Ready to revolutionize your recruitment approach? Prepare to tap into the often-overlooked power of soft skills as Pete Newsome and Ricky Baez guide you on redefining recruitment. This episode promises many insights into hiring based on intangible attributes and how they often carry more value than technical skills, particularly as one ascends the corporate hierarchy.
Imagine discovering a candidate's emotional intelligence, teamwork skills, and cultural fit without stepping on legal landmines or encouraging discrimination. Pete and Ricky have got you covered. They shed light on balancing technical qualifications and soft skills during the hiring process. Their conversation covers the benefits and drawbacks of assigning projects to potential employees during the recruitment process and the potential rewards of hiring freelancers for specific roles.
The discussion doesn't stop there. They explore interview techniques to help you assess a candidate's soft skills without crossing legal boundaries or perpetuating discrimination. Ricky shares insights on the power of behavioral questions, the pitfalls of relying too heavily on resumes, and not forgetting the importance of professional references in painting a picture of candidates' past performance. Get ready to redefine recruitment with us and make better-informed hiring decisions. Embark on this enlightening chat to transform your hiring landscape.
Ready to revolutionize your recruitment approach? Prepare to tap into the often-overlooked power of soft skills as Pete Newsome and Ricky Baez guide you on redefining recruitment. This episode promises many insights into hiring based on intangible attributes and how they often carry more value than technical skills, particularly as one ascends the corporate hierarchy.
Imagine discovering a candidate's emotional intelligence, teamwork skills, and cultural fit without stepping on legal landmines or encouraging discrimination. Pete and Ricky have got you covered. They shed light on balancing technical qualifications and soft skills during the hiring process. Their conversation covers the benefits and drawbacks of assigning projects to potential employees during the recruitment process and the potential rewards of hiring freelancers for specific roles.
The discussion doesn't stop there. They explore interview techniques to help you assess a candidate's soft skills without crossing legal boundaries or perpetuating discrimination. Ricky shares insights on the power of behavioral questions, the pitfalls of relying too heavily on resumes, and not forgetting the importance of professional references in painting a picture of candidates' past performance. Get ready to redefine recruitment with us and make better-informed hiring decisions. Embark on this enlightening chat to transform your hiring landscape.
You're listening to The Hire Calling Podcast. I'm Pete Newsome and this is your source for all things hiring, staffing and recruiting. I'm joined today once again by Ricky Baez. Ricky, how are you this morning?
Ricky Baez:It's October. I love it. This is my second favorite month of the year. Second favorite what's your favorite? December, Come on.
Pete Newsome:Christmas has to be yes.
Ricky Baez:Yes, of course. Look, I'm Puerto Rican. So coquito patele spending people who are Puerto Rican understand what I just said. Google it, trust me, it's work, safe. It's some good stuff during the holidays.
Pete Newsome:Ricky, we usually take a few minutes to get off track, but today we're going. We're going right there, right from the start.
Ricky Baez:Right through it. But let's get back on track, because we're not here to talk about Puerto Rican cuisine or Christmas. We're here to talk about specific techniques for evaluating character and potential, hiring for soft skills, right.
Pete Newsome:Hiring for soft skills. It's the one thing that everyone should feel good about. That's going to keep AI and robots from stealing our jobs right, that seems to be the topic.
Ricky Baez:That's right. Yeah, little clippy Clippy from Microsoft is going to take our job one day.
Pete Newsome:Well, look, there's a lot of things that automation can do. There are a lot of things, of course, as we're all experiencing right now, that AI can do, but one of the things that I don't know how it can ever do is really assess soft skills at a deep level, and I think, who knows? I never say never, right, but this is what differentiates a human recruiter, a good one, from a machine trying to match skills is what are those soft skills? Things that you may be on a resume but you really have to get a feel for someone in person. So how do you, how do you think of soft skills? How would you define those?
Ricky Baez:I would define it as more of emotional intelligence. How do you deal with other human beings? How do you influence other human beings? A machine is easy. You put in a code. The machine does what the code says. But when it comes to interacting with another human being that you're going to be working with, you need a different, particular set of skills for you to be able to get the talents that that person was hired to do. So to me, it's all about the human interaction and how well or not good you use it.
