Category: INTERVIEWING

Man and lady shaking hands at a job interview

3 Ways DISC Helps You Recruit Top Talent

By

On 21 August 2023

In DISC STYLES, HUMAN BEHAVIOUR, INTERVIEWING

[3-minute insight]

Ahh the hiring process. All that time spent sifting through applications, CV’s and arranging interviews to find your ideal new team member then BAM!! Three days/weeks/months later, for whatever reason, it hasn’t worked out. You’re scratching your noggin, wondering what went wrong, before banging it on your desk because you know you have to start over. If this is causing you a headache, then using DISC at part of your hiring process could be the answer to your people puzzle.

The average employer spends about £3,000 and 27.5 days to hire a new worker

Glassdoor

Here are the top three ways in which DISC profiling helps you to minimise the risk of a costly and time-consuming wrong hire.

1) TAILORING YOUR INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Whether you have a one, two or three stage interview process, using a candidate’s DISC profile will give you valuable insight into their communication preferences. This is a more subtle and less tangible benefit, but it can have a significant impact on the progress of the discussion. Especially when interviews should always be a two-way conversation.


Making yourself aware of a candidate’s behavioural style means you can actively encourage them to reveal further information.

For example:

Is your candidate a fast-paced, dynamic high I-Style or D-Style, applying for a role which requires deliberation and acute attention to detail? If so, ask them about a time when they had to slow down their pace on a project to ensure that nothing was overlooked. Furthermore, you can ask them what the result of that was.

Contraily, your candidate may be a high C-Style or S-Style, which are generally slower-paced, passive and change resistant. However, your role requires a goal-focused visionary to lead a team through difficult times of change and growth. How might this affect what interview questions you ask about their leadership style?

A candidate’s DISC profile can highlight such potential challenges. Challenges which may never emerge during the course of a standardised interview. All DISC styles are capable of leading, it’s the nature of how they will lead which differs. As a hiring manager, you’ll need to curate suitable questions to determine a candidate’s adaptability to the demands of the role.

Whilst some hiring managers prefer to use a DISC as a basis for their interview questions, others choose to discuss a candidate’s profile with them during an interview. Neither of these approaches is significantly better or worse than the other. Ultimately the decision about how to use DISC for interviewing is a matter of preference but either way, be mindful of eliminating personal biases.

Nerves are normal:

Undeniably, most of us suffer with nerves from time to time and interviews are no exception. Your candidate could be the ideal-fit-on-paper but you’re facing a mouse-like nail-biter who can barely get a sentence out. Alternatively, you could be facing an overly chatty individual who appears to have no verbal filter.

Interview nerves however are temporary and not a true indicator of who your candidate is and how they act daily. This is because peoples’ styles can change when under pressure or feeling stressed. This is a normal human response, therefore, using DISC to identify their usual communication style is valuable. Not just for you but also for your candidates because you can encourage them to shine their light by adapting your own communication style to meet theirs. Whether this is to help someone open up more or keep their responses focused, a nervous candidate will appreciate your encouragement.

2) WHEN YOU’RE SPOILED FOR CHOICE

Imagine you have 2-3 great candidates who could all fit your role and blend nicely into your company culture. Now what do you do? Utilising DISC could be the key to helping you decide which of them you’ll be inviting to sign your contract of employment. Ask yourself: “Whose profile is the closest fit to the demands of the role and the qualities we’re looking for in a person?”

Please be mindful that because DISC only ascertains predicted behaviour, it should only inform part of your final decision because you also need to account for other factors such as their skills and experience. It’s entirely possible that two or more people can have very similar DISC profiles yet they will have different personalities.

3) THE FINAL PUZZLE PIECE

Using DISC for hiring could help you identify a potential talent gap within your team. For example, does one of your candidates have a style that your team is currently missing? Could this style bring you a value you hadn’t considered before?

