Tool 7. INTERVIEWING EXECUTIVE CANDIDATES

About This Tool

HR's involvement in the screening and selection of executive level candidates - internal or external - varies widely within different companies. Some HR teams aren't involved at all, while others are brought in at the end of the process to help frame and negotiate the offer, or to answer the candidates "HR questions." Others are integrally involved throughout the entire process and have a major voice in the decisions. Not involving HR can be a critical mistake given the number of executives who fail and the impact those failures have on the organization's progress and success.

The reasons given for not involving HR typically center around HR: not asking insightful enough questions; asking questions that others can just as easily ask; or not bringing decision-critical information to the candidate screening discussion. Where possible, the HR interviewer should ask as many business related questions as they do interpersonal and career/experience type questions. Even where the HR interviewer has been asked to probe for specific competencies or attributes, they shouldn't stop there. They should add other questions that will generate richer, less obvious but important information about the candidate. This tool can help in that regard.

Using This Tool

The tool is made up of twenty primary questions - each one having a series of follow-up questions that should be used to get more insightful and useful information from the candidate. To the right of each question are some of the attributes/competencies/skills that question is intended to cover. The list of targeted attributes is not an exhaustive list.

Each question is designed to probe into multiple attributes - thus increasing the value of the answers. Some of the questions are designed to play off of one another to compare and validate the candidate's answers. For example, questions 1 and 17 both get into the attributes of Self-Knowledge, Managing Failure and Learning, but do so through two different approaches. Similarly, questions 4 and 13 both deal with Business Acumen and Competitive Advantage but again through different approaches. Questions 2 and 10, and 8 and 16 are other pairs of questions that can be used to build on one another for a more complete or validated picture of the candidate in those targeted attributes.

The questions aren't in any particular order, and it's not suggested that all of these questions be asked by the same interviewer. It is suggested, however, that all of the questions (plus other questions the organization has) be asked of each candidate at some point in the screening process. These questions have been proven effective for various executive level positions.

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