Pete Newsome:That's a great way to phrase it. I mean, it's it. To me it's the whole of who you are. Right, what, what is this? Okay, it's great that Ricky has all of the qualifications and background on on his resume to do the job, but is Ricky going to be someone I want to interact with? Is Ricky going to be consistent? Is he going to be agreeable and enjoyable and motivated and driven and all of these things that you just can't grab from a resume, right? You have to really see who this person is on the inside.
Ricky Baez:That's right, because on the resume it shows what you have accomplished. It shows your technical abilities, but it doesn't really show how you accomplish it. It doesn't really show how you deploy those technical abilities. And this is what we're looking to find out when trying to decide a person's soft skills, the how. How do you do this, how do you do that?
Pete Newsome:That's right. So some examples of soft skills right. Some additional communication, teamwork, organizational skills, leadership skills right, Because so balance out against the hard skills, which, again, are easy to quantify in a different way your technical abilities, the degree and education that you have, the professional experience that you've been exposed to, the tools that you know how to use, those are hard skills much easier to define and quantify on a resume. So what we're talking about really today is how do we, how do we recruit for soft skills? How do we pick those things out from one person over another, when the resumes and professional background looks similar? But we know working with person A could be vastly different than working with person B, even if they look the same on paper.
Ricky Baez:And this is scary, pete, because I do have students and I do have clients that I coach on this because they focus just on the technical aspect, which that's something you need to focus on when you're going out to and finding talent. Obviously, they have to meet the minimum qualification. But let me paint you this story what if you have 20 engineers and you need 21,? All the 20 engineers get along great and this 21st engineer that you're bringing in because the previous one retired, right, but you're bringing this one person I got five PhDs, all these credentials but they don't get along with anybody. They don't know how to communicate with anybody. Yes, on paper, his skill set looks great, but if you bring that person into the organization, you run the risk of messing up the well old machine you already have going just because this person does not know how to get along with other people.
Pete Newsome:And it's not a one size fits all thing, right. So you can say, for example, every company who needs to hire someone to do WordPress development, for example, needs to hire someone who has a background and experience and skill in WordPress development right. But it could be a vastly different position where one need might be for someone to work autonomously, to come up with the ideas from scratch, to just take a project from start to finish and complete it as a solo effort, where in another scenario, as you were describing just a minute ago, you might need someone who works well as a team, who can fit a very specific role within a bigger picture. Those are very different jobs to hire for and they're very different people you should hire for those jobs, and that is where soft skills really come into play.
Ricky Baez:Would it be safe to say, Pete, that the higher up you go in an organization like, the more people you have responsibility over, the bigger the soft skills you need to have? Is that a fair assessment?
Pete Newsome:I'd say different soft skills right, because that if you consider things like leadership right, organizational skills management, empathy, for example, then great, but I don't know that I would use a lot of those words to describe Elon Musk at times.
Ricky Baez:That's a good point.
Pete Newsome:So nobody's higher up than he is in the professional world. But I think he probably realizes and I have no idea what his management style is really but I suspect those aren't the kind of things he stops. If we look at being empathetic and cultivating, making sure everyone's feelings aren't hurt and that sort of thing, those are valuable things for leaders to be able to do in many cases. But wouldn't be surprised if he has someone else worrying about those details on his team right?
Ricky Baez:Well, don't you think the way he's acting right now makes the point? It makes the point that that's necessary, right, because I think he would have a better follow. I mean, I can't say, I just know what I see on TV. I think he would have a better following and more people who will listen to him with an influential ear, because right now I'm venturing to guess people to listen to him with an ear of fear. Right, I don't want to lose my job, right, but is there an influence there? And I think that. And no, actually, I don't think I know that's what I meant. When you're at the top, you have to have a different level of influence to the people below you, because now, not only do you have to know be able to talk to the people at the bottom lines, but you also have to talk to the people in the middle, executive, leadership and so on and so forth. And that's what I'm thinking that the soft skills are more prudent at the second level than anywhere else.
