"Behavioral Interviewing": Find your Ideal Candidate in the Social Services Field

Why traditional interviewing is no longer an effective strategy for finding your ideal employee? Well, for starters, traditional interviews often result in hiring the best "talkers" rather than the best "doers". Traditional interviews ask the same generic questions such as, "tell us a little bit about yourself", "where do you see yourself in 5 years" and "talk about your strengths/weaknesses". The reality is that most candidates have a rehearsed script for these questions. So, let's switch the script for a second here- as employers and recruiters in the nonprofit sector, our main goal is to find candidates that are a "great" fit for hard to fill positions. We are more than happy to invest resources in recruitment, onboarding and training but we want someone who is a "doer" not just a "talker" and a "warm body to fill the position" because the cost of bad hiring is expensive.

Why behavioral interviewing? It's simple, we want to know who candidates really are- not just what is written on a resume. Yes, we appreciate the resume but the resume does not capture the person's character, behavior or attitude towards the work. Behavioral interviewing aims to help "weed out" the "talkers". And how does it accomplish this?

Let's use the following example: Your company is hiring a case manager and the candidate needs to be able to communicate, collaborate, take initiative and have a high stress tolerance. First, we need to define what each of these skills mean to the work we are trying to accomplish.

Communicate- clearly convey and receive information, keep others informed on the team, demonstrate good written, oral and listening skills.

Collaborate- building constructive working relationships with clients, team, and others to meet mutual goals.

Take Initiative- takes action without being asked; being proactive

Stress Tolerance- handling stress in a professional manner which is acceptable to others and to the organization

The following are interview questions which will aim to help evaluate whether the candidate is a "doer" or "talker".

Collaboration Questions: Have you ever been in a work situation, where there was a need to work with others outside of your organization but you encountered resistance from other key players?

Can you discuss a time when you needed to brainstorm ideas with others to find a solution to a difficult problem?

Initiative Questions: Can you give an example of a time at work where you observed something beyond the scope of your normal job duties and you acted on it without being asked?

Has there been a time at work recently, where you did something that you considered to be proactive?

Stress Tolerance Questions: Discuss a situation where you maintained effective and professional performance under pressure.

Give an example of a stressful situation at work and how you handled it?

Communication is established during the interview (the interviewer can get a sense of how the candidate articulates and presents under pressure). There are no specific questions around communication.

The goal of the questions are to initiate a conversation where the interviewer can better evaluate the candidates' knowledge, skills, abilities and behavior on the job.

If you are interested in discussing more on behavioral interviewing, please feel free to contact us.

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