Q. What do you look for in their answer?
They better have one. It’s always almost comical to me when people avoid weaknesses because, like I said earlier, those are probably more important than strengths.
When someone avoids describing or developing their weaknesses that in and of itself can be a weakness because they need to understand themselves to understand how they’re going to perform on the job and be able to fit within the culture.
Q. How do you determine the interviewee can meet your need for flexibility?
As far as any specific questions, I’ll ask them past historical experiences about having to be flexible, about challenging times that they’ve had to overcome [and] how they were able to overcome those.
How they reacted to those situations is extremely important. Then, how they were able to come away from those experiences and learn from their reactions. The way they adapted to those situations is extremely important to me to gain a greater awareness of how they’ll respond to similar situations within our organization.
Q. How do you lay out your culture during the interview process?
There’s a point in the interview process where I’ll feel as though this individual is going to, this is a little strong of a word, but is worthy of me expanding or exposing our culture. I think there is quite a bit that the interviewee picks up on individually, but as far as verbally communicating the culture, I will open that up when I feel comfortable that not only this individual is going to go to step two or whatever step in the process we may be in.
It’s really important for the interviewee to understand that early on because that’s where they’ll start to feel comfortable and they’ll almost feel apart of the organization before they’re even asked to join the company.
I’ve heard a lot of cases that individuals like to steer new hires in the direction they want them to go. I’m more of an individual (who says), ‘OK, here’s what you’re going to be exposed to, this is the culture that you’re going to be a part of, now you figure out how to enhance or adapt or increase whatever your direction wants to be.’ And then we collaborate on that. Certainly, I would want to be in tune with that.
Not allowing a new hire to express or convey their vision would be pretty foolish on the part of a company’s culture. Not to say that it doesn’t need to be maintained or understood, but new people can be a fresh breath of air. They can also be a bad apple, but that’s all in management.
Culture is absolutely an important part of the interview process.
How to reach: Forest Corp., (330) 425-3805 or www.forestcorporation.com