The Sterling Family Law Show

Stop Winging Final Interviews: Turn Them Into Core Values Interviews - #197

• Jeff Sterling Hughes

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The core values interview is the final filter that separates bucket fillers from bucket dippers. Here's how we run ours.

We send candidates a short video on our mission, vision, and values days before. They present for five minutes on how they align. The ones who wing it? Easy no.

Because bad hires are expensive. This values-based hiring process helps you vet candidates before you commit so you stop making costly mistakes.


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📄 CHAPTERS  


0:00 - Core Values Interview: The Final Step in Our 3-Part Hiring System 

1:27 - What Values Alignment Actually Looks Like in Practice 

4:05 - Where Candidates Succeed and Fail in the Presentation 

6:15 - Why the Questions Candidates Ask Reveal Everything 

8:04 - The Best Interview Questions We've Ever Been Asked 

9:41 - How to Build Your Own Core Values Questions Over Time


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SPEAKER_00:

I think the best part is that we always try and leave time for them to ask questions at the end of us. And to me, that's very telling based on what questions they ask us. Welcome back to the Sterling Family Law Show, the podcast designed for family attorneys to build the firm of their dreams. I'm your host, Tyler Dolph. I am also the CEO of our hyper-focused family law firm-only marketing agency called Rocket Clicks that was born out of our very own law firm, Sterling Lawyers, that has grown to over 27 attorneys. Today we continue our hiring series. We are going to lay out the plan for the final interview in our three-step interview sequence. This interview is all about do the candidates align with your core values? It gives them an opportunity to present how they feel, as well as an opportunity to ask questions of the leadership team in this final cadence. If you are hiring and growing your firm, hiring is one of the most expensive things that you are going to do. And so getting the right candidate is paramount for your future growth. Gentlemen, we are back talking through our three-step interview process. We've covered the cultural interview, which is our first interview, the operational interview, where you get into the weeds and truly understand can the candidate do the job. And today we are going to talk about our final interview, which we call our core values interview. JP, tell us a little bit about what this interview involves.

SPEAKER_02:

So unlike the operational interview, where you kind of get a live fire exercise with no preparation, uh, this one you do get preparation for. And we tell you right up front what it's going to be, which is we're looking for your alignment with our core values. And so, you know, if you don't have core values, go listen to that episode. But, you know, presumably you've got a set of core values that you've defined as incredibly important for your firm. Now you're looking for how people will align with those core values and improve the overall tenor of your organization as they come in. We've already validated that they passed the SNF test and the culture interview. We've already validated they're technically competent. So this is the last chance for you to make sure is this person going to be uh to use to use Tony's terms, a bucket filler or a bucket dipper uh when they come into your organization.

SPEAKER_00:

Tony, how do you use this at the law firm final interview stage? I think for me, the beauty of this interview is the candidate's kind of already been vetted. We know they can do the job. We know they pass kind of the culture interview. This is our opportunity to really do a more of a gut feel.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, we don't, it's not any different than we do over here at RC. You know, what we're looking for is for them to kind of present on what JP just talked about. We're looking at their ability to kind of present and sell themselves, align that with our mission, vision, values, and then be prepared to kind of go on a morass of random questions and be able to think on their feet because the the follow-up questions are can be technical, they can be uh personality driven, they can be um situational. They're kind of all over the place. So there's not really a good way to prep for it because really we just want to see how you how you think on your feet. Um, and then we want to see like what kind of questions do you bring bring to us in terms of um terms of the role and you know, can you extract value from the leadership team that will kind of give you more vision and purpose uh because it's pretty rare even for an internal person to kind of get the audience that they get in the final interview?

SPEAKER_00:

Yep, I agree. Um having the opportunity to watch how they prepare and present is great because you get to see a more polished version or take of you know what they're telling you, but then you also have the QA, which is way more sporadic and they have to think on their feet. Uh let's go back to the presentation. JP, where do candidates uh succeed and fail in this part of the interview?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so we send uh a recording actually prior to the the interview a couple of days in advance. Uh it's about two and a half minutes. It's not super long, but we literally walk them through our mission, vision, and values so that they have a full context of what we're trying to do. We don't just send them a document with no context. We want to give them all the tools to be prepared. And what we're asking them to do is say, what about this tells you this is the right organization for you? So tell us basically how you align with what we're presenting. Um, and you know, vice versa. Like, what makes this a good two-way fit? So it's like, how does, how is, you know, how is our firm going to be good for you? And how are you gonna be good for our firm? And that's the context of the prom. It's pretty open-ended. We we give them the opportunity to apply it um however they want. Um, and so the the candidates who uh kind of show up and just wing it uh is is a pretty easy no for us. Uh it is you you didn't put any preparation time into it. You putn't you didn't put a deck together, you didn't put any slides together, um, you didn't really seem to have given this much thought. Um, you haven't practiced, so you kind of wander all over the place. Um, there is a time constraint. We do ask them to stay within five minutes, and you can tell the ones who practice because they're usually right around five, maybe you know, 15 seconds over, versus you got to cut them off at like six minutes, and you could tell that they still had 20% more that they were gonna go through. So basically it's like, did they read the instructions? Did they listen to the video? Did they do some preparation coming in? And did they actually provide critical thought, or is it all just like, you know, hey, I ran this through Chat GPT and here's some fluff that I hope will make you happy? Um, and again, it's it's pretty obvious to see through that when you get into the actual conversation.

