Rethinking Interviews

Having recently been an interviewee for the first time in years, I’ve been reflecting on the process of how to properly vet candidates. Selfishly, I hope it helps me improve my ability to hire the right people. Bigger picture, hopefully this helps districts find their right people.

Research from Adam Grant and others shows that the best interviews allow the interviewer to project the candidate on the job. Past performance should not be discounted, but how they can think about what they will do is more important. Forward-facing questions like, “How would you handle (insert scenario for the role being hired)” are better indicators of their ability for your role than “How have you (insert scenario for their current role).” 

Consider the role-critical skills, and ask questions about these. Look for depth of answer over breadth. Many interviews are going to be time-limited. If the interview is set to last for 45 minutes, 15 questions give 3 per answer. 9 questions give 5. For any position, 9 questions should be able to cover the essentials. More than that and the answers have to be more surface and superficial, and it will become challenging for the interviewers to remember each answer. There will likely be redundancy as well, leading to wasted time for everyone.

I think for any teaching, leading, or coaching job, questions should relate to:

1) Of course, there is the lead-in of tell us about yourself and what got you here.

2) overall philosophy of education, and how that looks in action;

3) how their role impacts the students;

4) how their role impacts their colleagues;

5) what indicates to them they have done good work;

6) and how they plan to positively impact the school community.

That leaves room in my scenario here for up to 3 more questions. I believe, from interviews I’ve conducted and been in, along with the research mentioned above, that these should be as authentic to the job as possible. I advocate for one performance-based question, with a set rubric for each person in the room to evaluate the candidate.

1) Ask a teacher to present a 15-minute mini-lesson on a topic. Tell them in advance what the topic and time frame are, and have them get up and instruct the people in the room.

2) Ask a leader to run a mock faculty meeting about a current initiative in the school or district they are applying to. Ask them to perform some relevant research into your district, and use that as the basis for what and how they communicate. 

3) Ask a coach to run a coaching session for someone in the room. That person can role-play or be true to who they are. Notify the coach about who their interview "client" will be, and see how the interaction unfolds.

All told, each of these interviews takes 45 minutes. You can leave 5 minutes for follow-up or allowing the candidate to ask questions, and then 10 minutes to debrief, reset, and get ready for the next candidate. 

When hiring, we need the best candidate for the job we need them to do. We want highly competent people who can both think on the spot and prepare for their work. Daily, we have time to prepare, think, revise, collaborate, and receive feedback on our work. We also have to do our work at a high level. Let's rethink interviews to make them authentic assessments of the position we are hiring.