Pete Newsome:But I'll say is a general statement. Sure, but every organization is so different. I wouldn't want to put that in one category by itself and agree to all of it, because if you are looking to build a high performance organization, one that's intense think of a, you know, wolf of Wall Street type of scenario almost right Then you would want a different kind of leader, a different set of soft skills. So that's really where the basis for this lies is understanding what soft skills are needed in that particular environment and then hire accordingly. One story that I always think of in a conversation like this is years ago we had a software developer join a team. It wasn't the joint, the team of 20 that you described. It was a team of four. This is a fourth person to join. Someone had left for whatever reason.
Pete Newsome:We recruited a candidate into this role and they all set in a room together and on this candidate's first day he walks in and the lights are off in the room and he turned the lights on. One of the other developers went and turned the light off, and this went back and forth all day and he called us at the end and he said I don't think I can work here. They work in the dark, they don't communicate with each other, nobody interacts. So if you were interviewing for that role, you should say Are you comfortable working in silence, even though you're with other people? Can you just, you know, is that a good fit for you? And it doesn't. It's not a matter of one being better or worse. I mean, most people would say the lights on are better, but it was what was needed in that particular situation. So knowing the culture, knowing what soft skills are needed, that to me is step one in this process.
Ricky Baez:Especially the culture. Right, because it's. If you're, if you're tasked to hire the next engineer, the next supervisor, the next, the next, whatever for the organization, you have just enough responsibility to make sure the person is it's, it's fits culturally with the and I mean the organizational culture, not a personal culture the fits, the organization culture, the best way possible, the same as the skillset needed to be successful in this role. So the recruiter really has to find that perfect balance of both to mesh as well as possible with the team that they're about to work with.
Pete Newsome:And I'll tell you the way I took job requirements over the years and would still do today If I were in that mode, like I used to be. And you, you needed me to hire someone for you. And you, if you were a new manager that I'm working with for the first time, I would spend a little time enough time on tell me what you need, ricky. Hard skills, right. What job do they need to be able to accomplish for you? What are the goals and objectives of the role? Of course I want to know all that, but I'm much more interested in who you need. Give me the person that's going to be a good fit, and those soft skills I would say matter at some level, greater than 50% for most jobs.
Ricky Baez:And Pete, I have to say this because right now, for all the HR people listening, right now, their heads are exploding. Yes, we are. We are going to be fair and concise in who we bring in, because in the HR world, pete I don't know if you've seen this this is a big thing as far as being careful and making sure somebody is culturally fit for an organization, because then you might start dabbling into illegal water. So that's not what we're saying here. What we're saying here is the minimum qualifications has to be met. Once that is met, then let's take a look at the soft skills needed to be successful in the role.
Pete Newsome:Give me more from that. Tell me where you're concerned lies with this. Where am I making you nervous?
Ricky Baez:Well, no, not because I, because I know what you mean. What it will make other people nervous is if you focus so much on the culturally fit perspective, there could be that you're picking somebody on something that's not a necessary or a needed skill set technically for the role. So if you get, if you take your eyes of what is technically necessary for the role, you run the risk of running into other protected areas. What if you take your eyes off that? You start figuring out somebody has to be more charismatic, somebody has to have more energy? Right, let's focus on energy, right. Because, if you want, if you look at the people with just high energy and you focus just on that, chances are you're going to hire people that are younger, right, and now you just violated the ADA and organization just getting trouble for that.
Pete Newsome:So that's that's an interesting. It's an interesting road to go down and this is off topic so I don't want to spend much time on it. Sorry, sorry, but that that is an it to me. That's conflating things, that that shouldn't be confused. Right, if I need someone with energy, if I, if I'm hiring a salesperson, right, I want someone who is enthusiastic for it. They have an outgoing personality, they're upbeat, they do have energy. I know that's a necessary soft scale. Those are necessary soft skills to be successful in many sales roles. I'm not going to apologize for recruiting for that Now. If someone wants to say yeah, but that's potentially discriminating on age, I think that is completely unfounded and not in one having nothing to do with the other. There's a lot of super energetic, jetic 80 year olds. There's a lot of lazy 20 year olds, right, agreed, so so do you. So tell me where that you know. Back to the your comment that makes HR people's head explode Is is it because they're concerned that those things aren't easy to to separate? I guess I'm not completely following.
