EntreLeadership - The 3 Steps to a Successful Interview with Ken Coleman

Episode Date: October 11, 2021

Competition for talent has never been tougher for leaders. We all know how difficult it is to get people to even show up for an interview these days! That’s why it’s so important to get the right information during the interview and not just have another friendly conversation. During this episode of The EntreLeadership Podcast, we sit down with Ken Coleman, a #1 best-selling author and interview expert. As America’s Career Coach, Ken has interviewed hundreds of people—including former President George W. Bush during EntreLeadership Summit 2021. As you listen to this episode, you’ll learn his best practices for conducting an effective interview and hear him answer your questions about interviewing in this crazy competitive environment.   The EntreLeadership Podcast The Proximity Principle by Ken Coleman From Paycheck to Purpose by Ken Coleman The Ken Coleman Show Learn more about EntreLeadership Master Series. Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching. Download The Intentional Employee Interview Checklist. Schedule a call with Tim, our producer.   Learn more about the offers from our EntreLeadership Partners: BELAY  |  Gravy  |  Hite Digital | NetSuite Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zig Ziglar famously said, you don't build a business. You build people and people build a business. But before we can build people, we have to hire them. And interviewing people can be awkward for a lot of leaders, but conducting a great interview is an essential step in finding the right people for your team. From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host, George Camel, and today's episode is all about asking the right questions to hire the right people, which connects. to our business driver of people. Our first guest today is Ken Coleman. He's a Ramsey personality and number one bestselling author of the Proximity Principle. And he's got a new book coming out on November 9th called From Paycheck to Purpose.

He's also the host of the Ken Coleman show, a nationally syndicated radio show, where he helps callers discover what they were born to do and map out a plan to get them there. We're going to go through the three steps needed to conduct what Ken calls the intentional interview. Then after our interview, Ken will answer a call from a small business. owner and answer a question from the Entree Leadership Facebook group. So stick around for that. Up first, let's jump into my conversation with Ken. Ken, it's great to have you back on the Entree Leadership podcast. Always fun to be back, George. What are we talking about today?

We are talking about the intentional interview. And I saw you give this talk at our Entree Leadership Master's series, and I took frivolous notes. Frivolous. I think that's the word. I don't know. There's copious, which is serious. And then frivolous is like, maybe you're listening to maybe you're not, but I like that. I'm just glad you were taking notes. I'll take frivolous, George. I was paying attention. Okay, good.

So I've got some notes here that I think you're going to really help the listeners as they interview new candidates. As you know, Ken, you're taking calls on the show all the time. This great resignation is upon us, as they've dubbed it in the media. And people are having a hard time hiring the right people. So I think this process, asking the right questions to hire the right people is crucial. And you've got a really great framework that you've laid out to help business owners through this. So let's talk about the first step here, preparing for the internet. where should people start when it comes to preparation?

Yeah, so the reason that preparation for the hiring process is so important is because most leaders, George, they don't prepare. You know, they're busy. They got a lot going on. So we're not beating up on leaders right now. But let's just call this out. They walk in and they look on their calendar, oh, crud, I got an interview. And maybe they have five minutes, okay?

And they pull out the resume and they start scanning it, but their brain is still in the last meeting. They probably interrupt the scanning process to tell their assistant something's got to happened. You know, it's just this hurried reality. And when you look at the resume and you're trying to formulate an interview out of the resume, I'm just going to tell you, you're going to do a crappy job asking questions. And so we know from research that the biggest cause of turnover is a bad hiring process. Well, the biggest part of the hiring process are the interviews themselves, where you have this moment to really dig and then glean. So you've got digging and gleaning, okay?

And so we'll kind of cover that as we go through this, but let's just talk about the digging part. That's all through preparation. If I've got 30 minutes or 60 minutes or 45 minutes, whatever it is, I've got limited amount of time to be able to get what I need to get. And so preparing ahead of time, even if it's days in advance and you've thought through the questions that you need to ask, the questions you want to ask, and you've got it ready. Then when the time comes, you can pull that out. And no matter what's going on before, no matter what's going to happen after the interview, you can be present. And so preparation is everything because you only have so many questions you can ask in a finite amount of time. And so preparation is everything allows you to actually listen and watch the candidate to engage because you're not making questions up on the fly.