For example, you have a team of sales-people who are great at making sales but you’re getting complaints. They’re not listening to the needs of the customer because they’re more focused on the end sale than customer service. Naturally, this would be an area of training and development for your existing people but if you’re expanding your team, could you need someone who already has proven sales ability but who uses adaptive listening and empathy?

DISC opens up the realms of possibility that your business may be experiencing a talent gap. Additionally, a person with a different style to the rest of your team could just be the fresh pair of eyes and traits you didn’t know you needed.

Want to see how a DISC profile looks? Just fill out the form below to access your free sample.

Samantha Lynne
I help business owners & hiring managers streamline candidate interviews to make right-first-time hires for the long-term.



Conceptual image of lady walking away through a tunnel

Bad Interviews: How They Can Limit Your Talent Pool

By

On 14 July 2023

In HUMAN BEHAVIOUR, INTERVIEWING

[2-minute insight]

Experiences of bad interviews, posted online, serve to scare other qualified potential candidates, researching an organisation, away. Resharing posts on LinkedIn and Twitter is easily done at the touch of a send-button.

86% of candidates check out sites such as Glassdoor, Indeed and LinkedIn to review an organisation, so you’re in danger of limiting your future talent pool if you’re conducting bad interviews.

A case back in 2019 had a graduate candidate interviewing for a job. Her account of the interview was “abusive”. She endured a “brutal 2-hour grilling with the CEO” who “picked apart her character, her writing” and even the “way she was sitting”.

She accounted that he called her an “underachiever” making her feel “Uncomfortable” and “Belittled”. He reduced her to tears. Bizarrely, despite the concerning and questionable interview practices, they offered her the job.

Not so bizarrely, she declined. Furthermore, she posted about her experience and subsequent job rejection on Twitter. This received over 5K replies and more than 40K retweets. Her story incited anger. To further fuel the furore, she also went on to give an interview with BBC’s Radio 5.

She’d had a bad interview.

Despite the rebuttal and apology issued by the CEO in question, the damage was done. The story was out there, spreading quickly.

There are two sides to every story, unfortunately however, due to the human negativity bias, a poor candidate experience like this gains more traction than a positive one.

You never know what will go viral and what won’t on social media and who in your future talent pool sees it.

Samantha Lynne
I help business owners & hiring managers streamline candidate interviews to make right-first-time hires for the long-term.

Dollar bills being lost down a plughole

How a Poor Candidate Experience Can Cost You Revenue

By

On 9 July 2023

In HUMAN BEHAVIOUR, INTERVIEWING

[1-minute insight]

We live in a digital world where a poor candidate experience is easily shared at the touch of a button. The impact of this can damage your organisation’s reputation through the online ‘Naming & Shaming’ culture.

And that is going to hurt!

I have previously touched on why the human negativity bias influences how and why candidates respond to and share a negative experience online.

As unpleasant as the practice of ‘naming & shaming’ is, it’s sadly not going anywhere soon.

A poor candidate experience can cost an organisation revenue because those candidates can also be customers. They may apply to a company because they believe in the brand, their products and services. A negative experience can destroy their perception of the brand and as such, they’ll likely stop buying!

Not only will they stop buying, they’ll actively discourage friends, family and anyone reading about their negative experience on their socials from buying too.

A particularly disgruntled candidate can fast become the antidote to a brand ambassador…a brand bushwacker. Virgin Media discovered this in 2014.

Virgin Media conducted some internal research, including analytics, which revealed one fifth of their rejected candidates were also their customers. They calculated that if there were 123,000 rejected candidates each year and 6% cancelled their monthly subscription and switched providers, they’d have almost 7,500 cancellations. If they multiplied this by their £50 monthly subscription over 12 months, the annual cost would be around £4.5 million.

Whilst this example may seem extreme, it’s still pretty sobering. It certainly was for Virgin Media who realised, quick-smart, they needed to turn this around and start treating their candidates a lot better!

Samantha Lynne
I help business owners & hiring managers streamline candidate interviews to make right-first-time hires for the long-term.

Negativity Bias: Why Candidates Share a Poor Experience.

