start to meet more savvy candidates who are tested in school for thinking ability and will be applying it in job interviews.

Jan 1992

"No Excuses Interviewing"

When a CEO talks about the quality of interviewing in his company we listen. Business Week made this easy with a recent cover story on T.J. Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductor as "Bad Boy of Silicon Valley."

Jan 1992

Private Lives, Public Laws

The California Court of Appeals ruled in favor of an applicant at Target Stores saying questions about his religious and sexual preferences invaded his privacy.

Jan 1992

Managing Microinequities

The following remarks about treatment of women in the workplace were recently delivered at a luncheon speech in San Francisco by Francis Conley, Professor of Surgery at Stanford University.

Jan 1992

Civil Rights Act of 1991

The Civil Rights Act of 1991 elevates senior management interest in the way interviews are conducted in their companies.

Jan 1992

Interviewing - For Better or Worse

In a seminar for a company's college recruiters, our client introduced our program by quoting research from the College Placement Council on student attitudes about interviewing.

Jan 1992

Reference Checks - Think Twice

One of the many interesting issues that came out of the ClarenceThomas confirmation hearings was the sad reality of how difficult it is for those employers to conduct accurate reference checks.

Jan 1992

HR Ratios

T.J. Rodgers at Cypress Semiconductor stresses the importance of knowing the company's revenue per employee and using this to measure yourself against the competition.

Oct 1991

Hire to Your Weaknesses

Interviewing is something you do for the rest of your career.

Oct 1991

Diversity in Response to Diversity

Perhaps because we have the only program in the United States on how to interview a diverse workforce, we are seeing a range of response by corporate America to the issue of diversity.

Oct 1991

Diversity Interviewing

We advocate that managers learn diversity interviewing which calls for seeing each person as a unique individual. This entails becoming aware of your own cultural filters so that you are better able to manage your assumptions and stereotypes about others.

Oct 1991