You have a plan. That's what preparation is. And that's why it's so important. Yeah, you're not in your head as much. No, you're not making it up. Now, you could do follow-up questions, George. You make a good point. But the follow-ups come from the fact that I'm prepared.

And so I've got a prepared question. I ask it, and if they give 50% of the answer that I'm looking for, then I know to stay there. But if I'm just pulling questions out of, you know what, there's a strong chance that we're not going to get what we need. Yeah. And this is not a theory for you. This is stuff that you put into practice on stage interviews with Condoleezza Rice and President George Bush. That's right. And so you framed up these two questions.

What do I want to know? What do I need to know? What's the difference between those? Yeah. So the need to know is, let's think technical things. You know, what are the technical things that you need to know? Things that really matter to the actual position itself. So we're thinking highly technical questions so that you as leader go, okay, do I have a sense that they have the technical skills? They've got what we want there. And then the want to know is more on the personal cultural fit side. So, you know, there's some things that you just need to know. Those are kind of the check the boxes. Check the box. Got to get that.

The want to know is can you connect with them in the interview? Can they give something to you that you get a sense and a feel? It's what we call that gut feeling, but it's actually a part of our logic process. So the want to know is just kind of the intangible things that maybe you want to know. But it's just a play on words. But the need to know and want to know. So I'm going to take both of those things and I'm going to make sure that we get to those questions in the interview. And when it comes to the resume, you talked about this. It's not a, hey, let's just glance over it and make up some questions on the fly.

What are the important parts of the resume that we should lean into as the leader when we're doing this interview? Well, I think if you're looking for some experience questions and some technical skills, you can look at what the resume shows you. And if you feel like you've got some gaps in the resume in the sense of they've put down the right information, but you want to know a little bit more. So you see something on there. Well, they've got this certification. I want to dive into that. that's intriguing to me. So again, that's why we look at the resume well in advance. It's nothing more than our brochure. And let's be really honest. I mean, we've got people who can put all the stuff on the resume. But just because they've got the stuff on the resume doesn't mean they're the right fit. So let's look at whatever information you feel like is intriguing to you that you want to dig into or maybe you feel like we're missing some information in this. Let me see if they've got it in the form of the interview. That's all you're looking at for the resume. So don't let that be this big giant guide. I can't tell you how many times I've not even looked at a resume in the interview process. And the reason is because at this point, we're talking about leaders doing interviews.

At this point, if you're following the Andre leadership process on how we do interviews, the resume has long since they've gotten past that level. So it's time for you to lean in and really figure out are they the right candidate. That's really good. So when it comes to the questions, I'm guessing most leaders right before they're Googling interview questions to ask, right? And it's the same formulaic. It's the same stuff. How do we get away from the, you know, how do we get out of the box when it comes to these questions? Did you get to great answers? Well, let's start with just our time limits. You know, you've got to know what you're dealing with. So for instance, give an example. So when I do an interview at Entree Leadership Summit, whether it's a 30 minute interview, 45 or 60 minutes, it's usually 30 or 60. So the one thing that I always do, you know, for the George W interview, Condi Rice, the last few we've had at Summit, I look at the amount of time I have. I had 30 minutes with Condi. I had 60 minutes with President Bush.

So in those situations, I've got to look at how many questions do I have time for based on their answers, how long they answer, follow-ups and such. An interview on a stage where it's essentially I am conducting a conversation. It's less about the back and forth, right? The only time I'm talking or should be talking is when I'm setting up the next question. In a job interview, there's going to be way more back and forth. So you've got to allow for that. So let's just say for easy example that you've got a 30 minute interview. Okay. If a person answers a question and takes about two minutes, okay, that leaves you how many questions, George? Oh, boy. Fifteen. Okay. All right. Don't make me do math. I know. It was pretty simple math.

30 divided by two. But the point is, is that you just know, okay, if I'm just playing around with this, but this is the preparation process that you got to have. Okay, I know that the max I could get is probably 15 questions. But that doesn't allow for you. doing any follow-ups, any kind of ice-breaking conversation. So let's be realistic. You probably only have time for about 10 questions. That's a general rule of thumb, okay? And so now I go, oh, if I've got 10 questions is probably the max that I will get to. Again, this is allowing for follow-up questions. This is allowing for some ice-breaking and get-to-know-em kind of thing, which I really recommend. I'm sure we'll get to that. But the point is, I've got to make those questions counts. I only have 10 questions. So I better get to that list and go, okay, what are the things that I really need to know?

