I'm looking for solid interview questions for screening Business Analysts. I'm specifically looking for ways to ensure they are very analytical and detail oriented. I tired of the questions that only receive your basic cookie cutter answers. Any suggestions are appreciated.
Hi Ken,
There has been a great deal of research on the effectiveness of the interview, and a consistent finding is that structured interview questions are by far the most valid approach to predicting job performance. This approach includes:
demonstrating a clear link between the questions and the work (i.e., job-relatedness).
asking the same questions of all candidates.
developing a rating scale that can be used to determine the relative quality of answers given.
My preference is for using structured behavior-based interview questions, which ask about a candidate’s approach to a job-related situation and require the interviewer to probe for greater detail to ensure that the response is genuine and reflects skill in a certain area.
So, for example, you may want to ask the following to better understand candidates’ analytical skills and approach to problem-solving:
Tell me about a time when you were faced with an unusual problem at work, one for which you had little or no relevant experience. Walk me through your approach to solving that problem.
Tell me about a time when you had to deal with the following problems… (insert problems typically encountered in this role). Which of these problems do you typically find easiest to solve? Which are more difficult?
Detail-orientation is a little more difficult to assess in an interview, but you can ask about how they've tackled detail-checking tasks, and how they structure and organize their work; this can provide some insight into how conscientious they are when it comes to details.
Tell me about a time when you had to manage a complex project. How did you plan and organize the project? How did you ensure that work was being completed on time and to expected standards?
Tell me about a time when you reviewed a comprehensive document and noticed errors or flaws that others had overlooked.
Make sure you require that all candidates give you information on the Situation (circumstances surrounding the example), Action (approach that the candidate took), and Result (the outcome of the candidate’s actions).
All that being said, I would strongly advise that you support these interviews with a more objective evaluation method, particularly as performance in these areas is mostly dependent on skill (e.g., a candidate may use a wonderful approach to analyzing problems but lack the intelligence to quickly come up with the right solution, and learn from the experience).
For example, a good test of general cognitive ability will help you evaluate analytical skills, by presenting candidates with a series of problems and allowing you to compare their performance and approach to that of thousands of other professionals. You may then wish to support these results with a more comprehensive evaluation of numerical and verbal reasoning skills; these tests are more involved but provide excellent information on candidate skill in understanding and evaluating written information (verbal), and reviewing and manipulating factual business data (numerical).
There are also a number of well-researched tests of detailed-checking on the market, which require candidates to review material and identify errors and omissions. Again, a good test will have strong research support and allow you to compare scores to those received from an appropriate comparison or “norm” group.
Finally, I would suggest that you assess candidates using a valid behavioral styles questionnaire, which will help you better understand candidates’ typical approach to people and problems at work, and allow you to compare that approach to a professional norm group. For example, last Friday I used such an instrument to assess a candidate for a managerial position and found that, compared to other managers, he:
preferred to rely on subjective opinion and experience, rather than conduct research and gather “hard data”.
tended to be more accepting and open-minded, yet less willing to engage in critical analysis to understand problems and drawbacks.
was very creative, and tended to focus on ideas that had a practical and immediate impact (i.e., more tactical than strategic in nature).
depended on procedures and guidelines to solve problems, supporting this approach by consulting with experts in the field.
This was very important information to consider in determining job fit. Although his interview responses indicated that he was good at solving problems (at least those that were fairly straightforward and tactical), there was strong evidence that he needed a team around him – people he could use to gather information, help him with detailed data analysis, and identify potential problems in his approach. He would probably not do well in an independent role although seemed to excel when managing a team of experts.
Four Steps to Creating a Practical Description of the Job and Ideal Candidate
Do you have job descriptions for each position within your company? Do they accurately describe the qualities of the ideal job candidate? Are they clear, helpful and practical for use in making hiring decisions?
If you answered “no” to any of the questions above, you’re certainly not alone. Many small and medium-sized business owners admit that they’re not sure how to accurately describe jobs and, in turn, don’t always know what they should be looking for when hiring a potential employee.
Some depend on generic job descriptions that are vague, complex or impractical when making selection decisions. These descriptions tend to be expensive to develop, difficult to update, and end up gathering dust on office shelves because they’re not intuitive or easy to use. Others simply assume that applicants need a certain degree and number of years experience in the field to be successful, and basically leave it at that.
In either case, managers don’t always have the specific information they need to make good selection decisions, and end up uncertain about how to source, screen and select the right type of employee. Fortunately, there are four simple steps to overcoming this problem.
