"If you were to get this job, how would you go about solving this (state major/typical problem as defined per the open position/your company) problem?"
This question takes an understanding of performance to another level. It reveals problem solving, insight, intelligence, potential, vision, and leadership.
For example, if you're hiring a Sales Manager, the form of the question might be, "How would you go about ensuring that your team met quota every month?"
For an Engineer, it might be, "How would you design and develop this product to ensure it's tested, proven, producible and high volume production by next March?"
For a Director of HR search it could be: "If you were to get this job, how long would it take you to prepare an action plan to ensure the department was meeting all its critical objectives?"
This above question involves thinking, planning, and strategizing. It gets at an important aspect of top performers.
The best candidates all have the ability to anticipate the needs of the job before starting. They can figure out very quickly what's wrong or what's necessary to accomplish a task, what they need to do to implement a solution, and what resources they need to do it. And they have a track record of implementing these changes. Success is about planning to accomplish a major task, and then delivering on these plans.
The "how would you" question gets at the planning and visualization aspect of every successful accomplishment. A lack of planning and visualization skills is one of the key reasons projects come up short, budgets are overrun, implementation is slow or problems go unresolved. Allow the candidate to ask you questions to gain more insight into the specific problem or project under discussion. "What's the budget, the time frame, the staff, the resources?" are all great questions. They provide the interviewer with another dimension to assess the candidate's competency and fit. At this point, inform the candidate that this is how you'd be talking with the person if he or she got the job.
Ask the question and you'll get a feel for the person's style. At the end of the interview, we categorize the candidate's responses along four dimensions. These won't make a lot of sense right away, but after a few interviews you'll see patterns emerge. They'll be very helpful as you evaluate a candidate's current ability to do the work and their future potential.
1. Determine if the reasoning is complex, advanced or superficial. The best candidates demonstrate a good understanding of the cause and effect of their actions. Superficial reasoning is evidenced by a bunch of seemingly unrelated ideas. Reasoning is more advanced if the ideas logically link together.
2. Is the focus technical, tactical or strategic? Candidates with a pure technical focus get into process details. Those with a tactical mindset address more of the results of the process. A strategic focus is represented by a longer time horizon, typically six months or more.
3. Team or individual emphasis. Do the candidate's ideas involve others? This is very revealing when compared to actual accomplishments. It's especially important if you're hiring a manager who needs to lead.
4. Functional or multifunctional perspective. The best candidates understand the implications of their job on other people and other functions. Listen for this as the candidate plans out a task and asks questions. Does he/she consider other areas/departments such as, executive management, marketing, sales, finance/accounting, R&D engineering, manufacturing engineering, facilities, production control, purchasing, lab testing, production, quality, shipping/receiving, warehousing, customer service and most importantly, our customers
Pure behavioral interviewers have a problem addressing this question. They feel it overvalues the planning aspects of the job, instead of actual accomplishments.
If the question doesn't involve an actual problem that a candidate would face on the job, then I believe the information obtained is irrelevant.
In summary, a top performer can quickly move to the head of the pack, as they provide information that advocate new ideas and different perspectives. When you combine these answers with a track record of "quantifiable" achieving-related results, you'll hire someone who can make an immediate, positive impact on your company.
Try this problem-solving question a few times. It might soon become one of your favorite interview questions too.
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