And then the things maybe I want to know that are more personal in nature, fit, that kind of stuff, more fun, culture fit kind of questions. So if you've got 10, you start with that. And so you better have your most important 10 questions on a sheet of paper or on your computer right in front of you. And so that's where you start so that you maximize the time. Or else you go into it with 20 questions. Now you're back to this, oh, jumping around.

Which one do I pick? I'm not listening to them. I'm thinking about my next question as opposed to totally being present. Yeah. So once we have prepared, we've got our 10 questions, let's say, and we're in the conducting the interview phase. What should this look like? Because this can feel like an awkward blind date to a lot of leaders, the candidate.

Everyone's a little uncomfortable potentially if this isn't something you enjoy particularly. And the candidate is there. They're trying to impress you. They want the job, hopefully. And so how do you kind of take the awkwardness out of the room and make this a healthy, safe environment for conversation? Well, it's a really good question because you know this, George. Very few people are like you.

me where we like to be up in front of crowds and have a bunch of people looking at us. I mean, we're, you know, that's, that's a small percentage of the population. So for most people, this is the most stress-filled, anxiety-induced performance that they have is the job interview. There's a lot on the line here. So they're coming in, pulse rates up. And so what you want to do is just put them at ease to the best ability possible. The reason is, is because an uptight person isn't going to put their best foot forward. So if you can kind of help them relax, as much as you, you're you possibly can. And they feel like you're for them. You're not pulling one of these, you know, their chair. We read about, we see this stuff of the movies, right? The chair's six inches

lower. The lighting is super dark over you. They can't quite make out your face. I don't think anybody does that. But the idea here is, is make it as warm as you possibly can. Smile at them. Make eye contact the whole time. Don't look like you're distracted, like you're not listening to anything that they're saying because they're self-assessing, right? So warmth, leaning in with your body language, your whole body, face, smile, eyes, everything needs to be saying, I'm really glad you're here and I'm really intrigued. And even if they're super nervous, head nods, good answer, make them feel as comfortable as possible so that you get the best version of them. That's really, really important. Yeah, that's key. And you're talking about body language for the leader, but it's also just as important

for you to be watching the candidate's body language. What's the role that that plays in the interview? Well, I think it's really important to make sure that you can tell the difference between nerves and somebody who doesn't quite fit and have the right answer. You know, we don't have time to break down all the signs. But, you know, a person who's constantly diverting their eyes from you, that could be a sign of somebody who's being dishonest, you know, and not giving you the full answer. And again, you know how many people fake their way into jobs? I mean, it happens all the time. So just because a person diverts their eyes, you know, so if they do one of these numbers or they're pulling for an answer, but they come back to you,

know the difference. When someone is really, really, really nervous, just do some basic body language research beforehand. You know, someone who's, you know, just all uptight and you can just read it all over them. They're super nervous. Help them relax a little bit. But yeah, watch for signs of shifty eyes, you know, someone being uncomfortable in their chair when you put certain questions to them. You can get some real, real signs that someone's kind of not giving you the whole story. Yeah. And I think that's important. not to mention if they're really struggling to answer. And I don't think this needs to be KGB, you know, 80s level, you know, the bad Russian, you know, style Gestapo interview.

But I do think you should put people on the spot and see how they respond. It absolutely can yield some things that make you go, man, they just, it just didn't feel like I was getting everything. Well, if you're thinking that in the interview, then dive deeper one more time and then get a real good sense for it. So yes, please pay attention to the body language. their face, everything. What would be an example of something that you might ask that can kind of put me on the spot that doesn't put me in an offensive position? So let's say you're looking to see if they're a good culture fit, you know, and let's say

you've got a team that the current team that you're looking to hire a position for, let's say that they've got some unique characteristics, right? This team does really well under this environment and this is how they operate. So create a question that without giving them the answer, you're going to know. And so put them on the spot and go, all right, so here's an everyday scenario. okay and create it for them okay and so you could say i'm going to make this up to the best of my ability to say okay this team is a fast response team um we deal with high pressure situations and we have to change in a minute's notice everybody's got to figure out what to do in the moment okay so here's

something that happened recently give them a real scenario where the team was squeezed okay and don't give them the answer go okay if this role this is the job description if this happened So what would you do technically and how would you react emotionally? And then just watch what happens. Now, what we've done is we've put them in a test scenario. Okay. It's like the word problems my kids bring home that drive me bananas. Give them one of those word problems and don't give them the answer.