By

On 24 May 2023

In HUMAN BEHAVIOUR, INTERVIEWING

[2-minute insight]

Exactly what constitutes as a poor experience will vary from person to person but one thing is for certain, unhappy candidates talk online. This is because they’re human and have a built-in safeguard called a ‘negativity bias’.

The human negativity bias registers negative experiences more quickly than positive ones, as well as having the tendency to dwell on them. This bias partly functions to keep us from potential harm in the future.

The human negativity bias means that people feel, remember and respond to the discomfort of a negative experience more powerfully than the pleasure of a good one. This is why a bad first impression has a lingering effect and is difficult to overcome. First impressions at an interview are no exception.

72% of candidates will share a negative interview experience with their social networks.

Career builder

Interviews are huge part of a candidate’s journey and they’re a two-way street. As much as you are evaluating your candidates, they’re also evaluating you. This begins with everything they experience from when they first arrive at your organisation.

At the most basic level, candidates are evaluating:

  1. Whether the interviewer’s on time.
  2. If they’re greeted with courtesy and warmth.
  3. The appropriateness of the questions, how specific & focused these are.
  4. How engaged the interviewer is and their body language.
  5. How prepared the interviewer is what they already know about them.
  6. The interviewer’s understanding of the role and their ability to answer questions.

Technology and social media have made it much easier for candidates to kick their negativity bias into overdrive and share their experiences online. Poor reviews can harm your organisation’s reputation because, unfortunately, bad news not only sells but it spreads…sometimes like wildfire!

Don’t risk feeding a candidate’s negativity bias and land yourself in the 72% because you could also end up limiting your future talent pool.

Samantha Lynne
I help business owners & hiring managers streamline candidate interviews to make right-first-time hires for the long-term.

How You Can Start Reversing the Candidate Ghosting Trend

By

On 18 April 2023

In HUMAN BEHAVIOUR, INTERVIEWING

[3-minute insight]

Feeling frustrated with candidates ghosting you? Here’s another reason why they do it and what you can do to start reversing the trend.

My previous post ‘Do You Need to Call Ghostbusters?‘ delved into the real reasons why candidates ghost. However, it works both ways and it uses the law…

Of cause and effect.


What you send out, comes back.

the Law of cause & effect

Another reason for the trend of candidates ghosting potential employers (effect) comes from decades of employers ghosting their candidates (cause). Over time, this has created a message of:

‘We don’t care’

When 75% of job applicants are not hearing back, not even the twittering of crickets, which side is perpetuating the behaviour? Years of ghosting candidates has convinced a generation they’re not cared about. The law of cause and effect says:

“Well if you don’t care, why should we?“

Subsequently, employers are feeling the pain of sins past and present.

I briefly mentioned, in my previous post, how ghosting is learned behaviour. I’m not condoning it, it sucks to be on the receiving end so what can you do?

It’s going to time and effort to reverse the global candidate ghosting trend. However, every organisation has to start somewhere and it begins with giving job applicants a reason to care by creating a human connection with them. The first point of which being…

The moment you receive their application.

Searching for work is stressful, time-consuming and can be mentally and emotionally draining for candidates. They may be needing the work to afford to live or are miserable in their current position. Either way, they’re not having any fun so acknowledge their pain by showing empathy.

Using automated application responses is common practice, but they all follow a similar, and frankly dull, format. A job applicant applying for several positions will be seeing the same repetitive responses, so make yours stand out.

Humanise automation with wording which says ‘we care’ and which reflects your organisation’s personality. The job application process can feel cold and sterile so add warmth by softening any generic language. This will help candidates to be seen as a person, not a number in your system.

