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The behavioral event interview: Avoiding interviewing pitfalls when hiring

Article  in  Journal of public health management and practice: JPHMP · November 2006

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 The Management Moment
Column Editor: Edward L. Baker

The Behavioral Event Interview: Avoiding

Interviewing Pitfalls When Hiring
Claudia S. P. Fernandez
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T
he Management Moment” is a regular column within innovative, and agile ways is more of a challenge than
the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice. a manager might suspect.
Edward L. Baker, MD, MPH, MSc, is serving as The As LaFasto and Larson say in their book When Teams
Work Best, “a successful team begins with the right
Management Moment Editor. Dr Baker is Director of The North
people.”4 However, getting the right people to the ta-
Carolina Institute for Public Health, School of Public Health, at ble presents a serious challenge. The “right people”
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This column must have more than technical skills. While technical
provides commentary and guidance on timely management skills, which constitute a working knowledge of the job
tasks at hand, are critical, equally so are the “soft skills”
issues commonly encountered in public health practice.
that characterize the make-it-or-break-it team dynam-
ics that ultimately govern team productivity, innova-
tion, and agility.
One of the hardest tasks a manager faces is build- Five problems typically plague the old standard
ing a successful team. In fact, difficulty selecting and interviewing style so common in today’s workforce
building a team is one of the top three predictors of fu- (Box 1). The first error a manager makes when hiring is
ture derailment, according to research by the Center for to spend most of the interview talking about the posi-
Creative Leadership.1–3 Hiring the wrong person for the tion or the organization. What the interviewer should
job seems to be a common experience. In my own sem- be doing is listening intently. Unfortunately, what of-
inars, classes, and coaching, I get many a knowing nod ten happens is that candidates get a lot of information
when I ask if participants have “hired a person for their about the job but the organization gets to know little
technical skills . . . and then found that the whole per- about the candidate beyond what is on the resume.
son showed up for work!” Mistakes in hiring can create Archaic and uninformative interview questions
serious interpersonal issues among staff members and present a second common problem with the interview
a series of headaches for managers and leaders. Hiring process. “What are your strengths and weaknesses”
is often considered a tricky and dangerous business, is a weak tool to understand either the soft or hard
particularly in civil service systems where correcting a skills a potential hire has to offer. Candidates often have
hiring mistake is a lengthy and costly process. The job
turnover created by poor person-job fit also presents
wasted expenses to organizations in both the public Corresponding author: Claudia S. P. Fernandez, DrPH, RD, LDN, North Carolina
and private sector. Institute for Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB 8165,
One of the most common ways a manager builds a Chapel Hill, NC 27599 (e-mail: Claudia [email protected]).
team is through interviewing candidates and hiring. qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq
However, building a real team that thinks for itself Edward L. Baker, MD, MPH, MSc, is Director, North Carolina Institute for Public
while executing the organization’s mission in creative, Health, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Claudia S. P. Fernandez, DrPH, RD, LDN, directs several leadership institutes at the
North Carolina Institute for Public Health, including the ACOG Leadership Institute
and the leadership core of the Food Systems Leadership Institute. She is
J Public Health Management Practice, 2006, 12(6), 590–593 past-Director of the Emerging Leaders in Public Health Leadership Institute for
C 2006 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc. minority leaders and the Southeast Public Health Leadership Institute.

590
 The Management Moment ❘ 591

BOX 1 ● Five common interview errors BOX 2 ● The steps of behavioral event interviewing