1. Develop Key Organizational, Departmental and Role Objectives
Perhaps the most important pieces of information missing from most job descriptions are organizational, departmental and role objectives – the reasons why a position exists and the part it plays in helping the company succeed. The majority of job decisions instead provide a list of standard tasks and purposeless activities, many of which are generic to a certain job title and fail to describe what it takes to be successful in a particular organization.
For example, standard job descriptions often indicate that Sales Representative are responsible for using a variety of tactics to acquire new customers, like cold calling and attending trade shows, but provide no indication of why these tasks should be done.
What if one of your organization’s goals is to increase profitability and it happens to be very costly to use trade shows to gather new clients in your industry? In that case, this task could work against the company’s purpose, cutting into potential revenue and limiting its success. Without an objective in mind, the employee may not consider other ways to build more profitable client relationships.
Understanding key organizational objectives forces hiring managers to really think about the tasks that would provide the most value to their companies, removing certain activities from the description, adding others, and modifying some so that they describe how an employee would best contribute to company’s goals.
Once you know why a position exists, and the part it plays in helping your company succeed, only then can you focus your attention on the activities completed in the role. However, it does little good to simply build an unstructured list of potential tasks and duties, as you would find in a traditional job description.
Instead, it is most helpful to think in terms of systems and processes, the steps that an employee takes in completing a particular role objective. For example, a Sales Rep doesn’t “build profitable relationships with current customers” simply by calling them on a regular basis. Rather, there is an series of tasks that the employee would engage in to meet that objective, in the most effective and efficient manner possible.
Perhaps it begins with reviewing the current client database and compiling information on customer financials, purchase history, and other background details, with a focus on identifying opportunities to sell other company offerings. Then reps may use this information to develop a written sales proposal that is later presented to client management in a group setting. The final step to achieving this goal may involve negotiating pricing with buyers.
The benefit to systems thinking is that it is much easier to update the job description as the organization evolves, and as you learn more about what it takes to be successful in the role. It helps you identify weak spots in a particular process and update it as you see fit. Of course, any updates to the tasks performed could mean that you should be looking for different qualities in a potential hire than is currently the case.
At this point, you would know the job’s purpose and what needs to be done to meet that goal. This is important because it informs you about the competencies you should be evaluating during the selection process - the knowledge, skills, abilities and other attributes a candidate needs to possess in order to complete a series of tasks successfully.
For example, effectively compiling client information may require that your sales candidates know how to use your company’s database software and have the ability to understand and evaluate client statistics. Explaining sales proposals to the client may require well-developed presentation skills, and attributes that include confidence in formal social settings and comfort persuading and negotiating.
In turn, being aware of required competencies allows you to choose assessment methods to best uncover these qualities in your applicant pool and ultimately identify the candidate most likely to be a high performer in the role.
In the case of hiring Sales Reps, you may now include a:
Skills test to measure candidates knowledge and proficiency in using your database software.
Numerical reasoning test to assess candidates’ ability to understand and evaluate client statistics.
Group exercise to evaluate presentation skills.
Behavioral style questionnaire and structured interview to assess confidence in formal social settings and candidates’ comfort persuading and negotiating.
Those who perform well throughout the assessment are most likely to effectively complete a process, meet role objectives, and ensure that the company succeeds in achieving its mandate.
The final step in creating a practical job description is to figure out how to objectively measure performance in the position. That way, you'll be able to distinguish between your most and least successful hires, shedding light on whether you’ve chosen the right tasks and competencies. In other words, you’ll know whether your employees’ approach to meeting role objectives is actually effective and whether or not you need to update your description.
For example, if the key objective for Sales Reps is to increase profitability, then a measure of performance may be “revenue generated per customer, minus the cost of making the sale and providing the product.” In this case, if you find out that Sales Reps with the highest profit per customer spend more time with clients trying the understand their needs, compared to their less successful peers, then you may need to revisit your job description in order to better highlight the importance of meeting with clients.
In turn, these changes to the job description mean that you would also need to measure candidate consultation skills and open-mindedness, perhaps through a valid behavioral styles questionnaire and structured interview questions. A close-minded candidate with poor social skills would likely be unsuccessful in this environment, and have difficulty increasing profits.
Clearly, developing a useful job description does not have to be a time-consuming and expensive undertaking. It simply requires you to think about why the role is important, what employees must do to meet these objectives, and which qualities they must possess in order to maximize their performance in the position.
