Our Talent Specialist Alisa Walters describes the different types of interview styles that companies are using nowadays to evaluate candidates.
Find Alisa Walters Online:
We Get Real AF Podcast Credits:
Producers & Hosts: Vanessa Alava & Sue Robinson
Vanessa Alava
Sue Robinson
Audio Producer/Editor: Sam Mclean
Audio Music Track Title: Beatles Unite
Artist: Rachel K. Collier
YouTube Channel Instagram Website
Intro Voice-Over Artist: Veronica Horta
Cover Artwork Photo Credit: Alice Moore
We Get Real AF Podcast Online
Our Talent Specialist Alisa Walters describes the different types of interview styles that companies are using nowadays to evaluate candidates.
Find Alisa Walters Online:
We Get Real AF Podcast Credits:
Producers & Hosts: Vanessa Alava & Sue Robinson
Vanessa Alava
Sue Robinson
Audio Producer/Editor: Sam Mclean
Audio Music Track Title: Beatles Unite
Artist: Rachel K. Collier
YouTube Channel Instagram Website
Intro Voice-Over Artist: Veronica Horta
Cover Artwork Photo Credit: Alice Moore
We Get Real AF Podcast Online
Vanessa Alava
So one of our previous episodes of Profesh Sesh, we covered behavioral based interviews. But there are a couple other different types of interview processes that Alisa is going to inform us about today that some I have never heard of. And I'm eager to understand the process. So, Alisa, give us the lowdown, what are the different types of interviews that we can expect to see as we potentially figure out our next move?
Alisa Walters
Yeah, absolutely. And I think we're seeing this shift right in Talent Acquisition, where you know, the emphasis is in the T versus the little a. And I think that organizations and attracting talent are really looking for more creative ways to make informed hiring decisions that also eliminate any kind of biases in the decision. So we've heard time and time again, you know, we've we've talked about behavioral based interview at length, which you should go listen to, if you haven't, but we, you know, we've also hear about situational type interviews, open ended, where it's a little bit more conversational, and back and forth. And but what we are starting to see more of our assessment, interviews, project based interviews, blind interviewing, and also gamification, which is something that any of our gamer listeners should get excited about, because it's all about game design. I'll start there. We are seeing, you know, from from a broader perspective, gamification is where a company is trying to engage with their audience, from a marketing standpoint. We see something like Domino's Pizza, where they want you to engage and name that pizza, if you will. But now we're looking at it as, you know, how can that be involved in the recruitment process? How can we engage people using game theory, and different types of game design to digitally engage and motivate, motivate people to achieve goals, and some people their style of, of expressing themselves might be through something more creative, like a game. So this is something that we can really pull from somebody, their skill set in a style like gamification, and using those different kind of mechanics to to engage our candidates. And they've actually coined that phrase, recruit tainment. So it's gamification and recruitment. So that that's, that's gamification.
Vanessa Alava
A few months ago, well, we had interviewed someone to potentially be on the show, who had come up with a really interesting game through virtual reality for recruiters to use for their companies. And something really interesting, she said, is that obviously, if you're doing an interview or conducting an interview with a company is because you're interested in a specific role, however, through gamification, since they're able to see such a, like a broad brush of the things that you're good at, that if you're not a good fit for this particular role. They know the things that you are good at. And if you're a good fit overall, with like personality assessment, that they'll tap you for the next role. But you know, that becomes available if you're a good fit based on your skill set, which I think is really great. I think it's brilliant.
Sue Robinson
what kind of industries are using gamification? Is that really cutting edge? Is that more tech industries? Where are you seeing that?
Alisa
I don't think it's specifically industry based as it is so much as it's going to be a lot of the newer bigger companies that a have a budget to throw into a recruitment process like that, or gamification in general, across their organization. But we are seeing, you know, the likes of that in some of the bigger companies like Google, and I think that it's going to be interesting to see how how it continues to trickle down.
Vanessa
Alisa, do you see this kind of cross pollinating with the blind interview too, so that potentially if you are given a game a game situation as part of your recruitment process, that they don't know the gender, the race, that you're just that player within the environment?Are you? Are you seeing that?
