NEXT-GEN RETAILING I BY JONATHAN HENDRIX Evaluating Interviewee Character
H ave you ever thought, “How much can I really get to know someone through an interview?” I certainly have. I’ve had a tendency in the past to see interviews as a tool primarily used to assess an applicant’s technical skills and knowledge, but not so much who they re- ally are given the small window of time you have to talk with the individual. I would observe whether our applicants were person- able, friendly, and well spoken, but beyond that, I didn’t think I could really get to know them until they got the job and I had the opportunity to be around them in an everyday setting.
honest answers? We ask questions that give the impression that there is no “wrong” answer, so that they feel comfortable answering with more transparency. For example, we ask if they consider themselves a self-starter or someone who pre- fers to be given direction rather than take the initiative to start on a task. Phrasing these questions as “either-or” can help make the applicant feel that both options are acceptable and can be honest in where they lie on that scale. 3. TEAM DYNAMICS Finally, we get to team dynam- ics. We really value a cohesive team that can set aside differ- ences and work well together in order to live out the mission of Spicer’s Music. We don’t expect everyone to have the same com- munication style or taste in music, but we do expect everyone to be able to recognize that they’re a part of a group. So, we ask ques- tions on if they handle receiving constructive feedback, who in their life they’re trying to learn from and how previous or cur- rent co-workers would describe them. This helps to provide some insight into their own humility, willingness to work with others, and, once again, self awareness. One last piece of advice, when all else fails, trust your gut. You know your team, your customers and your business probably bet- ter than anyone. Your intuition is valuable, and I believe it tends to steer us in the right direction, at least most of the time. MI Jonathan Hendrix is the general manager of Spicer’s Music in Auburn, Alabama. When he’s not running the day-to-day operations of the store, he’s usually behind his grill or his P bass.
To be fair, I still think aspects of this are true to some degree, but I don’t think it’s true that you can’t get to know an applicant’s character during an interview. My team and I have spent time crafting a portion of our interview questions to focus on getting to know the applicant by forcing them to do some self-evaluation. Character has many different definitions, but we broke ours down into three characteristics: self aware- ness, work ethic and the ability to work well with others. What we are trying to discern from that is: Do they know themselves, including their strengths and weaknesses? Are they ambitious and hard-working? And are they willing and able to work on a team with others? These are important questions to us, so we make efforts to get answers to those questions within the interview process. Here’s how we break these char- acteristics down.
“My team and I have spent time crafting a portion of our interview questions to focus on getting to know the applicant by forcing them to do some self-evaluation.”
1. SELF AWARENESS Let’s start with self awareness. Here, we ask the applicant to first describe themselves and their personality. This helps give us some insight into whether they consider themselves to be introverted or extroverted. Then, we take their perception of their own personality and compare it to how we’ve been perceiving them throughout the course of the interview. You would be surprised how many people describe themselves as outgoing yet after 15
minutes have only given short-worded answers and have yet to crack a smile. We’ve found that self awareness is critical to success and most importantly, growth. 2. WORK ETHIC This one can be tricky. When you’re interviewing someone for a job that requires them to work, it’s hard to imagine asking if they’re a hard-worker and getting any kind of response that resembles a “no.” But, similar to the self awareness dilemma, how do we get some real
24 I MUSIC INC. I SEPTEMBER 2024
Powered by FlippingBook