Why Do I Hire?

1.  Can you pass the Actuarial exams?

2.  Will you pass the Actuarial exams?

3.  Are you a future leader?

I think these can be translated for most hiring situations into these:

1.  Can you produce the results I need?

2.  Will you produce the results I need?

3.  What is your potential?

Let’s take these one at a time.

1. Can you produce the results I need?

This has to do with your intellectual capabilities, qualifications, experience, and past accomplishments. You need to be able to show me that you have the ability to produce what I need.

Many candidates get stuck at the ‘qualifications’ stage, focusing on the fact that they have the right stuff on paper and have held the right positions. That part is just the screening aspect, the bare minimum of what I seek. 

I need to hear how you have solved relevant problems, gone beyond the expectations of the job, overcome difficult challenges to produce great results.

Notice that I said ‘relevant’ problems.

You will have done your research ahead of the interview into my likely problems. But to really hit the mark requires that you have a deep conversation with me that uncovers what I am really facing, why those are such a problem, how they are affecting the operation, and, ideally, how much those problems are costing us. That’s how you convert them from ‘likely’ to ‘relevant’.

JHACareers.com/articles-challenges/

What if you are early in your career, and haven’t built up a repertoire of accomplishments you can dazzle me with?

Think about other things you have done that might point to your ability to produce those results:

·     Perhaps you took a particularly difficult and relevant course at which you excelled, and have a class project that might relate to the work.

·     Possibly you led a sports team to victory, organized important activities for a club, or took on volunteer initiatives that might serve you here.

·     Show me how you have gotten up to speed in complex subjects particularly quickly and efficiently.

And then you can lean in hard to answering the second question.

2. Will you produce the results I need?

You may assume that if you answer the first question, the second is a given. Not so fast!

This question is about motivation and passion. You could be on paper the best-qualified person I could hire, who has produced outstanding results in the past similar to those I need, but if I get the sense that you will be bored, or lack motivation, I’m going to pass.

I’m going to be worried that you will be the nine-to-fiver who has retired on the job, and ducks out when I most need you. Or that you will just hang out here long enough to secure a more challenging role, so that I’ll be back in the recruiting process again way too soon.

Unless I’m hiring for a very short-term need, or a dead-end job where I don’t really expect someone to stick around long, this second question is pivotal. And even when I do have a short-term or dead-end role, you may still lose out to the candidate with clear motivation and passion.

By the way, this is where those who are ‘over-qualified’ can often get tripped up. They are fully capable of producing the results, but can find it hard to show the level of genuine motivation and passion when seeking a role below what it appears they are qualified for.

3. What is your potential?

With so much focus on how you might perform in the job for which you are interviewing, don’t forget that I’m also interested in your future potential.

Rarely am I hiring for someone to just do a particular job for many years. I’m interested in someone who can grow in the role, master an ever increasing set of responsibilities and take more and more off my plate. I want someone I can promote into higher leadership levels, perhaps even to be my eventual successor in my current role so that I can also move up.

By the way, this is one place where turning the interview into a true, engaging conversation is so powerful. If you take a reactive approach, waiting for me to ask the questions and then giving me great answers to my questions, I’m going to think:

"They do a good job handling my questions, but they don’t take charge and show any leadership. Will they really fit in with my team? How much can I rely on them to represent my operation in meetings?"

So the next time you have an interview, think about how you are answering these three questions. And for those who are hiring managers, I’d be curious as to your reaction to this list.