Alisa
Yeah, I definitely see that. And I think, you know, to the to the guests that you had on on the podcast, who is working on programs like this, I think there's gonna be a lot of cross functionality between these platforms, and really trying to figure out how to maximize them. And it's really going to come down to an organization, really recognizing how the, how much of an impact it's going to make and and be able to utilize that. And some people, you know, some organizations, not people per se, but organizations have an idea of how they want to continue these interviewing initiatives, and they don't want to really step outside of that, because that has worked for them. And that's what they want to continue to, you know, to to use. And then from a budget standpoint, there are companies that are just like, this isn't something we can do right now, for whatever reason, but I do think we're gonna see the cross pollination, the cross functionality of these, you know, blind interviewing, and gamification and coming together.
Sue
Okay, so then let's move on to blind interviewing. And what do you mean exactly by that? So blind interviewing
Alisa
Blind interviewing is definitely going to be something that occurs earlier on in the process, where there are systems and programs that are being created AI type things that actually remove the person's information from their resume their application, and solely lists their skills. So what's happening is a hiring team will evaluate solely on somebody's experience, their skill set, and in return, this can help eliminate those biases in deciding who they want to hire. So they're taking off, you know, education is being removed. Location, all of those things where somebody could unconsciously say, this isn't somebody who's going to work because they don't have this education, or they're based here. Base, it's based solely on what the skills and experience are listed on the resume.
Sue
So I wonder what kind of company realistically hires for positions where they don't need to know how much education the person has?
Alisa
I think that we are starting to see that look, if you you know, you are a lawyer? Yes, we need to see that you went school, you have a JD you, you've completed the bar. But I think you know, as there's so many industries, where the emphasis on education, and I don't want to discredit education, it's so valuable. It's so important, but it's not front and center. I, I have conversations every day with candidates. And for me, it's more of if it's listed on their resume, and they said they've they've graduated, I'm just going to say, Oh, and I see you You know, you've graduated from here, you know, just to have them confirm, yes, they graduated because I have seen candidates fail a background check, because they've lied about education on their background. Because they're so afraid that having no education listed on their on their resume is going to eliminate them from the candidate pool.
Vanessa
That's an interesting point. And I see where you're coming from, because this is a tech podcast, a lot of people in technology as brainy as they are. Some of them, don't complete college or get out of high school and get right into starting their own company. And it's not to your point de-valuing education, but it's just, they've acquired skills in other ways. And I feel that we're going to start seeing the potentially the college diploma become more of these certificates that you can acquire. There are these boot camps and incubator programs and all of that, that you can start acquiring these different certificates versus one track. Now, do I think if you're a doctor or to your point a lawyer, do you need certain credentials? Absolutely. But if you're going into a field like entertainment or tech or something a little more nimble, that you need to create a brain for or whatever, and you have acquired the skills in a different way, there should be a way to show that in a way that you can say, Yeah, I took a few classes, it's this university, but I dropped out, and I went to an incubator program, and I acquired this and there should be a way to articulate that in a resume where it stands out.
Sue
Different career paths require different types of skills, some of which maybe are more University centric, and others, which are to your point, Vanessa, learning, coding or things like that. So the different worlds?
Alisa
Yeah, it is. And I think that, you know, this is another topic too, is, you know, education. And I have a younger brother who, and we, you know, we talked about gamification, growing up, he, he was not interested in school and in the standard education, trajectory, and he was, he's also very introverted, but he's also Mensa. And he because he didn't follow this trajectory, and have a high school, a traditional high school diploma, and take a college route, a lot of doors didn’t open up for him. But he went back to school to get his GED because he had to, and now he's working for one of the top tech companies in the country, in the world, a product that we are probably all using right now, whether it's our phone or our computer, and he doesn't have, you know, a master's in engineering or anything like that but if you sat him down in front of a strategy game for to play a video game, he could go the next day and take a test if it was based on all the information from his video game and get, you know, off the chart grades. So it's, it's interesting how different people learn and different people process and you know, it's Yeah, again, not devaluing education. But there are certain skills that can't be taught in school. Mm hmm. Yeah. on the job training. Yep.
Vanessa
Moving on to the next interview type, what do we have on the on the roster here, project based, right
Alisa 12:34
Project based interviewing. That's one of the targeted ways that companies are really getting a chance to see how a potential candidate can do in the role. And how they would work with others is to assess them through a project-based interview. And there are different ways that a project based interview can happen, it can happen on a candidates own time where it's scheduled, and then they come back and they report back on their results. Or it can also happen on the spot where a you know, an interviewer may ask them on the spot to do a small project to you know to kind of showcase how they how they would do in that environment where they're asked to do it right away. And the benefits, it provides insight for both the candidate to see what they're potentially coming into. And also the hiring team would get a sense of how this this candidate would do if they're in the role. A candidate would be able to show them versus just sitting there and telling them what they could potentially do.
