Interviewer dos and don'ts (for Experienced Professionals)

Interviewer dos and don'ts (for Experienced Professionals)

If you are hiring an experienced person for your organization, look at his or her resume and design your questions based on skills and experience in his/her resume.

Instead if you prepare questions based on what's going on in your office or project and want to ask them in an interview, it’s better to cancel that interview and conduct it with your own office people or teams because they are the only people who can meet your expectations (or someone who guided them to others).

Interviewers should focus on understanding the interviewee skills, his achievements and actions, how effectively a person developed, handled things and delivered results.

River Frog meets the Well frog: ( Click to read: Frog Story )

It happened to me in the year 2010, one person asked me one testing question in an interview. I said; I don't know. He again said in the past 6 years I'm working on this! We all know about it. How come you don't know as an experienced person (and laughing) ? Just silence was my answer. (Here is my true answer; he is living in one small well and believes that is the whole world. Had he visited other wells or rivers he would have not been that immature. I was facing that interview as I grew as big as a river (at least bigger than his well). It's sad to see that person who lives in one small well and believes that is the entire universe.

Ocean Frog meets, frog in a pit:

Again in 2013, I was asked to take one set of questions and write answers. I failed heavily in that test. I know that was another small well (or pit) who conducted the interview, at that time I was as big as an ocean. But after a few days, I got selected in “under 10 ranked World's Fortune company”. Another ocean like company interviewed me and selected me. Later I realized I deserved to work in a big ocean, that’s why I got rejected from that small pit.

Looking at background may not be a good idea:

Interviewer should not look for the history. If you really consider history, you will miss the great possibility of getting great talents.

Example 1: World’s Great Poet Maharishi Valmiki, was a thief in the forest before turning into a Rishi or Poet. If you would have checked his background before considering his writing, the world would have missed a World class writer and a poet.

Example 2: My friend got a service letter as: He is very absent-minded and it resulted in business loss and so on. But when he took the interview (with an ocean kind of person) he showed his service letter and asked, do you consider this? That interviewer told my friend - “if someone considers this, he is an idiot”.  He got selected in that company.

When hiring, don't look at the past, not even an hour earlier to the interview, because human transformation requires only 20 seconds. When Mahatma Gandhi was thrown out of train by Britishers, they never know, in 20 seconds they are creating one great leader in India who can throw Britishers out. After 20 seconds Gandhi became a freedom fighter of India, with his transformation and self-realization.

Hire Honest and Loyal people:

Hiring honest rebels are better than acting innocents. Because you have a clarity on honesty and anger, but you never know when acting innocent stops his acting.

Look at the present, not the past. If you examine your own self, every bad past gives bright beginnings.

More importantly, the interviewer should focus his questions on the most recent work, not the  technical details of 10 years back work.

You don't know what breakfast you had last week, expecting someone to remember that is !!!!!

Do questions matter in an interview?

Most of the cases yes, but few cases questions don’t matter. Example: In the year 2009, I interviewed one lady (fresher), she could not answer one question on testing or academics, I asked to write one simple select query, she failed there also. Still I recommend it to my manager by explaining interview results. He was shocked! You are saying she didn't answer anything but still you are recommending? He called me let's go and discuss the same with the HR head. HR asked me if you are recommending because she is looking pretty. (Of course, she was looking pretty) I told my HR, not because of that, I see a great potential in her. HR trusted me and hired her. In fact, she proved my observation by becoming a lead in 2 years by delivering great results.

I also got to know when hiring Sundar Pichai, [Google CEO] interviewer asked him about Gmail. Sundar said I don’t know, later they showed him Gmail in their computer, after watching that he suggested enhancement to it. He got selected by his potential and not by the answers.

If you are looking for a candidate, look for their interest, innovation, involvement, ownership attitude, values, commitment and dedication.

Any skills can be developed easily not the values, attitude, commitment, discipline and work ethics.

Example: In 10 days, I become an expert in Tricentis Tosca automation tool. In 4 days, I became proficient in the UiPath automation tool. In 2 days, I completed a 5 weeks PMP/PMBOK online course of Initiating and Planning Projects from UCI. You can't bring commitment, discipline and work ethics through tools or program learning.