1. Talking more about the job than about the candidate. 1. List the critical performance areas for the job.
2. Asking for strengths and weaknesses. 2. Create open-ended questions that query the candidate’s
3. Getting a verbal resume. experience at those tasks.
4. Asking hypothetical interview questions. 3. Gather data on the Situation, Task, Action, and Result (STAR) in
5. Hiring for chemistry rather than fit. the candidate’s answer.
4. Evaluate the answers for demonstrated job performance.
5. Compare their answers to other candidates’ answers (this is
sometimes done with a point system).
much-practiced and uninsightful information to share
in response to such an inquiry.
A third common error is in how interviewees are
asked to talk about their relevant work experience. Typ-
ically, candidates are asked to describe what they did in steps will be addressed in a later Management Moment
a specific job. This provides candidates with a golden column.
opportunity to shine by describing themselves at their Don’t hire for chemistry does not imply that you
best and telling their interviewer stories of choice, or should ignore the candidate’s people skills, often called
by giving you a verbal reading of their resume. How- soft skills. These are critically important to nearly every
ever, there is no guarantee that these stories will shed job in public health, and certainly to positions in man-
any light on how they would perform on tasks relevant agement and leadership. The difference is this: feeling
to the currently open position. Furthermore, without a the chemistry in interviewing describes a potential col-
good deal of follow-up questioning you might never league who you would like on your team, who seems to
know what other important facts or events might have have a similar worldview to yours, who might make a
been omitted. good golf or lunch partner, who you can conceive of be-
A fourth less serious interviewing error is to present coming a friend. While that might be great icing on the
a scenario to a candidate and ask, “What would you do organizational cake, it does not measure a candidate’s
in this situation?” While it does assess some technical soft skills, hard skills, or organizational fit. In fact, one
skills (eg, does the candidate know the correct proce- of the most valuable things a leader can have is a team
dure, the correct medication dosage, the correct paper- that represents a diversity of worldviews, maybe even
work to complete), it does not assess whether the person differences in perspective, which would make a lunch
actually follows his or her own advice in a real-life situa- out not quite so, well, appetizing. Fit is not about “fit-
tion. Book knowledge does not always predict behavior. ting the leader’s preferences.” It is about finding the
Being able to abstract “what if” allows the interviewee edge that the organization itself needs.
to present an ideal scenario with his or her impecca- So what is a manager to do? Professional human re-
ble behavior at the center of the story. While it makes source firms and head hunting agencies have figured
for a good interview from the candidate’s perspective, this one out: the first step is to throw out the old style of
it has relatively less predictive value for how the can- interviewing candidates. Rather than asking, “What are
didate will actually perform in the job—particularly if your strengths and weaknesses?” to prospective em-
the question revolves around interpersonal aspects of ployees, or “What would you do?” when presenting
work rather than dry, technical, fact-based tasks. various work-related scenarios, what is critical for the
However, the most serious error a manager can make manager to get at is how the candidate has actually
in hiring is to hire for chemistry—that sense of how you performed in the past. Past behavior predicts future
click with a candidate. Do not make the error of think- behavior. If you interview candidates at all regularly, a
ing that “chemistry” describes a hiring preference or a good mantra to put on your wall is in human behavior,
criterion, because in truth, the failure to hire well is one the past predicts the future. Choose the candidate who has
of the top reasons that managers derail, according to re- proven himself or herself in the past on tasks relevant
search from the Center for Creative Leadership. In hir- to those required in the currently vacant position.
ing for chemistry, the manager often ends up with a like- There is a name for this technique broadly used by
minded team who mirror his or her own weaknesses. corporate and academic recruiters: it is called the Be-
While having good chemistry (interpersonal workings) havioral Event Interview (BEI). The BEI is a way of
within the team can be helpful and constructive, “going interviewing that demonstrates effectiveness based on
on one’s gut feeling” should not be the guiding factor in actual experience. Spencer and Spencer give a wonder-
making a new hire. There are many steps a manager can ful description of how to conduct this process in their
take to promote the chemistry and cooperation of the book Competence at Work.5 The company Development
team after the players with the best fit are chosen. These Dimensions International (DDI) has a patented version
592 ❘ Journal of Public Health Management and Practice