Sue
One of my daughter's friends graduating from college had a project based interview and she really liked it because she knew ahead of time what was expected of her so she could prepare her best work it gave her to your point an insight into what she would be doing if she was hired. And she could put her best foot forward and the company could also see you know how, how she would handle something like that. So I think that's a really smart way for certain types of jobs, to interview people and qualify candidates and I like that. Do we have one more?
Alisa
The assessment interview. And I think that the assessment interview is is similar to the behavior, the project based interview, but there might be a couple more steps in it. So the assessments actually done in an in person or digital interview format, where there's an informational session where the interviewer gets to assess from a, you know, a very surface level conversation, what this candidate skill set could be, there might be a group ice breaking session where it's a group interview, breaking the ice and having somebody come into the the environment not feeling nervous or not feeling like, you know, it can be scary to walk into an interview, whether on zoom or horn person with people that you don't know, and have to put your best foot forward.
There might be some different types of testing, aptitude type tests, and different types of exercises, different types of projects and stuff.There might be an exercise that in this assessment, where the candidate is asked to do something in a group with a particular people that they potentially could be working with. So that again, kind of similar to the project b, this would be the candidate gets to see what it would be like working with this potential team on a project, see how they all work together, assess those skills in that situation. And then also on the other side of that the group that's working with this candidate would see the same thing. But from that perspective, they made, you know, there's that the ask of the presentation, potentially a written task, and then more of a an in person finalized interview. So an assessment is probably a little bit more involved. Some organizations will bring somebody in, and it's a full day of interviews where this person will start at 9am be there all day until five, they're meeting with this person and that person, and they're doing a group icebreaking session, or they're doing a group presentation. And then they might have a lunch break during all of that. But, um, but it can be pretty involved. And I know some of the major streaming companies and technology companies are have assessment style interviews.
Vanessa
So with assessment style interviewsI remember I had a similar situation when I was living in California, it was like on the fourth round of me taking time off in a short period of time, because again, this is like, a week, a week off a week on and we got so how do you set boundaries? And how do you be transparent when you're saying, Hey, I'm really interested, but I also don't have days upon days to, you know, commit to this type of interview? Where's the happy medium?
Alisa
I think that's a great question in those initial conversations, if you know that you would be potentially moving forward in the process is getting a sense from the recruiter or hiring manager, whoever it is, you're speaking with in that informational interview in that in that very first phone screen and get a sense of what is the interview process going to be like? What you know, what, what can I expect how much time is expected during this process? Because in full transparency, I have a full time job. This is important to me, and I just need to understand what's going to be expected. personally believe and what my experience has been in this process is four to five people is enough people to make an informed decision in an interview process. I think that there are also laws in different states where if a candidate is coming in and doing all of these things in an interview process, it does, it does toe the line of, does this candidate need to be paid for their time, because we're asking them to do work. And we have seen lawsuits against some of the big companies that come in and expect this candidate to do this, and that and this and that, and we're paying, you know, we're, we're demanding a lot for somebody, somebody time at that point. So I think level setting the expectation in that initial phone screen is going to be really important. And I think that that's also something as you're assessing as a potential employee of this company, because
Sue
You don't want to give them free labor? Right? The whole point is to get paid here.
Vanessa
Exactly. Yeah, that's a red flag, if they're there like this before even get in, how's it going to be when you get in? Like, am I ever gonna be able to please these people?
Alisa
Yeah, exactly. And I think that I think that there are so many ways to be able to maximize a candidates time. But being mindful of their time and their effort that they're putting into this process. For me, when I have a kickoff with a hiring manager, and we're talking about an interview panel, and what's going to be involved. You know, it's that's one of the things that the expectation I set with them is, you know, we are, we need to understand that people are giving up their time to interview for this, and we have to be mindful of their time.
Sue
And I think at the end of the day, for all of these styles of interviews, it comes back to being assertive, and asking questions, asking your recruiter, whoever's running the interview process, can you let me know what to expect? What does this process look like?
And also, you know, when you're preparing to go into this into the interview, this goes without saying, Be prepared. Do your research on the company get a sense of what kind of projects that they work on that you might work on as an employee? Because that's just no matter what style of interview it's going to be. That's going to make you more of a standout candidate as well.