A few examples:

  • Use their name. This is the most humanising thing you can do, it says: ‘We see you as a person, not a number’.
  • Thank them for their time. They’ve researched your organisation and have spent time on their CV to get you to notice them. Repay them the courtesy.
  • Say that you’re looking forward to reading (not reviewing) their application and finding out more about them – as a person, not just a skillset.
  • Let them know you appreciate how tough looking for a new job can be and therefore you’ll them know the outcome by xxxx.
  • Explain what happens next, such as when interviews will be conducted and how long your hiring process is expected to take. Keep them in the loop, they will appreciate it.
  • Acknowledge that technology isn’t perfect and if they’ve not heard back by xxxx they are welcome to call in and enquire. Provide them with the name of who they can contact with any queries and offer appropriate contact details.

Of course there will be applications which don’t make the grade so explain you understand how disheartening this feels and what to expect from you if they’re not successful.

When a candidate sends you an application, they’re knocking at your door, don’t leave them standing there…

Invite them in.

Candidates ghosting isn’t a behaviour that is going away overnight. However, if you can take measures to reduce the risk at the very beginning of your relationship with them and continue this throughout your hiring process, you’ve got a good chance of them sticking with you.

Samantha Lynne
I help business owners & hiring managers streamline candidate interviews to make right-first-time hires for the long-term.

DISC or MBTI: Which is Better for Hiring?

By

On 2 September 2021

In HUMAN BEHAVIOUR, INTERVIEWING

[3-minute insight]

A few years ago, typing ‘DISC or MBTI’ into Google’s search bar would have returned around 70,000 results. Now that figure has increased to almost 2 million. This shows that the question is still out there: DISC or MBTI, which is better for hiring?

I will always advocate the benefits of DISC for hiring and people-management because I’ve trained in DISC, I understand the model and I’ve never had an inaccurate result.

However the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is also a respected and recognised tool used within organisations around the world. Both DISC and the MBTI have been used by millions for gaining insights into personality, temperament and to improve communication since their inception.

DISC MEASURES:

Dominance – How a person is likely to solve problems and respond to challenges. 
Influence – How a person attempts to persuade and influence
others.
Steadiness – The pace at which a person responds to
change.
Compliance – How a person is likely to respond to the rules and regulations set by others.

THE MBTI MEASURES: 

Introversion or Extroversion (I/E) – How a person focuses their attention. 
Sensing or iNtuition (S/N) – How a person processes information. 
Thinking or Feeling (T/F) – How a person makes decisions.
 Judging or Perceiving (J/P) – How a person interacts with the world.

Whilst there is only one official MBTI model, DISC, though still based on the work of William Moulton Marston, has a few modifications which vary amongst organisation providers. For the purposes of this comparison article, I will be comparing the MBTI with my favoured DISC Evaluation model which I use with my clients.

The MBTI was the standard in psychometric evaluations for several years. However, the popularity of DISC has grown, particularly within the business sector for the purposes of hiring, leadership and people-development. Here are a few reasons why:

1) Where the MBTI has a focus on personality (who a person is), DISC focuses on measuring behaviour (what a person does and how). The latter is far more useful when it comes to measuring and improving performance.

2) The majority of people’s DISC styles consist of two letters of its acronym. It is easier for people to remember and apply their primary and secondary styles, than it is to remember their MBTI’s acronymic combination of four.

3) Completing an online DISC evaluation only takes 8-10 minutes yet produces a comprehensive report which is still easy to read and understand. A typical MBTI report is a little more complex to digest, especially if you’re new to profiling models.

4) Understanding your DISC style allows for more wiggle-room when communicating with others because the model understands that behavioural tendencies can adjust, albeit slowly, over time. The styles of others are easier to predict with DISC than with the MBTI. Subsequently, this allows a person to adjust their communication style with the people around them.

It is important to acknowledge here that the MBTI was designed for personal development, NOT recruitment. In fact, on their website, www.myersbriggs.org, they reference their ethics with regard to their Indicator being used for hiring:

It is unethical and in many cases illegal to require job applicants to take the Indicator if the results will be used to screen out applicants.

myersbriggs.org

Furthermore…

It is not ethical to use the MBTI instrument for hiring or for deciding job assignments. However, knowledge of type theory may help people recognize why they may be satisfied or dissatisfied with their jobs, and knowledge of type almost always helps teams and co-workers communicate better.

myersbriggs.org

With this in mind, which is better for hiring, DISC or MBTI…?