of the process called Targeted Selection.∗ The first step you thinking or feeling at the time?” “What happened
in this BEI process is to closely examine the job de- as a result?” “What was your role?” “What did you
scription (Box 2). Pull out the critical areas that will say?” and “What did you do?” These follow-up ques-
determine the success of the person in this position tions will help you examine the depths and relevance
and fashion open-ended questions about how the can- of the candidate’s experience.
didate has accomplished similar tasks. For example, if In Step 4, you critically judge how well candidates
partnering and leading collaborative efforts are critical answered the questions and how that gives a demon-
to successful job performance, then prepare a question stration of their skills. You could even create a 5- or 10-
that will gain you information on how the interviewee point value scale for how well their experience matches
managed the interpersonal and creative aspects of part- your needs and assign the points earned to each answer.
nering and collaborating. A question like “Describe a Discussing the STAR answers given and the point val-
time when you had to create partnerships with another ues assigned with colleagues who also used BEI to in-
organization or group despite contentious relationships terview the candidate will help you gain expertise in
between the parties” will give you insight into several this method. In Step 5, you and your colleagues com-
dimensions of behavior around innovation, creativity, pare the different job candidates’ BEI results to ascertain
and the ability to get along with others as they create who has the kind of experience and skills that most fit
win-win opportunities. your organization.
Let us examine this a bit more closely with a public Let us look at another, less tangible, example. Or-
health example. In Step 1, you list the critical areas of job ganizational culture is a critical factor impacting the
performance, which, for a US Air Force epidemiologist, productivity of a team, office, or organization. Lead-
includes the following6 : ers and managers can have a great impact on organiza-
tional culture. As Janet Porter has written in this column
• Conducts preventive medicine and communicable
previously, “employees don’t leave their job, they leave
disease control, occupational health, food safety, and
their boss.”7 It is imperative for managers to make hires
disaster response programs.
who will create a positive, constructive culture within
• Applies epidemiological and statistical methods to
their organizations. How can you ascertain what new
identify and evaluate factors increasing disease mor-
hires might do to impact this often-troublesome area?
bidity and mortality.
Ask them to tell you about a time when they had to
Then in Step 2, you craft questions to ascertain the take steps to change or influence the culture of their
candidate’s actual behaviors in relevant situations, such organization.
as When using behavioral event interviewing, be on
the look out for generalizations such as “well I usually
Tell me about a specific experience you had conducting
a disaster response initiative. Specifically, I’d like to . . .,” or “typically I . . ..” If the candidate offers such a
hear how you addressed the communicable disease response, then you need to ask more detailed questions,
issues that arose from the incident. such as “Can you give me a specific example?” Also,
Or be sensitive to the interviewee theorizing about how
he or she would respond, and again follow up with more
Tell me about a time when you applied statistical specific questions about the actual experience. Some
methods to identify and evaluate factors relating to candidates who have not experienced a BEI might at
disease morbidity and mortality. I’d like to hear about
how you translated that information into policy first be thrown by this type of questioning, but with
recommendations. your patient follow-up probing, they should be able to
share their relevant experience with you. What will also
For Step 3, you listen very carefully—and take copi- be abundantly clear is if they lack this experience.
ous notes to record the situation candidates describe, Your next step is to decide whether they have the
the task they had to accomplish, actions they took, skills to do the job. Certainly, not everyone will need to
and the results they achieved. This is called the S-T- have experienced every aspect of a job in order to be able
A-R method and stands for Situation, Task, Action, and to perform well at it. We all remember when we got our
Result. It is the interviewer’s guide to conducting a suc- first position supervising or managing others, or had
cessful, informative interview. You can use it to quickly major budgeting responsibility. As managers ourselves
scan the candidate’s answer for missing information we know that there is a first time for everything as one
and continue to probe on that basis. Some helpful prob- progresses through one’s career. The thing to look for
ing questions include “Who was present?” “What were is evidence that the candidate is coachable—has taken
opportunities to grow, receive feedback, improve on
∗
For more information on Targeted Selection, visit DDI at www. skills, and develop talents. The ability for self-reflection,
DDIworld.com. identifying developmental areas, and successfully
 The Management Moment ❘ 593

addressing them is a meta-skill of particular note. This performance you should find few surprises in how your
is especially true of the soft skills arena. One of the se- team meets challenges, collaborates, and innovates.
nior leaders I coach once said something that is true of
most senior level managers and leaders, “I know I’m
a smart person. I know I can learn the technical skills REFERENCES
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