And then put them under pressure by saying, what would you do technically? And then how would you react emotionally? And just watch what happens. Yeah. Now, here's what happens. Understand that you've put them in a situation where they're going to have to think. So give them a moment, but then when they begin to unpack that and they begin to say what they do, here's what's great about that. Now you're going to see what their test answer is.

And it doesn't have to be right necessarily, but it can reveal a lot about them. Those are my favorite kind of questions. Yeah, that's how you get to the good stuff. Yeah, I think so. Because you're going to see, okay, I didn't give them the answer. They couldn't have Googled it. Yeah, but here's what a lot of leaders do, okay? They would go. All right, so this team is, well, we move fast and we got to collaborate and everything. How are you with collaboration? Oh, I'm great. You've got nothing. You don't know if they're good at collaboration. You just spoon fed them the easy answer and they went, check. We don't want multiple choice questions in interviews. No multiple choice. Don't give them the answers. Open-ended. I love open-ended test type story problem questions.

That's good. So as we start to wrap this intentional interview, how do we wrap this? with some next steps to where the candidate feels like, okay, I know where I stand. You're not guessing if it went, well, is it okay to just tell the candidate, hey, you did great? I hope it works out. What kind of conversation needs to happen at the end? You know, I think I'd leave it up to leaders if they want to say if a person did great or not, but I do, to the spirit of your question, I think it's always good to just tell people, okay, here's where we are. Really enjoyed our time together. If you didn't enjoy the time together, don't tell them you enjoy the time together, right? So, don't lie, be straightforward. But I would say, here's the,

the next steps in the process, whatever that is for you all, and just lay it out. Yeah. So that they know what to expect. And when it comes to this candidate, you talk about being, you know, are they well research, are they engaged? There's different things happening here, from the body language to the answers, to the qualifications. How do you weigh the right qualifications to go, okay, this is a long-term fit? We're going to hire this person and put them on payroll. That's a big, it's a big jump to get to that decision. Yeah. Well, so here's what I love about that question. It allows us to go back to the preparation. So if I'm preparing the questions ahead of time, what I need to know, I really need closure. I need some answers on these things.

I'd like to kind of get a feel for them. I want to know who they are, what they're about, where they're from. That's the one to know. By getting those questions ahead of time, I'm also looking at what are the answers that I want to hear. And so while I'm in the interview, if they're answering questions, and I'm going to review this, I'm going to sit. I think it's really important, by the way, that leaders don't just run to the next thing. You know, I think it's probably a good idea. I never recommended this before. It's not mandatory, but I think it's a good idea. To have a couple other leaders and debrief those who have been in the interview process, doesn't have to be right after the interview, but you should take at least five minutes, at least, and take some notes

right in the moment. They walk out, your assistant takes them to the lobby or whatever, and I think you need to spend about five minutes, just kind of going through, rerun the interview in your head. You looked at the questions. Did the answers match up to what you desired? That's what this is about. Grade them. I mean, if it's an A, B, C, D, whatever you want to do, if you want to do a scale 1 to 10. I think it's really important in that moment to do that. And then debrief within 24 hours. while it's fresh with the other leaders who have interviewed this candidate. I think that's important because you get there and you go, okay, what do I feel about this? Do I feel like this is a good fit?

And if you feel like you've got to go back, I'd get them back, you know? I don't know why we don't do this. Yeah. This, to me, is the same seriousness by which you choose a mate. And I really mean that. Now, we don't expect employees to stay with us forever. I think that's delusional. But I do think you put that kind of intentionality on it,

go, does this feel right? Yeah. You know? And I think we just don't do that enough because I think we get in a hurry. And I think we just kind of go, well, I feel pretty good about it. If it doesn't work out, we'll just deal with it. Well, look where that's getting you. The amount of time and money lost.

Go do the research. Tim, the producer's a genius. He could pull some of this stuff. But it is extraordinary how much money is lost in corporate America, small business America, every year due to bad hires. And that's a tough thing. some people are a great interview and they get through it and you go, well, like, they're a great fit. And they get on the team and you go, oh, my gosh, this was a mistake.