This is a response to a blog post on Small Business Trends, written by Zane Saffrit, which speaks to employee motivation and retention.
Hi Zane,
As always, a very interesting and well-written post. I’ll certainly look forward to reading more about employee selection and retention issues in future. And certainly feel free to get in touch if I can help provide comments, strategies or resources that you think readers may find helpful.
Employee motivation, retention and engagement is something I’ve been studying in a fair amount of detail for the past couple of years, trying to find a way to integrate it into our employee selection practices – basically, helping employers uncover motivation issues at the hiring stage, so that they know the best way to keep top talent once selected (especially important to the SMB, considering the impact that employees have and the cost of repeating the hiring process!)
The key thing I’ve found after doing all of that reading is that employee motivation can be consider at three different levels, even though the vast majority of resources focus on one level in particular:
Macro-level
Most books and articles tend to speak about macro-level motivation, which is basically about how to motivate people in general, or as large groups. For example, articles that talk about “how to engage GenXers” and companies that institute flextime programs for all staff.
My impression is that this approach is best for casting a wide net in terms of its impact on employees, even though it may not be as effective as a more targeted strategy. What I mean is that, although you have an effect on most employees, the strength of that impact can vary across person. The young couple who recently had a baby may be highly motivated by flextime, for example, while the ambitious career-focused professional may not really care about variable work hours.
Two great resources for macro-level motivators are the “Best Employers to Work For” or “Top Employers” books and articles, which use a variety of criteria to rate companies on these factors, and Gallup’s research on the Q12, the 12 questions that their research has found to be excellent measures of employee engagement.
Do you know what is expected of you at work?
Do you have the materials and equipment you need to do your work right?
At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?
Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?
Is there someone at work who encourages your development?
At work, do your opinions seem to count?
Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?
Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work?
Do you have a best friend at work?
In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?
In the last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?
Job-level
A more targeted approach is one that considers a particular type of employee, typically a group of people with a certain job title. For example, while many people are attracted by flexible working hours, web designers at your company may be specifically attracted by the chance to work with the latest technology. In that case, you may want to focus your engagement programs on providing these employees with opportunities to work with cutting-edge design software and high-performance computer systems.
The best way to uncover these motivators is to ask, to survey current employees in the role to find out what aspects of the work and company are most satisfying. You can use the Q12 and “Best Employers” factors as a guide, but be sure to dig deeper by asking about specific things that they find engaging. For example, ask them about what parts of the job they find most interesting, the types of projects they enjoyed and why, the managers they most enjoy working for, etc.
You can gather very insightful information by surveying all employees and exploring the different answers provided by top performers versus their less capable counterparts. For example, you may find that your best people were attracted to your excellent training programs, while less capable employees were more interested in compensation.
Individual-level
The most focused approach you can take to employee motivation is to understand what an individual employee finds most engaging and ensuring that managers use that information when working with that person on an on-going basis.
For example, although I am a GenXer HR professional, I’m certainly motivated by different things than my peers, people of the same age who work in the same profession. If my boss wants to make me happiest, most interested, and most likely to apply myself, he or she would need to understand those differences and know how to best to meet my particular needs.
We’ve found that this approach is the most potent and try to uncover this information through a combination of motivational assessment questionnaires and interviews. The questionnaires focus on 18 different motivators and tell us how much more or less motivated the person is on these factors, compared to thousands of their peers. The interview helps us verify these scores and gather more detailed information.
Sorry to get carried away here, but it’s a very interesting topic and so important to company success…and our happiness as people of course!
What creates the best IT Sales People? Behaviors, Experience, Education etc? If you were to hire someone for this the role of IT Sales what would their profile be?
Hi Greig,
There are certain characteristics that are important to success in any job and relate very highly to success. For example, research has clearly shown that scores on cognitive ability tests (problem-solving, intelligence, etc.) correlate very well with one’s ability to learn, solve problems, benefit from training, and adapt to change and greater responsibility. Also, a high level of conscientiousness, as assessed in a behavioural styles instrument, relates well to success in any job.
So, your profile should include:
Cognitive abilities.
Conscientiousness.
Next, consider competencies that are important to success in sales. For example, we've just recently developed a screening and evaluation program for sales representatives and have uncovered the following key competencies for that role:
Problem-Solving
Verbal Communication
Project Management
Social Confidence / Persuasion
Client Service and Support
Resiliency
Managing Change.