Ricky Baez:No, because because here's the thing. Now, you're right that's going to go nowhere if all of your tools, if, if, if, you've done everything you need to do to make sure you bring that person on board, but from a legal perspective, you're going to spend about 20 grand to prove yourself right. So let's avoid that altogether. Right, avoid that altogether. I'm not saying that that this is going to lead us down that road, because, again, you have to have a balance with it, right? And all I'm saying is it's really easy to get away from the technical aspect and focus on things that are not in this technical necessity for the job, and you can easily go down that rabbit hole where this organization did. This organization wanted to, wanted to bring in I'm not going to mention the name, but it's all over the news they wanted to bring in all newer employees and they were all focusing just in Gen Z's right because Gen Z's have a different point of view when it comes to work.
Ricky Baez:Well, you know who's not a Gen Z people over 40. Right, they, they're not Gen Z and a group of them got together like this is not fair and they lost $20 million in that lawsuit. So it's that case is different. But if all I'm saying is as a recruiter, let's make sure the balance is there. Focus on the technical aspect, but then, just equally as important, you got to focus on the soft skills to have that perfect ingredient in the bowl to make that cake. I had to bring it back to food, sorry.
Pete Newsome:So if I'm, if I'm, if you're my client and I'm looking to recruit for you, if you're the hiring manager, give me some, some insight then on where you think that that line becomes too close to being crossed. If I'm saying all right, ricky, you've given me the technical requirements, the hard skills for the job, right? We'll just continue to use the example of a software developer.
Pete Newsome:Since I brought it, up earlier and I'm like great, now let's get into the. Who you need to hire. Tell me what you know. The soft let's talk about the soft skills. Do they need to? Are they going to work as part of a team or are they going to be autonomous? I mean, that's a huge thing to start with to have a bit as a basis for understanding. Now, that's that's really important to me as a recruiter. Does that make you uncomfortable? You think that gives you a dangerous spot?
Ricky Baez:No, it doesn't, because it's. I'm being specific as to what we need. Let's say, I need two positions, same skills, same everything. One of them is working by themselves in a room for eight hours, right An analyst. And the other one works with a group of people. Obviously, the job description is going to look the same from a technical perspective, but the soft skills are going to be very different, right? Because I'm not going to care as much for the soft skills of the person who's working in the room by themselves if I'm the only person they need to talk to, versus somebody who's got to deal with the rest of the team, has to present in front of the executive leadership and has to talk to our clients, right? That's a completely different set of soft skills that I'm going to need for that second person that I would for the first person. So that this interaction so far, so far, so good.
Pete Newsome:Okay, so then, where do you have then concerns? Because a part of screening for soft skills is you could get into the world of behavioral interviews, and that's something that I think is important too. Do you feel that that is also a risky road to go?
Ricky Baez:down? No, because we have me as a, as a, as a business owner, I do have to write to. I have to write to make sure that I vet the right person for the right role. If I'm going to pay money on a weekly basis for this person and return for talent, I got to make sure it's the right person.
Ricky Baez:So so far, with behavioral interviews, I want to make sure this guy's not going to smack somebody over the head because the Phillies won, right. I want to make sure Will Syracuse going on, folks, in case you haven't heard, phillies are doing good, so that's important. If you don't do that, if you don't look for that and the guy actually does that, beat somebody, the question is going to be how? How did you check for this in the interview process, right? Did you check references Right? So we got to watch ourselves for that as well. Again, I'm saying we need a balance, and the issue comes into place when you don't look at the, the technical skills, and you only focus on the culture of fit. That's when you become, when you have an issue.
Pete Newsome:So let me make sure we're on the same page. When the technical fit to me is the easier of things to assess, absolutely Right. So I'm we're not talking about that today because we're assuming that they're. That matches there, right? We're looking to go beyond that.
Pete Newsome:So, when I'm thinking of behavioral questions or soft skills, I want to know how you responded to adversity. I want to know how you managed a project. I want to know how you interacted with the team. These are all the things that I want to find out from you as a candidate. So I'm going to go with the opposite way of what you said, right? So this will really make your HR head explode, perhaps.
