Looking beyond: How does one hire a winner?
Values, characteristics and behaviours
must be hired than merely focusing on
skills, which can be taught by training.
Yawar Baig’s, ‘Hiring Winners’ overtly
brings out the techniques of effective
interviewing says M R Chandramowly.
I
t was late 60’s. Mr YB was
getting ready for his first
job interview with
Kannan Devan Tea
Company (now Tata Tea).
He was called a day prior to the
appointed date and as instruct-
ed, the 18 year old wore a tie,
long suit and sat in the men’s
bar at High Range Club where
candidates were tested for
social fitment. Candidates were
asked what they would like to
drink and when it was his turn,
he said he would have a soft
drink. People looked at him
with different expression and
smile and the barman with pity.
There came a heard loud
“Hello there”. YB looked up to
see a florid red face in a body
without neck and a large smile
that said, “ So you don’t drink,
eh?” YB smiled and nodded.
“Tell me something young fel-
low,” he said, “ Do you play
cricket?” YB said that he did but
other people who played with
him wished that he didn’t.
Then he asked, “Are you a
Mason?” At the time, not being
aware of the Free Masons
Society, YB thought it was about
building walls and said “No. I’m
not”. He looked at YB up and
down with a funeral expression
on his face and said, “You don’t
drink, you don’t play cricket
and you are not a Mason. Boy!
You don’t have a chance”
Did they select YB? Mirza
Yawar Baig narrates such strik-
ing facts to bring out the quali-
ties, characteristics, behav-
iours, values and beliefs that
ensure to hire winners. Now we
go on to our silent dialogue.
Question: Yawarji, are
there no links between person-
ality factors and perform-
ance? To predict people’s
behaviour, don’t we need to
know what motivates them
and what they want out of
life?
Answer: Mowly, as you
know, current or past behaviour
is better predictor of future
behaviour than any abstract
trait or personality description.
For example, what you want out
of life does not typically relate
to the competencies that are
important for a particular job.
Asking 'Good' Questions
Question: Yawar, in a hir-
ing interview asking a ‘good’
question is important.
Competency based interviews
in fact requires one to prepare
questions before hand. How
should an interviewer learn
to ask questions that will
yield sufficient data for accu-
rate assessment of a person?
Answer: Interviewers must
remember that they are inter-
viewers and not investigating
detectives to triple up candi-
dates or catch them in a lie.
They must first create an
atmosphere of comfort and
frankness where they can mutu-
ally assess for respective needs,
the candidate’s as a prospective
employee and interviewer’s
own need as a prospective
employer.
Structured interviews probe
in to people’s experience with
right questions, which brings
out what a candidate has done
in the past and predict what he
will do in the future.
It is sufficient to understand
the displayed behaviour than to
understand the basic reasons
for it. If one gets angry it is indi-
cated by the tone and the body
language.
Interviewers need not go for
a ‘psychoanalysis’ to under-
stand what are the underlying
childhood experience for the
anger.
That’s true. Interviewers
must be trained and made
accountable for following a
structured hiring process.
They must be aware of the
enormous cost impact of wrong
hiring. Interestingly cost of
wrong hiring is a hidden cost
and is not calculated in most
organisations. Wrong hires
bleed reputation, profitability
and the organisational culture.
Another factor that is often
ignored is that most people hire
less competent people then
themselves as exceptional com-
petence of others create anxiety
in many managers.
Question: Sir, if managers
hire people better than them-
selves, they would be under
constant pressure and find it
difficult to motivate high per-
formers.
Answer: True. But this pres-
sure is very good to have as it
consistently enhances the capa-
bility of organisation. This is
what I call ‘creating positive
stress by building-in internal
mechanisms of discontent.’ So
hiring high performers is the
most effective way.
Question: But, how do we
distinguish outstanding per-
formers from those who are
average?
Answer: Hiring managers
must look for the evidence
where a candidate’s perform-
ance exceeds position require-
ments. Find out whether he or
she takes initiative to transfer
knowledge and trains others.
Get to know if he or she takes
initiative in identifying chal-
lenging goals.
Discover if he or she thinks
beyond immediate job and seek
new business opportunities.
Remember, winners attract peo-
ple like themselves. Losers do
the same.
Question: Yawar, they say
‘hire for values and train for
skills’ and ‘it is better to hire
a squirrel than training a
duck to climb a tree’. In your
practice of helping business
leaders develop a winning
culture, how do you look at
what one needs to hire and
what you can train-in?
Answer: Mowly, we all know
that values are important.
Values drive behaviour and
behaviour drives results. So
values must be hired after
ensuring its actual practice. It is
important to focus on values,
beliefs and attitudes since it is
extremely difficult to change
these by training.
It is simple to screen for
these and hire those who have
them already. All skills and
some attitudes such as cus-
tomer focus or results orienta-
tion can be trained.
But the attitudes such as
‘hunger to win’ or a ‘constant
self-improvement’ are difficult
to train.
Hiring Template
Question: Yawar, in the
competency based interview-
ing, we recommend develop-
ing an assessment sheet which
captures the needed technical
and leadership competencies.
In your book, you suggest to
develop a specific template.
Answer: Yes. The “Hiring
Template.” Time spent creating
a useful template eliminates a
lot of wasted time in post inter-
view aggravation. In its techni-
cal part, the template must
answer factors such as: What
basic skills?
What technical or functional
skills must be hired? What
degree, diploma or certifica-
tion? What are the expected per-
formance standards? What kind
of previous experience expect-
ed? The other part is the Values
template, which reflects core
values of company with opera-
tive definitions for each value.
Observable behaviours are stat-
ed for each value for assess-
ment.
Who are they?
A winner is the one who
measures up to both technical
and values dimensions.
My thanks to Mirza Yawar
Baig for permitting me to reflect
on this silent dialogue on
“Hiring Winners”. The book
also has an interview guide,
which helps us to build a struc-
tured hiring process.
Key points
To summarise some key
points of the guide, interview-
ers must be clear about the oper-
ating definitions of their organ-
isational values.
nBesides reviewing the test
results if any, they must review
the resume and highlight the
points they need to probe.
nMost important is to set out a
quality time to do justice to each
candidate.
nBefore starting the interview,
it is suggested to plan the open-
ing statement to set the stage for
mutual candor.
nThe questions must be based
on required competencies speci-
fied on the ‘hiring template’ and
must be open-ended.
nFacial expression must be
neutral and friendly than overly
effusive.
nRelaxed posture, tone, speed of
speech and accent are all-impor-
tant.
Yawar thus cautions, “At the
end of the interview the people
you did not hire should leave
with a longing to work for you.”
The author is former corporate
vice president - HR and currently
HRD and Leadership Competency
Building Consultant. E-mail:
cmowly@hotmail.com