Knowing Hard Water components is not everything?

I was studying 2^nd year BSc. One 12^th grade student asked me, do you know the hardwater components? I said I don’t know. He laughed and said you are studying 2^nd year BSc (with chemistry as a major subject) still you don’t know? I requested him to come with me. I took him to another hostel room where 3^rd year BSc students reside. We raised the same question to all 3 guys. All they said we don’t know. Later I told him, knowing hardwater components is not everything. After he (12^th grade student went to his room) my seniors told me, this guy will not clear 12^th grade. It was true, he failed in 3 subjects in his final exam.

Similarly, if you are shooting one question and declaring a candidate's talents based on that, It’s equivalent to saying you are as mature as the above 12^th grade student.

What if google interviewer rejected Sundar Pichai as he said he didn't know about Gmail. Because they have two reasons to reject: one he doesn’t know their project and second one he has not even done homework to understand about company and company products.

Are you looking at Education and Academic Score or percentage to hire?

Here is an incident that happened to me. As a fresher, I went for an interview in MG Road, Bengaluru. Their interview panel checked my resume and since my percentage was 40+% in 10^th and 12^th grade they rejected me as they were expecting above 70%. I was asked to vacate the premises forcefully. After a few years I was working in the world's big organization as a full-time permanent employee and there I saw employees of the rejected company working as contract employees. (70% scored people) Later I realized some failures are indications of coming super success or you may be more qualified or deserved than that position.

If you are estimating a person by % score then you may possibly hire contractor quality people. I’m not joking, look at the school dropping people's achievements.

●       Michael Dell, Dell founder, dropped out at 19

●       Steve Jobs, Apple founder, dropped out at 19

●       Julian Assange, Wikileaks founder, dropped out at 19

●       Bill Gates, Microsoft founder, dropped out at 20

●       Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder, dropped out at 20

●       Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, dropped out at 20

●       Larry Ellison, Oracle founder, dropped out at 20

●       Jan Koum, WhatsApp founder, dropped out at 21

●       Travis Kalanick, Uber founder, dropped out at 21

●       John Mackey, Whole Foods founder, dropped out at 22

Parameters doesn’t matter, sense and consciousness matters:

Yes, Napoleon Bonaparte was rejected twice from the soldier interview. He got disqualified due to his low height. Later he becomes a ruler of that nation. In my opinion; parameters do not matter in shortlisting the candidate, sometimes awareness, sense and consciousness matters more than the parameters.

If you are expecting perfect answers to all your questions, hire one computer or google assistance, it will perform much better than any human; with its existing data storage and logics to retrieve, by already assumed and stored data.

But no machine is qualified to face and win the future like humans. Because humans are very creative, adaptive and innovative. In interview; Please check once, are you looking for a creative human or dead hard disk [which has all answers of all the subjects] ?

In my opinion, a person with good memory is like a hard disk. Creative or innovative person may be bad in memory, but good in innovation. If you are going with parameters you may miss him. People who scored 100 out of 100 in political science subjects with a Master Degree are not qualified to become President or Prime Minister of the country. [It’s a fact!]

You have designed Interview questions based on your current team or project work’s technical team recommendation? Better conduct your interview with your own people, they are the only qualified people available on the earth to answer them!

Author: GCV (Vishnuvardhana GC)

• Kannada Blogger

Kereya neeranu Kerege chelli

Author Disclaimer:

I’m not a robot to be constant, consistent and complete, I’m a normal human and my blog will be contradictory like director give multiple movies have different opinions on the same subject or different subjects. I flow like a river, I really don’t look for sand, rock, trees, house, and so on. Intention is helping as many as possible before reaching the ocean. I strongly recommend to consult expert’s advice to follow and adopt any methods. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being.

Task prioritization is easy

Task prioritization is easy

 

Most of the time your success does not depend on your hard work but on your task prioritization skills, to know how and why? Please focus on the below content…

With one small mistake in task prioritization, you will lose one big contract with the company or you will lose one good relationship or friendship.