Pete Newsome:I'm going to say you're probably doing everyone a disservice if you don't screen and recruit for soft skills, because you're going to end up with both sides unhappy, right? So I think we're starting to see a lot of people who are not good at the same level, but with both sides unhappy, right? So I think we're so afraid at times of let's not get close to a line that could get us sued, right? I mean, look, no one, we're not going to discriminate against anyone. We're not going to get anywhere near talking about protected classes. To me that is such a far cry from what we're talking about. So I it catches my attention, and so we're a little off topic when there's a red flag thrown up for that kind of thinking, because I think, no, no, no, now we're, just now we're, we're bringing something unnecessary into the conversation.
Ricky Baez:Well, well, pete, that's what makes this this what you and I have. You're such a great team, right? I don't want you thinking about that. I want you thinking about bringing the neck, the best person on board. If you focus on that me as as HR okay, I'm gonna. I'm gonna equate this to a car. Okay, I'm, it's you're.
Ricky Baez:You're trying to get to Miami and you're going 180 miles an hour and I'm here to tell you, I want you to get to Miami, but go, go the speed limit. Right, that's all I'm saying. Right, you focus on driving to your destination. I, for example, you focus on bringing the best person on board and I will focus to make sure that we do this in a way that minimize legal liability. That's why this is such a great team, and that that that is all I'm saying is that my concern only comes into play when the technical abilities or the technical skillset are not looked at. But I know you and I assume that that is looked at. But I guarantee, if people listening right now they're like, oh my god, you can't do it, no, wait a minute. We have, we have to balance it. If we balance it, you're gonna be okay.
Pete Newsome:Understood. Fair enough. So we're not discriminating, but we are drilling down to the things that matter, right?
Pete Newsome:So let me go to another area of assessment for soft skills psychometric testing. What's your general take on that? I know there's a lot of organizations that are completely bought into the concept. There's others that never consider doing it, and what we're talking about with that is if skills testing, aptitude testing, personality testing, to see if you are a good fit for the role. Now, if anything, to me, at times when I see this taking place, I think, oh boy, that's letting you know we're back to letting a robot of sorts right, make a decision. But what's your take on the value of that and how it comes into play in interviewing?
Ricky Baez:I value those kinds of testings only if it's used as a tool to make a decision with it to bring somebody on board, not if it's the only deciding factor. It has to be in a plate full of other tools to help make a suggestion over that the person should be brought on board, right. So I agree, because then look, I know it's. I'm willing to get some of the most famous serial killers that America or the world knows were freaking geniuses right because the IQ was high. They just have this little fix that needs to be. You know, this itch that needs to be scratched. What I'm saying is is that from an HR perspective or a leadership perspective, I'm perfectly okay with that. Only if it's used as a tool, combined with other tools, to help the human being make a decision, then I'm okay with it.
Pete Newsome:Got it okay, fair enough. So let me ask you this is a little bit once again off topic, but it's something that I've noticed a lot on LinkedIn lately Comments being made about companies that ask their candidates to do projects, to do work and we've had that come up at times over the years with the client asking for creative position, for example, asking someone to show do a little project. Now, it's one thing if it takes a very short time, but some of these examples I've seen on LinkedIn are companies asking candidates to spend hours and hours doing something without compensating them for I'm not a fan of that at all. I think that's a. I don't think that's appropriate. But do you see that as a danger zone at all? I don't know why we're going danger zone today, but that's where we are. We need Kenny Loggins.
Ricky Baez:Kenny Loggins playing no, look, I don't see that as a legal issue. I do see that as the best way, the best way to push your best candidates out of the runnings. Your best candidates are not gonna have time for that. They're not gonna have time for that. They're gonna go to where people respect their time right and really get down to what really press tax what needs to happen for the person to be hired. You know who's gonna stick around with you to go through that test to make sure they got the job the people who have no chance anywhere else. So, from my perspective, if you can do it in 10 minutes and in 10 minutes you can determine the candidates, technical skills, by all means go for it. Couple of hours, no, you're gonna push your best people away.