Yeah, they'd also be great on Days of Our Lives. Great actors. Because they just straight up to them, it was a job. Yeah. You know, and by the way, this isn't like a fail, safe, perfect process, but I'm telling if you lean in on the interview process. And by the way, this isn't just for you, leader, this intentional interview talk that we've done. Get it. Get the notes on it.

Dive in. Institutionalize this. This needs to be through every interview. whoever's doing interviews before they even get to you, they need to be doing this process. It's going to help you. Now, let's say it's a real small business, small team, and the leader themselves, maybe the CEO, the owner is doing this interview. They're in charge of the process.

There's not three leaders to get through before you get to that leader. What does the process look like for a business that small? Well, I mean, I still would get somebody else in there. If it's so small and you're the only leader per se, that's why we do a spousal. you know what I mean? So if you really trust your wife's gut or your husband's gut, if your lady running the business, you know, I certainly would bring that into it. But even if you're the only leader, I still, if I had to, and if it was just me as kind of the one of the few leaders,

I'd get some of the people that are going to work day to day with the person. So just I'd quickly fast forward and go, all right, if we hire them, they're going to be working most of the day with Larry over here. So I'm going to give some interview questions to Larry. And I'm going to have Larry interview this person. And Larry's like, I don't want to do it. Larry just literally ask these questions, and I want you to poke. And I want you to tell me if you have a good gut about this person being somebody who would work well, not just in the position, but alongside of you.

I would empower the team. Yeah, that's a great callout because a lot of times it could be a good fit for the company itself, but you're working with a real different personality, and there may not be chemistry there, maybe frustrations, especially new guy coming on with a guy who's been there for 10 years. Yeah. So there can be some awkward tension there that can be diffused or figured out in that interview process.

Yeah, you know, let's not forget this. People are really interesting. And you may ask all the right questions and you ask a question that may be at this level and they give a really good answer, okay? And you feel like, okay. And then you have Larry interview them and they drop their act a little bit, right? Because it's Larry. I don't know why we're picking on poor Larry.

I think Larry's super valuable, right? But Larry's sitting there and they know they're not with the boss. Do they drop that act a little bit? And the combination of that plus Larry probably going, you asked it at this level, and Larry might ask it at this level. And the guy gives an answer, and Larry goes, that ain't going to work. Larry just saved you a ton of time and money. So I think that would be, you know, again, it's the same process.

If you just don't have a bunch of leaders, get your workers involved. And if they're like, I don't want to do the interview, That's, to me, it's how Larry sounds. Larry, look, I wrote it for you. All the only as you do is, just ask these questions and dig, man. Give me your gut feel. Well, Larry may not like doing it, but Larry can go, well, I'll give you a gut feel. I just love how Larry talks, buddy.

Poor Larry. Tim, give me that quote, that's that. The Society for Human Resource Management says six to nine months. Oh, look at that. He went and did it. Of an employee's salary. Six to nine months of an employee's salary. Yeah.

That's the stat. Yeah. So when you make a bad hire and they leave you, the cost of replacing. and all that six to nine months that's incredible tim great pull now let me just tell you something if you just thought this was you and i have an acute conversation folks like george and i just talking about this because we think this is somewhat valuable just run those numbers run those numbers okay that'll get your attention yeah money talks well i mean look man i mean small business owners are already scrapping yeah and you don't have time or money to mess with this so how do you

then hire with confidence there's not a you know okay we have an 80% confidence score or we're going to go and hire them. At what point do you just go, all right, we're going to give this guy a shot? I mean, there's no guarantees in life, but we feel like this is the right move. Well, there are no guarantees, but the reality is, is if you do your homework on the interviews, and you've got multiple steps in the process to where you go, okay, we feel like from a talent standpoint, they've got the talent, okay, we've got the skill sets, or we can train them on the skill sets. They've got the rough talent we can train. We feel pretty good that they love this kind of work, that they're wired to do this kind of work.

and we feel like they're, you know, that they care about the results of this place. We feel like they're a good culture fit. Everything looks, you know, and checks out. I mean, call the people that used to work for, you know. Do your homework. If you do your homework and it feels right, then all you can do is, is say, did I logically and emotionally walk through all sides of this candidate?

