Naiman Labs Newsletter #3. No more standard interview questions

Hello friends and thank you for reading a new issue of Naiman labs Newsletter!

As some of you may know, I have been working in HR for eight years. I have experience in various fields of HR such as agency recruitment, HR and organizational consulting, in-house reward management, in-house performance management, and HR-project management. Currently, I work as an HR Business Partner.It's the first time I am involved in talent hiring again since 2014. In 2022, I had 50+ interviews with candidates.

Last week, I saw a post on LinkedIn where people were discussing that there's no point in asking the standard HR interview question, "Where do you see yourself in five years." I agree 100% that this question most likely give you nothing. Because of this post, I'd like to share some of things I find important to ask at interviews.

When I talk to candidates, I am always curious about 3 aspects: Motivation, Journey and Principles.

Part 1. Motivation. I always try to understand why they chose this role and this company, what drives them here.

I ask something like this:

• Why this role?

• Which tasks do you like to solve?

• What tasks motivate you?

• What is you career goal? What is your dream job?

• Are there any particular projects you want to complete? Are there any specific skills you want to develop?

Aspect 2. Journey. It's important to understand how they have reached this point.

So I ask them:

• How do you learn?

• What's the biggest achievement in the place you worked before?

• Why have you decided to go for this profession? What do you like the most about it?

Aspect 3. Values and principles. This is about the candidate's mindset. For our company culture, fit is very important. So during the interview process, we try hard to understand what the candidate's values are.

So I ask them:

• How do you give feedback?

• What is the most feedback you ever received and why?

• If I ask your teammates about you, how would they describe you?

• What is the job you'd never do?

Of course there's no a standard recipe on how to understand everything about the candidate. What really helps me is genuine curiosity - don't ask just for the sake of asking, but try to understand your candidate.

📃 People management article of the week

A good and easy time management article from Harvard Business Review for this week. “When and how to say no to extra work”. Let’s admit we always do some. This article dives a little bit into why we do this and when we should and should not do this.

From my end I would also add that extra work might give you extra skills, or extra career development. However if you see no benefits for your own development from these extra tasks you receive - it is one more reason to say no to it.

💼 Your career tip of the week

When you hunt for a new job, it can be easy to lose track of all the different applications you've submitted.

Statistics say that at best 60% of candidates will get 1 interview out of 10 applications. So vast majority of active job seekers have at least around 75-100 job applications.

With so many different positions to keep track of, it can be tough to remember where you stand with each company. That's why I highly recommend keeping a close eye on your job search progress.

To help you stay organized, I've put together a simple job search tracker. In it, you can keep track of how many stages each application has, where you currently stand with each company, and any important information or resources you need to know about the company. This way, you'll always have a clear picture of your job search progress and be able to stay on top of things.

😇 To help you doing this, I prepared a simple job search tracker for you. You can find it right here and get it for any price you want.

⚒️ Productivity tip of the week

Try “Daily Highlight” practice. I've been following it for several months and have no intention to drop it. It can really make your day. Every morning after I get up, I define and write down the highlight of the day. It is the one thing I am absolutely committed to do today.

The book "Make time" by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky where I got this idea suggests that it can be something productive, but it can also be something joyful that can help you recharge you batteries.

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Have a nice week and good luck!

Vlad from Naiman Labs.

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