Important v/s Urgent Tasks:

Most of the people I noticed in my career are unsuccessful! Not because they are not working! They really work very hard and are dedicated too, but they are not aware of how to balance Important v/s urgent things when dealing with tasks.

Yes, in the below table focus on QI makes progress in your profession, you should be aware of these things, what is important, what is not important, what is urgent and what is not urgent. Remember QII looks not urgent but it’s very important. 

Sometimes in business, Important and/or Urgent tasks are not based on your views or understanding. It’s based on your superior or manager's views. Because you are not aware of their commitments.

 

Why QII is so important in the above table?

Here is an example: My Boss Prabhakar [Previous manager] came to my marriage. Marriage venue was 200 kilometres away from my work place, the night of the next day he had to travel to America for a business trip. My marriage is not important to him, if he compares with personal and professional reasons. Still he attended my marriage, because he knows the value of relationships and its importance.  

That made me give more respect to him and I become a more dedicated worker than earlier. As my boss had lots of love and trust on me, he treated me or my event as important. That’s why one should focus on QII in the above table. 

Let me give another example:

Assume you are working in a cable company and your job is cable installations. Assume tomorrow you need to install 2 cables in an area where your mother stays in. Now say your mother has invited you on the same day. Plan your day in such a way that you are installing 2 cables in that area and you visit your mother, have lunch and have a good time with her. Later, plan to attend the next activities. This is another example of QII.

Simply don’t always focus on the table to give priorities, use your common sense and adapting skills. Else you may lose good relationships in professional and personal life or miss things delivery. 

To Do list:

Keep a habit of maintaining “To Do list” and make sure you are addressing all the items listed in your “To Do list”.  Everyday is dynamic and unknown. Things will change, new things will come, new problems may arise, and so on. In those cases, your work hours will get scattered on different activities. No matter what are the dynamic activities you are addressing or dealing with, you should keep your “To do list” in mind. And based on the importance and priorities, you should get involved in other unplanned activities. If you are not addressing any of your “To Do list” items on that day, make sure you inform to related stakeholders with the reasons for the delay in delivery.

FYI: I have a habit of maintaining this “To Do list”, I maintain this “To Do list” from past 13+ years, this is giving me a great level of clarity in dealing with tasks or prioritization. This also helps me to understand and track my productivity or achievements of the day.

Decisions making on First and Last:

If you’re not skilled enough to take a decision in first things and last things to do, it will hurt you and your entire team! 

Decision making skill in task prioritization is very important, else you go crazy! here’s how one should not do - my grandfather team went to 9 days Mysore Dussehra event. They got excited to see so many shops and tools in street sales. One of person purchased bullock cart axle on the first day by thinking that, this is not available in his hometown.  Another one purchased one big copper pot which was cheaper than at home town. Another 8 days in that trip they were carrying those on their head and shoulder and visited all the places and events. 

Most of the tourist people were yelling at these guys as they were disturbing their event views by holding such big tools on them.

Finally, when they returned back to home (Village), if anyone asked about their Mysore trip, they only remembered that pain of holding those things on their shoulder and heads. Their Mysore trip became a painful eternal memory.

 

If you are poor in decision making on first and Last things to take up. You too commit the same mistake of what they did 100 years back.

What is the need of Task Analysis?

Most of the time you feel stressed when you get assigned with a new task or more tasks. I look things this way; no one in the world will ask you to work 24 hours in a day. It happened to one of my colleagues, in the morning he came running to my desk and said, my manager has assigned me four new tasks. How can I deal with it? He had so much stress and was frustrated with the manager's new assignments.

I just asked him to calm down, I took pen and started writing 4 tasks and asked him, some details on the tasks; then he said;

Task1: Requires 1 or 2 hours of time to complete.

Task2: Is dependent on others, he can only start after they complete the first part of it. That first part completion may take a day, so he needs to ask them to work on it first. And wait for the next day to get that work for him to proceed. (this only requires follow-up and it may take less than 10mins)

Task3: Not doable by his current experience and needs to delegate it to someone who is aware of that in another team. (follow-up is required in completing it, and it may take another 10 or 20 minutes to follow up)

Task4: This task is doable and he may take 4 hours of time to complete.

