Most hiring processes were inadvertently designed to find good candidates, not great employees.

For one thing, strong employees tend to be less active in pursuing other opportunities, since they're looking for a better job, not another job. That's the reason why traditional sourcing techniques aren't very effective when looking for top performers, and why semi-sourcing is needed to increase the number of top people in your candidate pool. Another problem is that candidates who are great at presenting themselves might not be so great at actually doing the work. Likewise, strong employees who can do the work extremely well often aren't the best at interviewing and presenting themselves. Research (and common sense) indicates that presentation skills are poor predictors of on-the-job performance. The interviewer needs to take this presentation vs. performance difference into account to minimize hiring mistakes. The one-question interview I advocate accomplishes this by showing the interviewer how to pierce the veneer of presentation skills to directly measure performance. The key to the one-question interview is to ask the candidate to describe a major project or accomplishment in great depth. To understand the actual accomplishment and the candidate's true role, the interviewer must dig in with a series of fact-finding questions (e.g., when, where, why, how, who...). It often takes 10 minutes of peeling the onion like this to really understand the scope and impact of any accomplishment. This process is then repeated for a number of different team and individual accomplishments spread over a period of time. By digging deep into a person's background this way, it's quickly apparent if you're dealing with a great employee or someone who just makes a good presentation. Candidates who are only good at the presentation piece tend to balk at the inquisitive nature of the questioning. Their answers tend to be shorter, shallow, and often evasive. Sometimes they even lose their composure, become nervous, lose eye contact, and seem less confident. People who are average at the presentation piece, but who are solid on the performance side, undergo an equivalent transformation. They become energized by the questions, they talk more openly and enthusiastically, seem more at ease and confident, and can't wait for another chance to tell you what they've accomplished. This is a profound change which you must not ignore or overlook. The best people are enthused and energized by detailed probing into their backgrounds. Those that just talk a good game quickly become uncomfortable. This is one reason why this form of interviewing is superior to traditional behavioral or competency-based interviews. Not only does a performance-based interview obtain more insight into a person's background, it also provides the added benefit of recruiting the person at the same time. By letting a person describe his or her accomplishments rather than over-talking, overselling, and under-listening, you've changed the nature of the interview and recruiting process. Top people want to talk about their accomplishments, and they want to work for companies that respect and honor what they've achieved. It's then very easy to present the job you have available as a great move if you have the facts to prove it. Just as companies don't like candidates who get by on sizzle alone, top people won't accept jobs when presented in a similar manner. With the information obtained during the performance evaluation interview, it's relatively easy to assess potential and job fit. The key is to compare what the person has accomplished and how they've accomplished it to what needs to be done on the job. Looking at the trend line of accomplishments is a good indicator of potential. It's certainly positive if it's upward (e.g., bigger teams, bigger accomplishment, more impact). A flat trend line isn't negative if the person really enjoys doing the work and does it well. You obviously don't want to hire someone who doesn't want to do this work anymore, so recent examples of similar work are needed to validate this. A downward trend should raise the caution flag. Another useful way to assess potential is to separate the person's accomplishments into two categories: improving his or her job, or expanding it. To do this, imagine an hourglass with the bottom half representing the person's scope of responsibility (you should determine this at the beginning of the one-question interview). The top half represents activity outside of the person's normal responsibilities. As you listen to the person's accomplishments, assign them to the top or bottom half of the hour-glass. Process improvements, building the team, and achieving results belong in the bottom half. Put reaching out to other departments, going beyond the call of duty and implementing major change or overcoming tough obstacles into the top half. Once you done this for a few accomplishments, a pattern will begin to emerge. Those people who tend to have a significant portion of their accomplishments in the upper half of the hourglass tend to also have an upward growth trend. If not, there's probably something else amiss, so you'll need to probe further to uncover what's really going on. You might also want to use this hourglass concept when presenting candidates to hiring managers. It might help jog them into focusing more on performance rather than presentation. It's pretty amazing what one performance-based question can accomplish:

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You'll be able to quickly separate top candidates from top employees. Getting past presentation skills and focusing on performance is vitally important if you want to minimize hiring mistakes. Not only will you be able to stop hiring people who only talk a good game, but you'll also be able to find some hidden gems in the bargain. Top people who don't come across too well in the first fifteen minutes of the interview often shine using this type of interviewing approach.

Source -http://www.adlerconcepts.com/resources/column/interviewing/using_the_onequestion_intervie.php

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Top people want a chance to demonstrate what they've accomplished. An in-depth professional interview sends an important message to these top people that the company has high standards. This is an important part of the recruiting process that many companies overlook.

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The fact-finding process increases assessment accuracy. By examining how behaviors, competencies, and skills are used collectively to achieve results, it's far easier to measure potential, motivation, and job fit.