And if you feel good, then you pull the trigger. You can't overthink it. Yeah. You'll get stuck in. paralyzed. Yeah. So let's talk about desperation for a second, because I think this is an interesting piece here. Some business owners, they just really need the help. They need a warm body doing the work. Yeah. And it may not be this perfect fit puzzle piece situation. At what point do you go, all right, they may not be the best long-term fit, but it's going to fit, you know, this gap that we

need right now? You know, that's a tough question because I think if you're truly desperate and we're talking about it hurting the business if you just don't put a warm body in there to do the job, I would be okay with that in a temporary setting. What I don't like is as a leader to say that, and then they put the person in there, and then they move on to the next fire. If this is a Band-Aid, let's treat it like it's a Band-Aid. And so the best way to lay that out with the Band-Aid metaphor is, if I cut my finger pretty bad, then I'm going to go clean it off and I'm put a band-aid on it to try to stop the bleeding, right? And if I'm in a situation where I don't have the neosporin

or I've got to get a couple stitches or whatever, all I'm doing right then and there is we're stopping the bleeding. But I better come back to that and get that wound healthy. So you better come up with a plan. Okay, I'm going to get a person in and we're going to keep everything running. It's a stopgap measure. But then I'm going to figure out a way to bring in the right person. So I treat it with extreme urgency.

And that would be the only way I would say. say in a desperation, you do what you have to do. It's not the greatest candidate. They don't have the greatest attitude. Maybe they're not passionate about the work and they're not on mission. Okay, if you're looking at the methodology that I teach. A person is on purpose when they're using their talent, what they do best, to do work they love, passion, to produce results that matter deeply to the mission. If they are a talent only, that's okay, but that's not a long-term fix. So this might be a temp or a contract position to where you're not locked in forever and you've got to fire them. This was what I would say in a consulting with one.

of our clients. I'd say, okay, get the person in because they've got the talent, all right? Get them in and we keep everything running. But I mean, we are immediately looking to replace them. Yeah. With somebody who really wants to be there and is a great fit long term. So let's recap the steps here to make it real clear for the listeners. We've got to prepare for the interview. Yeah. We've got to conduct the interview. Yeah. Be present. Don't be distracted. And then we've got to also kind of do this debrief of how did that go? What are our next steps? Yeah, debrief with yourself, debrief with your team.

And look at the evidence. Does the evidence line up? And it should be overwhelming. The evidence should be overwhelming. I mean, you asked me that earlier. I think if the evidence is overwhelming and everybody's going, the evidence is good here, then let's go. They're not going to be with you for the rest of your life.

So get over that. But if they're going to be with you for a while, then they're going to do really, really well. And here's the thing. When you do this right, George, and you get a good hire and eventually they do leave you, guess what? you're not stressed out. You go, I've done this before. And it worked. They were here for five years and they crushed it. They took us the next level. They had a dream that wasn't, you know, wasn't here. So, you know, I'm sad that they left. But I know that I can go find another one of those.

Yeah. And it seems like you get better at it with time. There's no question you get better. Your 20th hire is going to be easier and better than your first or second or third potentially. No question. No question about it. So as we wrap here, what encouragement would you give the small business owner who may not be looking forward to this interview process, but they definitely. desperately need to help and they want to do it right. Yeah, well, you know, I get it. I get it that this is something that, you know, you'd rather have a root canal. But the reality is the data shows there's nothing more important. There's nothing more important.

I mean, if you just keep making bad hires, you're going to sabotage your business. And there's just nothing more important than the talent you have. Nothing. You want to be a championship company? I don't care if it's a plumbing company of 15, 30 people. You want to be a champion? You want to be great. You have a great company?

you better get really good talent in the door. It's that simple. So you choose. You want to spend the majority of your working life as a leader banging your head against the wall. Oh, people, people. And again, we talk to those folks. And I get it. By the way, when you say that, you're not wrong, and it's really frustrating.

But that's on you. You didn't hire the right people. Or you hired somebody who could go from mouth breather to champion, but you haven't trained them. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So you choose. You want to thrive or do you just want to always be trying to survive? That's a great reminder there, Ken.

Well, I think you nailed this interview. You've got the job. Thank you. This is very exciting. I know you're nervous about it. Terrified. You did great. I'm looking forward to the next steps.