By Consolidating all the tasks and going task by task, we got to know that it may take him 6 to 7 hours of time on the current day. When he saw all together, he was stressed a lot and afraid of it. Not only he, many of you might have experienced similar situations. Take the pen and paper, conduct analysis. If you have more tasks which require more than 8 hours, use prioritization techniques and be informed on what you are performing today and what not. 

How to deal with tasks inflow:

With my experience in seeing tasks and study of the related references: I recommend you to see the assignment or work in 3D fashion, below diagram is self-explanatory, just focus the flow with YES and NO answers when dealing with tasks…

1D - Do it.

2D - Differ it.

3D - Delegate it.

Remember, don’t keep 2 minutes or less than 2 minutes tasks till the end of the day. Address them as soon as you receive. For other tasks which take hours and doable, take them based on the priorities and importance of the delivery. Delegation and sending feedback are very important and crucial in business.

Author: GCV (Vishnuvardhana GC)

• Kannada Blogger

Kereya neeranu Kerege chelli

Author Disclaimer:

I’m not a robot to be constant, consistent and complete, I’m a normal human and my blog will be contradictory like director give multiple movies have different opinions on the same subject or different subjects. I flow like a river, I really don’t look for sand, rock, trees, house, and so on. Intention is helping as many as possible before reaching the ocean. I strongly recommend to consult expert’s advice to follow and adopt any methods. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being.

People management is easy

People management is easy

Remember people are not tools or resources, never treat them as resources or objects! People are emotional beings. Humans are emotional creatures. So, it's important one should learn to deal or manage people.

If they connect with you emotionally you can get tremendously wonderful results. If you examine history, all great leaders connected with people through emotional backgrounds or ideologies that triggered them emotionally to work for them. 

Unfortunately, bad managers and bad leaders’ percentage is more in today’s corporate, I feel sad to see these people, because they are not making any mistakes, either they get influenced by bad leadership qualities or they had very few opportunities to experience different or great leadership qualities in their career. They practiced and believed that, this is the only way to lead or manage the people.

Here is an example of a good Manager or Leader: they appreciate publicly and they criticize privately. For bad leaders or managers, they do exactly the opposite of it. Because they never studied or experienced anything about great leadership qualities and their working styles.

Leader or manager is the one, who should be specialised in bringing randomly directed people into one direction and get the things done!

Micro management, doubting, bugging make you a bad leader with no doubts! With tool and micromanagement, anyone can easily get the work done, they don’t need any of your people management skills. It’s a greatness of tool, not yours!

Why is Empathy very important?

Assume one of your team members gets sick and informs you as not working today, if you are a good leader you inform them to take care of their health. If you are a great leader you say take care of your health and offer your help to the person. If you are asking him to finish his work by knowing as he or she is sick, you are an example of a sick manager or leader! What type of care or concern do you have towards your team members? That’s the reason empathy plays a great role in leadership qualities.

Here is an example: One of my team member worked from the hospital to meet the project deadlines. His father was undergoing kidney operation and we had project deliverables which were dependent on him. By knowing his situation, I asked him to take care of his father. But he himself connected to work and delivered things from hospital. Simply thing will not happen. I have truly connected with him by true empathy and that made him to treat me as a brother and he just worked on the things from hospital and delivered great results.

If you are a bad leader, during your project delivery time or project deadlines healthy people may take sick leaves. If you are a great leader they connect and deliver things during their sick conditions too. Empathy in leadership is a very important quality.

Remember, difficult people are the results of some situations of their life. Understand and show your true empathy and love toward them. They will be the easiest people for you to work with. [If you are finding toxic natured or extremely difficult people? All your technics are not helping you to deal with them. In those cases; ignore, avoid, keep distance from them or complain to the related authorities]

80% and 20% rule of people management

When you have a team of 10 people, assume 2 or 3 team members are very difficult to deal with. In these conditions, as a leader or manager you should focus 80% of your time on those 2 or 3 team members to motivate them and bring them towards project objectives and goals. and remaining 20% time is enough for the other 7 or 8 team members, who are already motivated. Just a small inspiration is enough to get them in your direction or goals.