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Compensation becomes a less important part of the offer and acceptance process. Top employees are more interested in the growth and challenge of the job than compensation. By focusing on the job stretch during the interviewing process, salary naturally falls to third or fourth place in importance when deciding upon accepting an offer.

Everyone wants to hire stronger people. You can start by understanding the difference between presentation and performance, and between top candidates and top employees. The one-question interview will help you do both.

After you complete a work-history review, ask the candidate to describe a significant major accomplishment. Then ask the candidate to describe a significant major accomplishment.

Then ask these follow-up questions to better understand the person's actual role and the significance of the accomplishment. 1. When did it happen and how long did it take to finish? 2. What was your specific role and who was on the team? As part of this, please draw a work chart describing the people you worked for and those who worked for you. Also, describe those you worked with, inside and outside your department, or company. 3. Describe the environment and culture. I'd like to know how decisions were made, the systems you used, how your boss managed the team, and what you liked and didn't like. 4. What was the actual impact you made? Please provide specific details and facts. 5. What were the two to three biggest challenges you faced on this project? Walk me though step-by-step how you handled the most difficult one. 6. Describe the technical skills you used and those you learned. Give me some examples of how you applied these. 7. Give me two to three examples of initiative, where you went the extra mile, or where you exceeded expectations. 8. What did you like most and least about this project? 9. Give me a specific example of the biggest problem you had to solve, whether it was handling something technical, a team issue, or meeting a tough schedule. 10. What recognition did you receive for this?

Source -http://www.adlerconcepts.com/resources/column/interviewing/using_the_onequestion_intervie.php

While these questions can take at least 15 minutes, they provide the interviewer great insight regarding the candidate's abilities to handle significant accomplishments. Then ask the same questions for a few more accomplishments over different periods and connect the dots. By repeating the questions for different accomplishments, the interviewer can quickly observe the person's consistency, performance, and growth over time. To increase assessment accuracy, have other interviewers use the same questioning process, but have them focus on different job factors and time frames. For example, one interviewer can focus on team accomplishments, while another focuses on technical accomplishments, while a third focuses on both from earlier jobs. Organized properly, this segmenting process provides the hiring team a balance of detailed information to better predict the candidate's competency and motivation to handle all job needs. (Here's a formal debriefing form we use to gather and evaluate this information.) Here are some other ways to re-phrase the "most significant accomplishment" question. Remember to follow up each accomplishment using the fact-finding techniques above.

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(Review the candidate's resume and pick a project that occurred before or after the one initially described.) Please tell me about your most significant accomplishment when you were at (company). 2. Please describe your most significant team accomplishment, where you were a key member of the team. 3. Please describe your most significant management accomplishment, where you built and managed the team to achieve a significant task. 4. Please tell me about the biggest project you've handled where you had the least amount of experience or skills. This will help me understand how you've handled projects that were way over your head. 5. Tell me about an accomplishment where you took on a major leadership role, defining the project, getting the resources, and successfully completing the task. You can use this type of questioning to describe the job to the candidate by describing one of the critical performance objectives as an opening to the accomplishment questions. Here are some examples: 1. One of the major objectives for this position is to accomplish (describe the specific task). Could you please tell me about your most significant comparable accomplishment? 2. A typical problem you'd be expected to handle on this job is (describe a common but significant problem). Please describe something you've handled that best compares with this type of issue. 3. A specific challenge we're now addressing on the job is (describe). Please tell me about something you've done that is most similar to this. You can use this same type of questioning to look for gaps in the candidate's background that your position fills. For example, if the person has not managed as big a team, ask something like this: This position has a staff of 10 people through two supervisors. Since you've only managed six people directly, the job might be a bit of a stretch management-wise. To determine if the gap isn't too wide, please tell me about how you built and developed your team and how you organized and tracked their activities and performance. This technique is called the push-away, and if the candidate is strong, she'll attempt to convince you why she's competent. This is a powerful recruiting technique that can be used to demonstrate that the gaps represent growth opportunities. As long as the gaps aren't too big, it forces the candidate to sell you, and in the process sell herself on the merits of the job. This helps shift the decision to accept the offer based more on the opportunity it represents, rather than the compensation. With the one-question interview, you now have the facts, details, and examples you'll need to persuade a client to meet a top candidate who doesn't quite fit the job description, but can meet the performance expectations of the job. You also have the evidence you need to defend a fully qualified candidate from a client who is making a superficial assessment. To minimize both risks, prep your candidate to ask questions that enable her to respond with a summary of her accomplishments.

Source -http://www.adlerconcepts.com/resources/column/interviewing/using_the_onequestion_intervie.php