Finally, think about the qualities that are specifically important to performance in technical sales. I would imagine that this includes a certain level of knowledge in a specific technical area or, at the very least, the ability to quickly assimilate and communicate technical information.
I would be happy to talk to you about running your candidates through the Hire Insight assessment process. Feel free to drop me a note if interested.
PS. Research has also shown that experience and education, as outlined on a resume, are only slightly better than flipping a coin to predict success, unless they are considered along with cognitive ability. They should play only a small part in your profile.
I've found that many of today's companies will not entertain the idea of an employee who does not have a college degree. In many cases, they will not even let you apply without one. Is this really the norm or are companies beginning to look at experience more? Which do you value more - college degree or several years experience?
Hi Lisa,
Unfortunately, it’s true that many employers are using education as a key filter when considering applicants, despite it being a very low predictor of job success (just ask Steve Jobs, college dropout). However, what many may not realize is that using experience as a filter is not much better.
Here’s what the research shows with respect to the validity (relationship to job success) of education and experience:
Education – validity of 0.11
Experience – validity of 0.18
[The U.S. Department of Labor states that a validity coefficient is excellent if larger than 0.35, good if between 0.21 and 0.35, poor if less than 0.21.]
I know that research statistics can be a little dry, but the fact is that these qualities were studied with thousands and tens of thousands of employees, and clearly showed their relationship to job success. If we really thought about it, these research results make complete sense. Having ten years of experience in a role does not mean that one performed it very well. So, what quality should have the highest weight in a selection process?
In studies that reviewed the performance of over 30,000 employees, cognitive ability was one of the best predicators of success and related very highly to candidates’ ability to effectively solve problems, learn and benefit from training, adapt to changing issues and circumstances, and even helps determine the employee’s level of job satisfaction. For those interested in the statistics, it had a validity coefficient of 0.53.
That said, technical knowledge (gained through education and experience) is going to play a role in helping a candidate “hit the ground running” and in some cases is necessary to even be able to practice in a certain role. Sometimes it's unrealistic to expect a company to engage in a comprehensive training program for those without the required background, even if they are deemed high potential.
What we would recommend is using a combination of cognitive ability and education/experience to find those candidates who have had opportunity to gain technical knowledge and the ability to learn and benefit from those opportunities. That’s what we do when screening candidates and we’ve had quite a bit of success with that approach.
If we've learned anything from surveying managers and business owners over the past year, it's that qualified applicants are hard to find. For some, there were simply fewer people applying to their posted jobs and, for others, the quality of the resumes received was getting steadily worse. Many were experiencing both.
It may surprise you then that even in the current economy some organizations continue to receive quality applications on a regular basis and greatly exceed their recruitment goals. How do they accomplish this?
A New Way to Look at Recruitment
Above all, they treat recruitment like a marketing activity. They clearly understand that marketing yourself as an employer is no different than effectively presenting a product to a customer - both require you to understand and anticipate the needs of a target market, and cater to those needs in order to attract people’s attention and motivate them to “buy”.
What is most surprising is that for all of the effort that companies put into marketing products and attracting customers, many don't invest nearly as much into appealing to people who are just as important to success - future talent. What do most companies do to entice them? They write and post a standard job description, which is often not much more than a bland list of tasks and required qualifications, with no means of appealing to high-performers and motivating them to apply.
Of course marketing is not just about brochures or job descriptions, but about all of the actions that your company can take to develop attractive qualities. In the case of recruitment, it is the brand that you develop to entice those high-performing candidates to apply to posted positions and to recognize your company as the ideal employer.
The Top Employer Advantage
Take for example the members of the various “Top Employers” lists, who typically see a substantial increase in their perceived value as an employer after being profiled, and a huge increase in the number of candidates who apply to their postings. These are companies that understand the value of good press and how it can motivate people to apply (and tell their talented friends!).
Even though they come from entirely different industries, the Top 10 Best Employers in Canada have a few things in common: Their turnover rates are exceptionally small, and they are recruiting rapidly as their businesses expand. They hired a combined 3,145 people in the past year, according to Mediacorp.
- Financial Post, 2007
So, how do you most effectively market yourself as an employer, like companies in the Top Employer lists?
Understand Your Target Market
First, it's critical to understand the buying habits of your target market - high-performing employees. This includes knowing where to find them and why they ultimately decide to take one job over another.
