The Pure Useless Terror of the Team Interview

by Duncan Mathison

Team interviews have been around for a long time now.  Think of the Inquisition.  

The darkest group interview I ever had was a time when the group included other applicants seated in a circle with one another along with members of the team. Applicants were asked a number of “self disclosure” questions to see how they would operate in a group environment. At the end of the interview, each applicant was asked to point out the person they would hire other than themselves. I really needed a job but voted myself off that island rather than take a job with a place who likes to play those kind of mind games.

For the most part, team interviews are not so much pathological, but poorly managed affairs designed to get everybody into the act of selecting the next co-worker. I suppose this seems like it would be a good idea.  After all, you will have to be with them through any number of insufferable staff meetings during your term of employment.  You might as well get a sense of how they treat one another as they are giving you the treatment.

Team interviews fall short in a number of areas and frankly smart managers should carefully evaluate if a team interview will actually give you the best candidate for the job.

Are you a hiring manager? Look for these warning signs that a team interview is the wrong way to go:

Is the ability to perform well in a stressful group situation a key requirement for the job?  If so, team interviews might be great.  If not, how do you know you have the best talent as opposed to the smoothest operator?

Do you risk getting the “lowest common denominator”? There is not a team member who will not ask themselves the question, “How will I stack up against this candidate?” Will they vote to hire someone who is better than them or someone who will just “fit-in”? This is the most common source of the “overqualified” label.

Will the interviewers be well prepared? Interviewing your next hire is a high stakes game. The cost of a bad hire is staggering in both time and money. All team members should have at least fundamental training in interviewing and the art of quality questions. Without such training and preparation, your team interview will consist of lame, illegal, random and “gotcha” questions that will provide little insight into how well a candidate will perform in the job.

Are you a job applicant? Here are three basic strategies to help you win in a team interview.

Find out what job each team member does. Each person will be interviewing from the perspective of how you will make their job better. Get their title as well as their name. For bonus points, get clarity about how their work would relate to your role. A neat trick to help you keep people straight is to ask for their business cards and lay them out in a semi-circle in front of you corresponding to the position they are in around the table.

Direct your answers to everyone. When asked a question, your first sentence goes directly to the person who asked, then direct the rest of your answer around the table.  Look for visual cues that you are on track or missing the mark. If you see someone who looks confused or concerned, follow up with that person after you finish answering.  For example, “Sue, you seem to have a question about what I just said, can you tell me more about what you are thinking?”

Beware of the watchers. These are the people who watch and judge without asking a question. They frequently are people who are looking for an answer to a question that may never be asked.  One way of dealing with this is to draw them out into asking the question that is most important to them. Towards the end of the interview, ask the watcher a question such as, “Tell me, from the perspective of your role with the team, what is an important quality you would be looking for in the person who would have this job?” You may get a chance to answer what is important to them and increase the chance of winning them over.

Team interviews will not go away as it is an easy way for hiring managers to deal with the politics of hiring. But be prepared.  Be very prepared.

Tags: ace the interview, Group Interviews, interviewing tips, job interview, Over-qualified

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 at 9:57 am and is filed under Blog, Uncategorized, interviewing, job search. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.