DISC

With regard to people-development. Neither evaluation model is better than the other. It’s entirely dependent on what value you are looking to gain because the two are not mutually exclusive, each has its merits. The questions to ask yourself are:

  1. What are our goals for using these evaluations?
  2. What value can they offer me, my organisation and my people?
  3. What characteristics are we trying to measure amongst our team?
  4. How much time do our people have to take the evaluations and go through the results?
  5. Do our people prefer something complex or something easier to understand?

To help a little further, here is a table summary of what DISC and the MBTI offer:

In summary, it’s always down to your own discernment and preference when it comes to using any personality evaluation model for hiring and developing your people.

Samantha Lynne
I help business owners & hiring managers streamline candidate interviews to make right-first-time hires for the long-term.

Can You Tell if a Candidate is Lying to You?

By

On 7 June 2021

In HUMAN BEHAVIOUR, INTERVIEWING

[3-minute insight]

Do candidates lie and how can you tell? Spoiler alert…everybody lies. However, many of these are the little lies we tell ourselves or others such as:

“I’m almost there!”
“I’m not capable of…”
“Just one more episode” at 3am on a Tuesday (thanks Netflix!)

Like it or not, lying is part of being human. We skilled ourselves as children when “Teddy made that mess not me”. We learned how to conceal the truth for our own benefit by way of protecting ourselves and others.

The majority of our little Pinocchio moments are harmless, but when it comes to a candidate not being honest with you during an interview, that’s a problem. Furthermore, one which could have damaging repercussions if gone undetected. There is a caveat though…

Humans are lousy lie detectors.

Even Joe Navarro, former FBI Special Agent and world leading body language expert states in his book: ‘What Every Body is Saying’

“You might assume that as a career FBI agent, who has at times been called a human lie detector, I can spot deceit with relative ease. Nothing could be further from the truth! In reality, it is extremely difficult to detect deception.”

Joe Navarro

If detecting lies is so difficult, how are you going to tell if your candidates lie during an interview? Unless it’s a blatant blunder like when you discover they were sacked for cleaning all the computers with a fire extinguisher and not for “personal family reasons”, then it gets tricky.

There are countless articles on how to spot when candidates lie during an interview. Resources which suggest that sudden pauses in speech are indicative of a person fabricating a lie. This could be true, but it could also mean they’re looking for the best way of phrasing a truthful reply. Afterall, they want to present themselves well to you.

What’s important to remember is that everyone is different and candidates get nervous. It would be an injustice to hiring managers and jobseekers to provide a litany of lie-spotting techniques. Unless you’re highly trained and skilled in non-verbal cues, you’re inadvertently at risk of prejudicing your candidates by taking such articles, claiming how to detect porky-pies, at face value.

It is for this reason why only two potential indicators of deception have made this article.

1) A Bad Case of TMI

Imagine that you’ve asked a fairly straightforward question but got a reply which would challenge even Tolstoy himself. Whilst giving a long-winded answer is not necessarily an indication of lying, note whether or not your candidate actually answered the question and if they did, at what point?

Researchers from Harvard Business School determined that people trying to deceive can stretch the truth with too many words. Since a lie may involve a candidate shooting from the hip, they could add excessive detail to convince you (and themselves) of what they’re saying.

Adding unnecessary detail is a way of deflecting attention. If they’ve given you more style over content, then your question may have alerted them to a sensitive issue. In this case, consider follow-up questions if you feel they are being evasive.

2) Synchrony

If you’ve asked your candidate a closed question, look for synchrony between their reply and the appropriate head movement.

A truthful “yes” should be accompanied with an undelayed nod of the head. Likewise, a truthful “no” should have the congruency of a head shake, again not delayed. Oftentimes this can be a subtle movement. If you notice they then reverse their head movement after they have answered, it’s an indicator they’ve caught themselves and are attempting damage control. This gesture is likely to be exaggerated to get your attention and will be a delayed response of around one second.