Wherever I was leading or managing teams, I used to get 2 or 3 challenging people. After having a great relationship, understanding and bonding with them, they become the most dedicated people in my team.

I love to share one of my Director’s [previous office] feedbacks about my skill in it. He said Vishnu one person in your team has been proved as most difficult and challenging by 3 team managers previously. But, I’m happy to see the same person is one of the best delivering and dedicated person under you! That is because I just played 80/20 rules. I was truly honest with him when winning his trust [Also Ref: How to Win Trust]and love.

Every person has different motivation

People management is not only art it has science too. We need to keep our vibrations and frequency in the right direction and right quantity/style of communication to connect with people. Else your drama or acting will not work. Honestly one should be truthful both inside and outside.

Like the above image, each one in your team may have different likes and dislikes, good and bad, they may be heading in different directions! Leader or manager is the one who should have a skill in understanding them, turning all the team members towards the objective and goals of the project.

Manager or Leader should be out of favouritism, gossiping and EGO, that is very important in people management.

Give what they want, to get what you want!

When you are hunting a fish try a hook without a worm attached to it. You will not be able to catch any fish. Now, put the worm in the hook and you have a possibility of getting a fish. This is very simple, give what they want, to get what you want. Every team member may have different expectations, try providing some comforts to them, they work for your comforts. 

Examples of their comforts may be; Flexibility in office time, work from home option, training, tools, money, positions, respect, recognition, mentoring and so on. These comforts should be based on the need, scope and your authorities to do them [don’t make any false promises; you lose credibility]. Leaders should take care of their team’s health.

As a leader or manager, you should understand what are motivations and dreams of your team. Based on that, you have to give what they want; to get what you want.

Be the people Manager or Servant leader

Most of the surveys say; talented or great people leave the organization not because of money, not because of position or promotion, just because of self-respect or bad lead/manager!

Bullying, Bossing and driving may work but not yield any great results. People may work for you, till they get another job! Being people Manager or Servant leader has many benefits. 

With no exaggeration I'm managing teams for more than 6+ years, I never felt or experienced any problem with team member's leave or vacation plans. My team members internally communicate, coordinate and load balance things by not creating an impact on any of my deliverables.

I was able to get on time delivery from the people who do not belong to my reporting structure or my divisions. Still they delivered things on-time with great respect and happiness.

With the quality of servant attitude, I didn't find much difficulty in getting the work delivered, even from the people who are located in different Geo locations. [Example: America, Canada, China, and India]

I'm very sure, this is the result of servant leadership qualities or people management qualities. If I tried bossing or driving with authority. I will be an example of bad leadership skills.

I have one good incident to share; my Director [previous office] called me one day. Vishnu, one of the other team member is begging me to work under you and they are literally crying! What have you done? I had no answer and was not sure of the quality of mine which influenced them. I do remember on a few occasions [previous and present office], my teammates or people who worked for me temporarily have shared similar feelings or feedback with me. They asked me to consider them to work under me, if there are any opportunities. It’s really great to receive such good feedback from teams; my sincere thanks to all good managers or leaders and books I studied. I also thank my bad leaders or managers; because of them I have learnt, how not to be and what not to do!

I love to remember this quote: “If you are a true Manager or Leader?  You should generate loyalty and a kind of leadership reputation that will have the best talent standing in line to work for you?”

One more important thing in people management, that is “dealing with different personalities”, I will try to bring that in my future blog…

Author: GCV (Vishnuvardhana GC)

• Kannada Blogger

Kereya neeranu Kerege chelli

Author Disclaimer:

I’m not a robot to be constant, consistent and complete, I’m a normal human and my blog will be contradictory like director give multiple movies have different opinions on the same subject or different subjects. I flow like a river, I really don’t look for sand, rock, trees, house, and so on. Intention is helping as many as possible before reaching the ocean. I strongly recommend to consult expert’s advice to follow and adopt any methods. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being.