We'll be in touch. Yeah, that's great, George. See, now I'm very excited. I can go call my wife and say, hey, George said I did a really great job, and I'm going to know something within the next three to five days. I thought you needed my encouragement today. I did. I did. Thank you. Well, it's always a pleasure having you on the podcast. Thanks so much. You're doing great, by the way, George. I appreciate that. Thanks, Ken Coleman. Always a great conversation with my friend Ken Coleman. If you want to check out his new book from paycheck to purpose, just click the link in the show notes. Now, Ken laid out a framework for a great candidate interview. But how does that play out on a Zoom interview or when you're desperate to hire someone? Ken is going to answer those questions from business owners right after this. All right, like I mentioned, Ken took a call and answered a call. question from a couple listeners. Check it out. All right, let's go to Travis, who's joining us on the line

in Hastings, Nebraska. Travis, you're on the Entree Leadership podcast. What's going on? Hey, Ken, how's it going? Good to be here. I'm living the dream. What can I help you with today? So my question was, when doing like a Zoom interview or a remote interview with somebody, how do you gauge whether a person is going to be a culture fit for your business? Sure. Well, let me start by saying it's really not Zoom related. I don't think that you can determine if someone is a good culture fit in person any better than you can if you're talking to them via Zoom, telephone, or any other format. Okay. This is really about the type of questions that you ask. This is really about the answers that you're looking to hear. So whether they're on Zoom or they're in person,

you need to go into this, as I teach in the intentional interview, you need to go in and go, what are the answers I want to hear from somebody? So as it relates to asking, asking questions about your culture, you know what your culture is and you know how you want to protect it. So let's actually walk through this right now because this will be really, really fun. Yeah. So we're going to help you determine the questions you would ask and then the answers that you want to hear. So when you are interviewing somebody and you want to ask them about themselves, their behaviors and determine whether or not that fits into your culture, which by the way, shared behaviors. So what are you wary of? What do you want to find out if somebody has got or somebody

doesn't have? Yeah, kind of if they're going to be that team player that's willing to kind of step outside what they're initially hired to do, you know, work in areas they're not very experienced in, but around that team player focus. Okay, great. So now we've determined that what's really important, at least one thing that's important to figure out if their culture fit is are they naturally a team player. How do they view themselves in the context of a team? So we know that that's what we're looking to determine. And so now we go, what's the right answer? And the right answer for you is, you want to hear somebody say that they love being a part of a team, right? You want to hear somebody say that they find themselves always looking to help others. So then what's the question

or two that we've got to ask that will let us know if that is in fact something that they'll do? And you've got to ask it in a way that it's not an easy setup. So here's what you don't do, all right? So you don't say, let's just say the guy's Bob, because I think Bob's a funny name for us to practice with, shall we? So say, hey, Bob, are you a team player? What do you think Bob's going to say, Travis? He's going to say yes. Oh, yeah, but how do we know if Bob's a team player? We don't. What we know is Bob's a really good actor, right? Yeah. So what we've got to do is we've got to ask a question, that gets to the behavior and the values that you know will turn into teamwork. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, for sure. All right. So I can do this for you, but let's work on this together.

So what's a question? So how would you get about trying to figure out if his behaviors or if his values lead you to believe that he's going to be a team player? What would be a question that you could ask that's indirect but would yield that result? He kind of flipping it around on him and asking him if he was needing to have somebody else help him with something. How would he go about that? Yes. Great. Let me tell you why that's great, Travis. Now you're seeing if he is a person who is willing to collaborate because what you did in that question is you made it about him.

He needs help. How would he go about seeking or asking for help? Okay. And so you're going to see pretty quickly how he feels about working with others. Is there a lot of pride there? You know, because he could say something like, well, you know, generally I don't really ever have that. I really pride myself in a guy who figures it out on his own. You know what I mean? So what's that going to say to you?

He likes to work by himself. Yeah. Now, does not mean that he's not a good team player, but now we've got some evidence that, okay, we might have an issue here. What would be another way? So now let's keep playing this out. So that's a good question. What would be another question that would allow you to determine whether or not he enjoys being a part of the team? Maybe asking about some of his past experiences, like in other jobs or in maybe even like sports, things he's done.

Yes, good. Here's one that I would give you. Ask him, what's your favorite part about interacting with your fellow teammates? Now, see, that is a little bit of a leading question, and Bob can still fake a little bit. us out a little bit there, but we're also putting him on the spot where he's got to think back and he's either going to be a really good actor and just BS his way through it, or he's going to start to reveal what he enjoys most about working with others. And he might say, well, I've never really been in an environment where I really enjoyed working with people. I kind of do that.

