I recently wrote about the importance, in my mind at least, of getting a job candidate away from the formal interview setting and taking him to dinner. This week, I wanted to step back into the interview itself and share a couple of things that always seem to work well for me. Once again, they won’t apply to all of your job openings, but perhaps some variation of them will fit nicely into the next interview you conduct.
If you’re in the water systems business, it’s likely that you are interviewing someone for a technical position. As a result, it’s critical to find out what he or she really knows. In my case, I’ve found that a pump sizing exercise is a great place to start. I provide him with the information needed to size a pump, along with the curves and catalogs. What makes this exercise especially good is that it’s a jumping off point to other topics. Would you recommend a VFD for this application? Why or why not? What kind and size of tank? And so forth.
At some point, drive your questions to where the candidate doesn’t know the answer. That happens in the field, and you need to know how the candidate will respond. Does he try and muddle through and make something up? Or, does he simply say, “I don’t know, but I will find out.” This is a perfectly acceptable answer, but leads right to the follow-up question of, “how would you go about finding out?” A candidate once gave me the terrific answer of, “I would call the Franklin Electric Hotline.”
Of course, you’re not always going to be interviewing someone from the water systems industry. In this scenario, have the candidate present and explain something he or she already knows. For example, we once interviewed a candidate for the Hotline. He was new to the water systems industry, but in a previous life, he flew helicopters for a living. We ended up asking him to come back the next day with a 30-minute presentation on “How to Fly a Helicopter.” He nailed it, giving us the confidence to move forward and make the right decision. Continue reading