Pete Newsome:Yeah, I think that's a great way to put it and that's for that reason alone. It's a dangerous road to go down. It's really. It's also a bit of a disrespectful thing at times to the individual, but if a company's willing to compensate for the time at an hourly rate, I think that's appropriate. If you really need to see that work to make an assessment, it could be a win-win if someone's otherwise not employed and I'll give you a real world example of how I've done. That is when we hire freelancers for project work, then I ask them to give me a sample. Let's start with one small project Now. I'm going to pay you for it at your hourly rate, but it's a way of finding out whether there's a good fit in real time right Real world, with something that I will be asking you to do at scale. Let's do it in a small sample and see how your quality was right. So I do that pretty regularly on the freelance side, but always compensating the individual for it.
Ricky Baez:Well, you know who does it a lot. The labor market right. Well, trades welders right. I've helped an organization recruit a welder and I love their process. They have two pieces of iron or steel and they're like, hey, weld this together. They have all the tools there, all the tools are there right, and they know how to turn things on and put and you just let them do it safely. Again, that takes 20 minutes. That's perfect. Why not put them through that so you can see whether you can do?
Pete Newsome:it Absolutely Okay. So we're talking about techniques to evaluate these soft skills, right? Group interviews, group interviews Now I'm not talking panel interviews. That's different. I know what you mean. Maybe we can talk about these things separately. Group interview hey, you're one of three candidates, five candidates. Let's sit you down altogether and see how you react. I think that's weird. I don't. It's not something we encounter rarely, if ever, do we encounter that In our staffing world? What's your take on group interviews?
Ricky Baez:If I'm looking for somebody, a salesperson, who I need this person to command the group of people, to convince other people to go the other way. I will love to do a group interview because I'll put a lot of A players together, right, and we'll see who comes out on top. We'll see who's the one who's gonna sway somebody from one place to the other. From a sales perspective, that is awesome, that is excellent, right? Because what happens if somebody has all the schooling, all the certification? Because, remember, schooling and education, it's just proof that you have the education you wanna see, proof that they can use it right? So if you have somebody in that group that's an introvert, doesn't talk, it's afraid to talk to people, you're not gonna put them in a sales position, so they're gonna fail, regardless of what kind of credentials they have.
Pete Newsome:So for that example, I would do that and I would, as a professional salesperson, which I've been for most of my career, I would argue that you're gonna lose the A players in that scenario too. You think so? Yeah, no way, I'm playing that game with someone I know it's not gonna happen. I don't mind a panel interview. Go ahead, line everyone up, give me your best, let's see how I stand up in that situation. I think that's a much more relevant way to assess how someone's going to do then to put them in a completely unnatural environment. That's not, in my opinion, a true assessment of how they'll do in their job. It's just almost mean. I don't know.
Ricky Baez:It's just. How is that that's not mean? How is that mean?
Pete Newsome:Yeah, it's again. I think it's a bit of a disrespectful approach and that's just my own take. I'm not fundamentally opposed to it happening. I just I don't think that's the best way to treat individuals who are interviewing for a role. To put them in a cattle call situation and line them up. It's just not what I would want to subject someone to. And I'll tell you maybe that's just my own personal take I'd draw the line there. I wouldn't subject myself to that either. I'd say, hey look, you know, you don't you know. I'm just. I have too much respect for my own ability to subject myself to that, so Fair enough.
Ricky Baez:I mean, I've done that a series in the past and we've got it down to the point that we knew the type of person we needed to hire and we got long story short. We knew we needed used car salesmen because they had the best gift of no. Seriously, they have the best gift of GAB. They can talk to anybody and sell them anything. And the best way for us to see how that skillset come out, put them in a group of people and have them talk about a blender and then see what happens to this blender right it's. It worked out great.
Pete Newsome:Yeah, I get what you're saying. So look. So sometimes interviewing adding some gimmicky things to it like that right, sell me a pencil. It's a different style, it's a different approach. It's not one that I've subscribed to, because you're not hiring me to sell a pencil, right. You're hiring me to build relationships, to build rapport, to understand what someone finds valuable and then be able to apply our solution to it. That's what you're hiring me to do, and I don't think those situations are necessarily good breeding grounds for it. But I'm thinking we're talking just from a sales perspective. Maybe there's other group interview scenarios that would make more sense. None of them immediately come to mind. I just haven't encountered it that much either, thankfully.