And now we're starting to get a biographical sketch of what Bob's involvement with a team looks like and as a result what Bob's emotions are around teammates and teamwork. Another question is, as I would ask the question, how would you describe a healthy culture? Oh, now this is the fun one. I've been holding this one, Travis. But this question is open-ended. Yeah. So even Bob the actor, he doesn't know the answer. You're asking him to describe what he thinks a healthy, vibrant, culture is. Ding, ding, ding, that's going to be the question that reveals the most. Make sense? Okay. Yeah, that, yeah, that's great. So those are, what we did there is we kind of role-played and we walk through the thinking you need to have. I want you and everybody else that's

listening to this program. You've got to think through that as well and say, one thing we're not going to do. We're never going to ask yes or no questions. It doesn't reveal anything. Are you a great person? Yes. He could be an axe murderer for all we know. He's not going to say, no, I'm an Max murderer. So we've got to ask questions that are open-ended and see where they go, all right? And so that's really, really important. And then you've got to think all the different scenarios by which you can test them. So I think that will really help you and formulate your own questions. Okay, cool. Yeah, that's very helpful. All right. Travis, I appreciate you, man. Thank you for the call. Yes, thanks, Ken. Okay, let's go to a question from our Entree Leadership Facebook page.

Christine writes in. We are a preschool, so we have a certain number. of teachers in each classroom. And we have so few applicants right now that we don't have the luxury of being choosy. The demand for higher pay is causing us to hire unqualified people at higher and higher rates. In my 14 years, I've never seen anything like this. When you're truly desperate to hire people to simply keep from having to close your business, how do you avoid hiring the wrong people? Well, this episode obviously is about the intentional interview. And your intention now changes because of your situation. You don't have the luxury of being choosy because of a smaller candidate pool and the demand for higher pay. That's causing you to have a much, much smaller pool

of candidates. And it doesn't sound like they're actually even qualified. You said you're caused to hire unqualified people. So I don't know the preschool business very well, but you've clearly made some decisions to hire some people that don't have the desired qualification, but they're a human being, they're breathing, and hopefully they're going to treat the kids nicely. Sounds to me like that's your low barrier. So what you've got to do here is with the intentional interview, you still have to hire the best of the small pool. So what do we do? Well, it's not ideal, but I want you to ask the questions that will allow you determine if the person values the work. Do they value the job? They may not be qualified, may not be the best candidate,

to know, do they value the job and they're looking forward to this opportunity? Do they like children? My goodness, let's go for some basics here. Do they want to have a pleasant job experience? You want to ask some really fundamental questions here. And what you're really trying to determine here, if it's a not very qualified pool, what you want to find is maybe that diamond in the rough, and you want to find somebody that you can mold, somebody that at least they care for children and like being around children, at least they are excited about an opportunity to have a job and earn a paycheck. If we just stop there and they're a decent person that has pretty nice value matchup, as you have a conversation with them, is this somebody that maybe you would enjoy having lunch with?

We're just going to lower the barrier, but we're still going to apply the intentional interview because you still got to pick the best of maybe a not-so-very-good bunch. And so I'm sorry that you're in that position. One of the things I want to encourage you to do is you need to get engaged. with Entree Leadership, our coaching. You need to get involved with the community and figure out how do I going forward, after I fix this desperate situation, how do I move forward and attract better candidates and retain those people? I would highly recommend you watch my talk from Entree Leadership Summit where we talk about attracting, acquiring, and retaining the right talent. You can do this. It is not impossible.

but right now you still got to apply the intentional interview so that you get the best of the bunch and I promise if you lead them, if you pour into them, you can't turn them into a really good team member. Thank you for the question. As Ken talked about in today's episode, you need to put in the time to prepare for an interview. So we've put together a free download called the Intentional Interview Checklist. This checklist will help you get started on the path to conducting interviews the right way. To get this free checklist, just click the first. the link in the show notes. Hope you enjoyed today's episode of the show. If you did, leave us a review

and subscribe so you don't miss the next one. And if you're a small business owner with two to 200 team members, we want to hear what you think of the show, what you like, what you don't like, and what we could do better. Give us your feedback by clicking the link in the show notes to schedule a call with Tim, our producer. If you want to keep up with us on social media, you can follow us at Entree Leadership. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, edited by Jacob Harrison and Bob Borkez and mixed and mastered by Will Rudder. I'm your host, George Camel, and on behalf of the entire Entree Leadership team,

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