SPEAKER_00:

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SPEAKER_01:

It's really their opportunity to sell us on themselves. It's like a it's a really easy interview because like they can they take it seriously, they can get get the team all excited about working with them because like it's it's their court for the first five minutes. And that's really gonna set the tone for how we evaluate the interview overall.

SPEAKER_00:

I agree. It's definitely my favorite interview because it it feels more real. It's an opportunity to ask the real questions or things that didn't get found out during the other you know interviews. And I think the best part is that we always try and leave time for them to ask questions at the end of us. And to me, that's very telling based on uh what questions they ask us. JP, can you talk a little bit more about that?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, again, not dissimilar from the operational interview. You are evaluating how well they've thought about their questions. Tony mentioned something. I don't want to blitz past that, which is um the group that's on the call, which is they're gonna get direct access to members of our leadership team in this call, regardless of the role. Like, even you know, entry-level roles, we're still bringing in like a VP of people operations to talk to them. Uh, and so like this is a unique opportunity from an access standpoint. Do they think about what questions I want to ask this group that I'll be having access to? Do they ask about vision? Do they ask about how we defined our values? Do we ask about um what success looks like for the firm over the next five years? How they see this role contributing significantly to accomplishing uh these different parts. Like these are these are good, deep questions that show that they've considered who they're talking to and tailor their question appropriately, which depending on what role they're uh applying for in your firm, could be, could be incredibly impactful because it could be something they're literally going to use day in and day out of like, can they tailor the message to the audience? Um and then there's the, you know, I literally just Googled what are five good interview questions I should ask. And you can tell they're just like, uh, tell me about what success looks like. And you know, okay, like you, you didn't really, you didn't really think about this very much.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep, I agree. Um, what are some of the best questions we've been asked?

SPEAKER_02:

I like when the questions have some detail to them. So somebody comes in and says, Hey, map out for me what success in 30, 60, and 90 days looks like for this role. Um, we got a good one recently, which was, hey, um, what what can I do in my first 90 days which will exceed your expectations? That's a great question because you didn't just ask for where the expectations are to meet them. You asked like, what does above and beyond look like? So I like that because it's a lot, again, we're talking about alignment. Like we're getting clear on, you know, to tell you, we're selling, we're setting the the benchmarks here for what this engagement's gonna look like. So I I love questions like that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I'd love uh candidates who do their homework. We recently had a candidate who was like, Oh, I've listened to your most recent podcasts, and I did this, you know, I found this thing on your website, and you had me take this personality test, and I was doing some research on it. And, you know, the fact that they took it serious and they were investing in the process uh goes a long way for me.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I would agree. I I like when they talk, when they do that research and they kind of ask about more vision-oriented questions. You're only gonna get answers if you're asking the question of that audience. So of like the audience of several members of the leadership team.

SPEAKER_00:

Anything else we forgot as we uh think about the process for this interview that we'd want our listeners to know?

SPEAKER_02:

The questions that we asked with the first final interviews we did don't look anything like the questions we asked today. We've tried a bunch of questions, uh, and like, oh, I like this one, and we tend to repeat that one. Or um, you know, uh, we tried some that were like, oh, that was terrible. I've been asking that again. Uh that was really confusing. So, you know, it's a live feedback loop. So like try out some questions, but don't think you're gonna nail it the first time. The the cool thing is you're not locked into asking the same question. So, like, figure out what tells you things about the candidate. Um, I like open-ended questions that don't have an obvious right answer. Um, so questions about like, you know, tell me about your ideal future. There's no way to really like get that wrong, but it tells me what drives you and what motivates you. Um, you know, how do you measure success in your life? Again, there's no right answer, but like I'm I'm gonna get a sense of your value system in these things. So open-ended questions with no right answer, um, but then just play with ones that feel really authentic and natural for you. Um, I've listened to a bunch of other great interviewers and I've stolen a bunch of their questions. So I've I've shamelessly taken a couple of Simon Cynics, uh, you know, I grabbed one from Chris Voss, like I picked a bunch all over the place and like I try them out and I see if they work for me and I tweak them until they do. So the cool thing is you can you can make it fit you um and your personality.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think the the reason why we do this as a reminder is that making the bad hire is so, so expensive. And so if you can go back and take your time and create a process for your firm that allows you to better vet the candidates that are coming in, you're gonna improve retention, you're gonna improve your margins because you people are everything in both the law firm and and the agency that we run. Really appreciate the insights today, guys. Looking forward to uh to the next one.

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Jeff Hughes

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