Especially right now, finding a good candidate for an open role is challenging. The job market is overwhelmed with open roles that companies can’t seem to fill fast enough. Like a hydra, it seems that once one role gets filled, two more come open. Given how easy it is to apply for jobs these days, some job postings get an exorbitant amount of people that apply. If your team is lucky, you’ll have a handful of those candidates that have a resume that might fit your role’s requirements. From there, the team has to figure out which of those candidates provides the best fit for the team.
The interview process varies by team and role, but I’ve found two questions that fit nearly every job interview situation. Regardless of behavioral or technical interview, I like to understand the motivation around why someone even applied to the job posting in the first place.
1) Why are you considering leaving your current position?
In general, people don’t look for new jobs if they are perfectly happy in their current role. Why? Because job hunting sucks. There’s the process of updating resume, researching companies, researching roles, possibly networking which might lead to taking time away from a person’s current job just to interview. It’s so time consuming that unless he or she has a reason, it’s not worth the effort. Sometimes that reason is a simple as feeling undervalued, or far more complex situations. I’d like to understand what that reason is so that I can see if what our team offers will meet what you need. The whole process of filling a role is time consuming and expensive for the team, so I want to ensure you won’t see those same problems with my team and quit. I also want to know if you are the kind of person who will bad mouth your current company or team in an interview. If a person can’t find a good motivation for wanting to interview (find new challenges, align with career goals, love what the organization is doing, etc.), then it’s a red flag for me.
2) What about the job description stood out to you that made you want to apply?
I’m not sure why, but this question seems so hard to answer for so many people I have interviewed. For my perspective, this should be a softball question. If someone applied for a job, there has to be a reason. Sadly, the most common reason is that the job title meets what they are looking for, and that’s the extent of the job posting the candidate reviewed. When I don’t get a specific answer about what in my team’s job posting made the person want to apply, I get very discouraged for the rest of the interview. As adults, we spend about 1/3 of our lives at work, so when looking at a career move, I pour over potential job posts to ensure that what the team offers matches up with my career goals. When someone is unable to answer that question, then there’s a decent chance this person doesn’t pay attention to detail for the role in a way that I would be happy with.
Do the answers to these questions disqualify a candidate?
Of course not. These are simply two questions that I like to ask to understand motivation. Bad answers are red flags, but if during the rest of the interview, everything aligns, then I won’t hold it against a person. However, for someone who does take the effort and manages to answer these questions in a way that seems to align their career motivations with what our team provides, then the my interview lens will not only be about what can they currently do, but whether or not they can grow into that role.
I have always found that people who are motivated and want to do well in role are far more productive than an unmotivated team member. In addition, someone who wants to be there is less likely to leave, and I won’t have the issue of trying to fill that position again in 6-12 months. All it takes is getting the motivation of someone aligned with my team’s goals in two simply questions.
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