Often the best sources for this information are your current employees, who for whatever reason were once compelled to apply to your company and to a specific job opening. Conducting interviews and surveys, particularly with those who are most successful, will give you considerable insights into how best to position yourself as an employer (tip: see if there are any differences between answers given by your top people and their less capable peers).
Some of the questions to ask include:
How did you find your current job?
Where are some of the best places to market job openings for this position?
Where do the best people in this role gather? (e.g., trade shows, associations, websites, etc.)
What publications do they read?
What made this position more appealing than others that you were considering?
How could we have better enticed you to apply?
Why do you enjoy working here? (e.g., organizational culture, company size, coworkers, manager, benefits, training, opportunities, challenge, etc.
Set the Goal of Becoming a Top Employer
Next, you need to develop ways to establish your brand as a company who offers considerable advantages to highly successful employees. These can include general benefits that would appeal to a wide range of employees and more specific offerings that are more tailored to the individual.
The questions that you asked in the employee survey will help uncover some of the more specific benefits that you'll want to market to potential candidates. For example, while many people are attracted by flexible working hours, high-performing web designers at your company may be attracted by the chance to work with the latest technology. In that case, you should market the fact that your company “provides opportunities to work with the latest design technology.”
In fact, why not even go so far as to set the goal of being profiled on a prominent “Top Employers” list? The work that you do to make the list will certainly improve your employer appeal and the publicity alone will help increase the number of people who apply to your job openings (hopefully, you have a well-developed screening process in place).
Want to be a Top Employer? Here are some of the benefits you may want to consider, and some examples:
Physical Workplace
On-site Facilities
Modern Technology
Work Atmosphere
Concierge
Employee Social Clubs
Health, Financial, & Family
Daycare
Gym Membership
Flexible Benefits
Vacation and Time Off
Five Weeks Vacation
Flexible Scheduling
Employee Communications
Townhall Meetings
Newsletters
Employee Surveys
Performance Management
Clear Role Objectives
Rewards Tied to Performance
Training & Skills Development
On-site Training
Tuition Subsidies
Community Involvement
Support for Charities
Volunteer Programs
Develop Better “Brochures”
Of course, as with product marketing, understanding your customers and developing marketing strategy will only take you so far. The final piece of the puzzle includes developing the marketing materials that will communicate your employer brand and provide applicants with the means to apply.
Your primary weapon in this regard is the job advertisement that many companies design so poorly. You, however, can stand apart from the crowd by:
Describing the benefits that were uncovered in your employee survey. In other words, explaining to candidates why they would want to apply for the role.
Discussing job objectives, as opposed to listing tasks. This would be the difference between “conducting performance reviews” (task), and “helping people exceed expectations and reach their true potential through your expert advice and support” (objective) - which would you find most appealing?
Resisting the urge to include required qualifications, unless they are critical to the role. For example, stating that candidates require five years of experience will disqualify high-potential people with four or less. Be prepared to hire on talent, intelligence, and motivation. Then provide training to make up for a lack of education or experience, if appropriate.
Including an enticing case study so that candidates can envision what it would be like to work at your company. This could be in the form of an interview with an enthusiastic employee or a short “day in the life” of a high-performer.
You'll also want to consider reworking the career section of your website, so that visiting candidates are further excited by the thought of working with your company. The career section of HSBC’s website is a great example of how to appeal to a variety of potential candidates.
Microsoft goes one step further by providing profiles of real employees and their positive experience of working there. This is a company that understands that a website is the perfect soapbox for employee evangelists who will spread the word about why the company is such a great employer. Doing so also acts on the “psychology of trust” by providing applicants with first hand company information from people they feel are similar to themselves.
Finally, although unconventional (read: something you can do that many employers don’t), consider developing press releases and providing interviews to the media that speak to the work environment and benefits of being an employee at your company. High-performers will be interested in, and remember, articles that describe your unique approach to managing people or the exciting projects that your best people are involved in. Your goal should be to get potential employees thinking about how wonderful it would be to work for you.
If you are having trouble developing these materials, consider asking internal or third-party marketing experts to review your work and provide comments and suggestions on how to improve them.
Find the Right Place to Market the Opportunity
The final step is identifying the best places to market your company and the open position. Again, input from current employees will help generate a list of potential sources for future candidates. Also consider the following:
Websites and blogs frequented by top people in the field.
Conclusion
Clearly, it does not have to be difficult to gather a large number of qualified job candidates. It is simply a matter of understanding what attracts people to your company and finding the best ways to market this advantage to potential applicants.
