Psychometrics is the science of measuring specific job skills. A psychometrician does not care about selling or marketing products, he or she cares about getting right-skilled people into qualified jobs.

BI is only one measurement technique…BI is a verbal test…it has criteria to measure, it uses questions, and it has right/wrong answers. Transfer the same questions to paper and most people would readily consider it a test.

Now let’s peel BI apart. If an interviewer does not know precisely what skills are associated for the job, then he or she will use their own personal opinions. If an interviewer does not use professional question techniques, then the answer may be skewed. If right and wrong answers for the job are not clearly defined, the scoring key will probably be wrong. BI is a flexible test, but it relies on two people being honest with each other.

Since then, I’ve advised applicants to be prepared for any type of interview and just connect it to a tangible result in the same way it’s being asked. For example if being interviewed by someone who asks behavioral questions – give them behavioral-connected business and personal examples that had tangible results. To someone who’s being asked about traits (like leadership), give trait-connected answers that had tangible results. I advise to give short story-like answers to tie it all together.

Not giving information to the questioner in a way that they can easily digest and relay results in the person being interviewed being forgotten.

A person being interviewed should be focused only on making sure getting their messages and information about them to the interviewer in a positive, impression-making way. That has to be done regardless of the type of interview and with some delivery based on the interviewers capability of making good judgment.

Far too often people miss the big picture when it comes to interviews because they’re bogged down in the details. And so few interviewers and companies actually ever have the time to be as detailed as they think they are. What they really want are candidates that make it easy for them to not have to figure anything out.

Finally, there are lots of reasons for “bad hires” when the question is reviewed in hindsight. So the point is to try to maximally reduce the error factor as much as possible. And realistically most companies do themselves a disservice by not making it clear what they’re looking for from candidates. If you’re looking for an exact replacement for John Doe, then briefly describe John Doe to the candidate and ask them to relate their answers back from their John Doe-like experience.

I don’t believe companies set out to hire the wrong people nor do the wrong people want the experience of a bad hire so the idea driving the process from both sides is to do what it takes to uncover critical information about the candidate’s experience and how that candidate deals with the unknown. That’s what all interview process should do. If the process does that, it’s pretty easy to determine whether a bad hire was the result due to candidate, interviewer, hiring manager, or company mismatch.

Thanks for your comments. I know Lou has a stable full of recruiting and interviewing techniques, including his whole matrix for performance based hiring. I just mentioned the one question, since he has stated this as a fallback position. I know well that I have to dig in with many candidates to get down to the skill set, analysis, writing and presentation skills of my candidates. So I fully understand what you are saying.

I am not familiar with the profession of psychometrician, but I’m eager to learn more. As a student of psychology, I am aware of fundamental attribution error, as well as other factors involved in making judgments about candidates. Can you please point me to some studies that you found particularly seminal or thought-provoking?

With all due respect, you might want to check-out all what all those universities have learned about testing and measurements before you dismiss them. In addition, you might want to look up what a psychometrician does before you dismiss that profession.

With all due respect, Lou has never suggested a one question interview in the literal sense. He has suggested using numerous questions that can be considered derivatives of this one core question. In fact, Lou has proposed literally hundreds of variations of the question depending on situational candidate responses, including a very rigorous drill down process.

Sure, Lou offers basic interviewing guideline that provide sample questions recruiters can ask to get a feel for the style of questioning, but he in no way suggests that recruiters follow a cookie-cutter approach to interviewing.

I would say Lou’s interviewing techniques are about as comprehensive as I’ve ever used and the results are consistently accurate. I have enough happy clients, and candidates I’ve placed in their companies to know that Lou’s techniques are highly effective.

Wendell himself says “Asking the right interview questions requires knowing first what to look for.” He is correct. That’s why its the whole premise of Lou’s Performance-based Recruiting.

Finally, Wendell confesses to not being a recruiter himself. However, it sure sounds like you are. Therefore, if you’re on the fence about which man’s advice to take, I’d suggest giving the nod to that of the man whose career placement record you’d like to duplicate.

To this end, I think Wendell’s parting comment, “Lou may have discovered a technique that over 300 universities, hundreds of years, and thousands of measurement experts might have missed…What do you think?” was a cheap shot and truly unprofessional, not to say highly irrelevant. I’m not sure what kind of candidate ‘measurement’ experiments are going on over at the universities, but I am sure how candidates are ‘measured’ by Lou’s criteria and they work in corporate America.

Regards,
Kevin Jenkins

Another pre-qualifying analysis approached most every question in terms of absolutes (always, never). One would hope that as we gain wisdom and experience, we also grow in tolerance which would allow for gray and areas and acceptance of others without having to fall trap to extremes. I assume I either came across as milquetoast or dispassionate.

Add to the mix poorly written questions that if you have a command of basic grammar, you have to decide whether or not their double-negative is intended. Such a call can land you squarely in the “hire-able” or “must avoid” camp.

Do professional managers, particularly at smaller companies, not trust their intuition or ability to successfully vet a candidate?

As a job-seeker, a good interviewer is as treasured for me as I trust a good candidate is for the potential employer.

http://twitter.com/SarahResults

In my experience, the typical recruiter is asked to find candidates who are (among other things) intelligent enough to make great job decisions; smart enough to learn and apply new information; have great planning and organizing skills; either succeed or fail based on certain motivational factors; have deep product, market or service knowledge; are technically qualified; and, have the interpersonal skills to present, influence and lead others.

Lou may have discovered a technique that over 300 universities, hundreds of years, and thousands of measurment experts might have missed…What do you think?

I appreciate and agree with what you say in large part, but I am confused in that Lou Adler, as we know a top recruiting guru, is the very one that subscribes to the “one question interview. The question being tell me your biggest accomplishment. I do believe as a third party recruiter I have to do more digging when I meet with candidates to insure that my candidates provide the “right” info in an interview. Seems like you are specifically contradicting Adler? Yes, No?

Organizations don’t want to hire unqualified applicants anymore than employees want to work jobs for which they have no skills. It does not take a rocket scientist to know square pegs do not fit into round holes.