Ricky Baez:Now here's the thing, Pete Now. And if from a recruiter's perspective, if you really want to find out who that person is, you do have to ask those behavioral questions. But instead of asking, hey, how will you handle ex-situation which anybody can make up, the best thing a recruiter can do is to ask the candidate to give you an example of a situation that A happened and how to B you the candidate respond to it Now, is there a possibility they could lie? Yeah, there is. There's a small possibility that they can get some good lies in there, but the majority of the time you're going to get people's real responses because they believe that's the real thing they have to say, and sometimes they say the right things. And how they handle it. They were really diplomatic about it. They tried to understand people's rationale. Now you start to see the interpersonal skills. You start to see how this person handles people who disagree with them. And especially in situations where everybody's violating policy, how do you stand up to call everybody out on that? Those are questions you need to ask.
Pete Newsome:So here's a question for you. A candidate is asked a question like that, a situational question, and they make up.
Ricky Baez:you said they're probably going to lie, or are you?
Pete Newsome:okay with that If it satisfied the ultimate goal of the candidate to get the job offer right? Are you okay if they gave you a lie which was the right answer to the question, versus giving you a poor answer to the question which was a truth? Because what's your take on that?
Ricky Baez:My take is my no. No, I'll tell you. I'll tell you. My take on that is that if you tell me a good story on how you will handle something, that's even worse, because that means you're telling me you know how to do it, you know what needs to be done, but I want evidence that you did it Right.
Pete Newsome:I want evidence, right, but I think in so many cases when these interview questions arise and the candidate is not prepared for them, so on, on Zengegg, our career advice site, we have a list of common interview questions that it could be asked for any job title. We have 70 of them, 70 of them with an explanation for how to answer what the interviewer is looking for. Here's some, you know, here's the approach you should take 70. That's a big number. Those are the most quote most common. So, even though every candidate should go there and read through them to prepare for an interview, there's going to be 71 or 72 or 73 that are just out of left field, right the you know sell me the pencil type thing, and all of those are.
Pete Newsome:Here's a manhole cover. It was some Microsoft question that I used to see all the time from years ago. It's a round male, a manhole cover and a square hole. How do you make it fit or something like that? Like, and I know these questions are asked with a good, with good intentions, but just because a candidate isn't prepared for your obscure question doesn't mean they're not great, and so I would, you know, just expect that the more you kind of ask people to stretch the the, the farther away you're getting from reality and, like I, keep staying. Staying your lane generally is how I feel. Don't don't ask people to make up weird stories or to come up with scenarios that they, you know they hadn't thought of ahead of time, or or you've given it.
Ricky Baez:Well, I'm not looking for people to make things up, I'm looking for experiences. And if you don't have an experience and you can't give me one, I mean, what else am I going to go off of Right? So all right, so you just showed to me that you don't have experience in handling this kind of issue. I cannot make it. I'm not going to say this, but I'm not going to make a determination on whether you're going to be a good fit for this organization or not.
Pete Newsome:Well, as long as it's relevant to the organization, right. That's why it's got to be relevant. So the point I was making with that is don't get cute, Don't get too cute, because you you like putting people on the spot and seeing how they respond. That's not. That shouldn't be the goal AT&T used to do that AT&T used to do, that.
Ricky Baez:They had this whole thing back in the day not now, where they will look at how you sat, whether you crush your arms, whether you crush your feet under the desk. They will look under the desk and I I was witness to this and I'm like, why are you looking for that? Because somebody told them that all these behavior cues would give you an indication on how that person is going to be at work and that that I do not subscribe to it Because, look, I can be like this. You know for for people not watching, I'm folding my hands looking standoffice, but sometimes to me, this is how I listen the best. It depends on the person.
Pete Newsome:So my ankles are crossed right now. I don't know if that's a problem. I don't know what that's a sign of that explains a lot.
Ricky Baez:Pete, it explains a lot.