If all this sounds difficult, that’s because it is. Lie-spotting isn’t something to be taken lightly or with a wing-it approach. Deception-detection should be well researched and practiced before applying to interviews so that you can evaluate your candidates fairly and justly without bias. It’s an acquired skill with a potentially good payoff, when used with your own instincts, and could save you some hassle if you suspect your candidates lie.

Samantha Lynne
I help business owners & hiring managers streamline candidate interviews to make right-first-time hires for the long-term.

Resources:
1) ‘What Every Body is Saying’ by Joe Navarro
2) https://www.forensicscolleges.com/blog/resources/10-signs-someone-is-lying

How Invested are Your Candidates?

By

On 10 March 2021

In HUMAN BEHAVIOUR, INTERVIEWING

[2-minute insight]

You’ve posted your job ad, screened the CV’s and completed interviews but how invested are your candidates after you’ve interviewed them? Let’s look at what I mean by candidate investment.

Words are easy to come by but, as the adage goes, actions speak louder than words. What post-interview behaviours is your favoured candidate(s) showing, which indicate whether or not they want to be part of your organisation?

1. Post-Interview Acknowledgement

The Executive Managing Editor at Insider Inc. has one hard and fast precept when it comes to post-interview candidate selection.

I’ve been hiring people for 10 years, and I still swear by a simple rule: if someone doesn’t send a thank-you email, don’t hire them.

insider inc.

Sound harsh doesn’t it? Personally, I don’t like or agree with this approach to candidate selection for the following reasons:

a) Emails can get lost in the ether, land in an unattended spam folder or get accidently deleted.
b) The potential of losing out on an ideal skilled, experienced and motivated new hire to a competitor, is too great for the sake of one email.

I’m sure there’s more backstory to this quote but what occurred to me is the allusion to candidate viability post-interview. E.g. Looking for signs of investment for the long-term.

When a candidate attends an interview, the investment is there. However, maybe it didn’t go well for them or they realised the role wasn’t suitable. If so, a change of mind ensues, as does the potential to ghost you.

If an interview has gone well, invested candidates who takes extra time to give thanks can be a reflection of them really wanting the job. Especially if they have shown resourcefulness in finding your email address (if not previously given).

A polite “thank you” email shows appreciation for your time and interest. It’s symptomatic of courteous behaviour likely to reflect back upon your people and clients if hired.

2. Post-Interview tasks

Another positive sign of invested candidates, post-interview, is willingness to complete any follow-on task you’ve set them such as a sample of their work or a profile evaluation. In my experience, it’s rare but it does happen.

If your candidate is hesitant to complete any kind of appropriate profile e.g. DISC (behavioural), Motivational Maps or Gallup’s Clifton Strengths etc., this suggests they could be afraid their profile will highlight something they’d rather not be identified!

Whilst profiling is non-judgmental, some candidates may be unaware so it’s important to reassure them of this beforehand. I always assure candidates that there is no judgement of them, no right or wrong and no pass or fail, only differences.

This all being said, not completing a post-interview profile or a follow-on task is a sign they’re not fully invested in the job. I know this because on the rare occasions it’s happened, clients have fed back to me that the candidate has accepted a job elsewhere.

For the most part, invested candidates will complete a profile evaluation or follow-on task. There are however some further points to consider:

  • Did they complete within the given time frame?
  • Did they check their spam folder for any further communication from you or your instructed profile provider?
  • What was their response to being asked to complete a further task? Were they open and willing or did they show signs of hesitancy?
  • Did their follow-on task represent what you asked for?
  • Did their profile results match up with aspects of their CV and interview?

All the above can help you determine whether your candidates are a red or green light to hire. Subsequently, whether or not they’re the right person for your business for the long-term.

Samantha Lynne
I help business owners & hiring managers streamline candidate interviews to make right-first-time hires for the long-term.



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