Pete Newsome:I don't know. So here's what I do think is universally a great idea is to ask professional references how the candidate handled those specific situations, and that's a great way to assess soft skills, because you're you're not looking in. Let me just close what we were talking about before by just adding there's a lot of people who just don't interview well right, and that's where I I think even even great salespeople may not be great in that situation. So always consider that too right, whether you're you're trying to force situation or really get to the answer. I think the best way to get to the answer beyond the resume, beyond our in-person interactions, is to find out how you handled these scenarios in the past, by asking the person you reported to in the past. Isn't?
Ricky Baez:you. You said something that caught my attention. Isn't the the idea of not interviewing? Well, that in itself gives you a glimpse into how that person's soft skills are.
Pete Newsome:Yes, if you, if, if you're, you're measuring soft skills like performing under pressure, handling adversity, that's where you have to look at the specific job. I think so. We. You mentioned a sales job before. Okay, yeah, a salesperson does need to be able to think on their feet, respond, adapt.
Pete Newsome:You asked me a question with something I've never experienced. That's why my mind goes well, I'm going to give you an answer. I'm going to give you an answer that you want because I'm a salesperson. That's I'm. I'm trying to get to the. I'm trying to close this sale in this particular scenario. That's you extending an offer to me.
Pete Newsome:So I'm not going to completely fabricate something, but I'm going to put a spin on it that leads down the path that we're trying. I'm trying to take you down. So in in that interview scenario, great. So yes, if I'm. If you're interviewing a salesperson and they don't respond well to a tough question, you should consider whether they're they're right for sales. If you're interviewing an accountant or a web developer who doesn't respond well to, hey, let me trick you with this question and really make you stretch and thank. I think you're doing the situation in the individual and yourself a disservice. That's really where maybe I didn't make that point clearly enough. So, to the degree that it fits the need, yes, interview for those things, but I would rather interview my software. I've been asking a different set of questions with my software developer than I am with my salesperson.
Ricky Baez:Agreed. Yeah, and that's why it's important for the recruiter to not just have one approach. You need to have an approach that matches A the job description and B the person you're looking for to fit that team right. And you build your questions, you build your entire interview process around those two factors. You're going to end up finding the right person for the team. But, again, that balance has to be there. Going back to that account, and yes, you're right, I'm not going to ask all these soft skills questions, but here's what I am going to say hey, here's, just press you with a bunch of numbers, tell me a story.
Pete Newsome:Yeah, and we got here in a roundabout way, but this is this really makes the point that got us off track in the first place, with the heads exploding is when I say who you need. It's dependent on the role that they're going to play, and so I want to know I need someone who can think well on their feet, right. I need someone who can deal with adversity constantly OK, well, I need the screen for those things. Versus, I need someone who can stare at numbers for an extended period of time and not interact with other humans, right. That's what I'm trying to get to with the soft skills. So, as far as evaluating on soft skills, ricky, where do you land? How important.
Ricky Baez:Oh, I am big on it. I am big on it, I. I'm on this WhatsApp chat group with other HR pros and we help each other out with different situations. Out of five of us on there, I'm the only one who I recruit for minimum qualifications, and then the rest is attitude. Right, it's everybody's like Ricky. Look, I'm more risk, not at first, but I'm more. I lean on a on the edge more when it comes to that, because I feel that's important. I feel how people, if you're going to spend at least one third of your day with these folks, you have to have some kind of communication skills and interpersonal skills, and if I have a great team, I'm not going to ruin it with somebody who's a stick in the mud. That's just not going to happen, right? So where, where? Where I'm at 100 percent we've got to look for soft skills, and 100 percent you have to look for the for the minimum qualifications. You blend those together. There's your candidate.
Pete Newsome:Perfect, and I think that's that's that's how we should wrap up and be aware of the of the situation, be conscious of it, but but also think through. Think through anything you're saying when you're having a candid conversation without without question, right? That's true, that's right, all right. Well, thanks for listening today, ricky, thank you as always, and we'll see you next week.
Ricky Baez:Thank you, folks. Have a good one. We're due for Q and a, are we not?
Pete Newsome:We are Q and a. We are that's coming up.
Ricky Baez:Okay, bye, bye, bye.