Behavioral event interviewing (BEI) has long been a staple in hiring practices, with its proponents arguing that past behavior is the best predictor of future performance using the STAR interviewing techniques (Situation, Task, Action, Result). The premise is simple: by asking candidates to recount specific instances where they demonstrated key competencies, interviewers can gain insights into how they will handle similar situations in the future.
However, a critical flaw in this method often goes unnoticed. Many interviewers lack the expertise to distinguish between a superficially good answer and a truly indicative one. This can lead to poor hiring decisions, as interviewers may be misled by well-crafted but ultimately shallow responses.
The Allure of a Good Story
Imagine you’re interviewing a candidate for a role that demands strong results-orientation. You ask the candidate to describe a time when they successfully reacted to a customer problem. The candidate provides a compelling narrative: they encountered a major issue with a key client, took swift action to address the problem, and ultimately turned a potentially disastrous situation into a triumph. On the surface, this seems like a perfect example of the desired competency. The candidate appears proactive, decisive, and capable under pressure.
But here’s where the challenge lies: what appears to be a success story on the surface may actually conceal deeper issues that are not immediately apparent.
Peeling the Onion: Uncovering the Real Story
To truly understand the candidate’s behavior, an interviewer must go beyond the initial story and delve deeper into the underlying context. In the example above, further probing might reveal that the customer problem arose because the candidate failed to implement an effective forecasting system. This lack of foresight and planning led to the issue in the first place. Although the candidate’s reaction to the problem was commendable, it highlights a reactive rather than a proactive approach to problem-solving.
This illustrates a common pitfall in behavioral interviewing: without thorough probing, interviewers may misinterpret a candidate’s reactive problem-solving as a sign of competence, when in fact it may indicate underlying deficiencies in planning and foresight.
None of these problems exist with Performance-based Hiring
The foundation of Performance-based Hiring is a well-crafted performance-based job description. This description goes beyond listing generic competencies and instead outlines specific, measurable outcomes that the candidate must achieve. The emphasis is on what people need to accomplish with their skills and competencies, not the skills or competencies themselves..
For example, instead of stating that the candidate must be “results-oriented,” a performance-based job description might specify that the candidate must “develop and implement an order-entry tracking system that improves on-time deliveries by 20% within the first six months.”
By defining clear performance objectives, interviewers can focus on evaluating candidates’ abilities to achieve these outcomes. This helps to eliminate ambiguity and ensures that interviewers are assessing candidates against concrete criteria rather than subjective impressions.
Behavioral Fact-finding Is the Difference Maker
With a performance-based job description in hand, interviewers can develop structured and probing questions that are directly aligned with these performance objectives. Rather than asking generic STAR-like questions as part of the old-style behavioral questions, ask something like,
One of our major performance objectives is leading a new program to upgrade our operational reporting system. What have you done that’s most comparable?
With the performance objective as the focus ask how the person got the role, where he/she took the initiative, what were some team challenges, how the person handle big technical challenges, how the person planned the project and what were the results.
The Trend of Past Performance is the Best Predictor of Future Success
Now ask about another major accomplishment and peel the onion the same way asking the same questions. Then ask about the candidate’s major team accomplishments and ask the same type of fact-finding questions. This is called behavioral fact-finding. By tying these behaviors to critical performance objectives you’ll be able to more accurately predict competency, fit and motivation.
The old adage, past performance is the best predictor of future performance is only true when the past performance is compared to the future performance requirements of the job.
While behavioral interviewing has its merits, it is not without its pitfalls. Performance-Based Hiring offers a more robust approach to assessing candidates by focusing on specific, measurable outcomes that directly relate to real job needs.
And without this direct connection, success is problematic. That’s a brighter STAR.
Permission has been granted from The Adler Group and Lou Adler, author of Hire With Your Head and The Essential Guide to Hiring & Getting Hired, to reprint this article.
About the author
Lou Adler is the CEO and founder of The Adler Group – a training and search firm helping companies implement Performance-based Hiring℠. Adler is the author of the Amazon top-10 best-seller, Hire With Your Head (John Wiley & Sons, 3rd Edition, 2007). His most recent book has just been published, The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired (Workbench, 2013). He is also the author of the award-winning Nightingale-Conant audio program, Talent Rules! Using Performance-based Hiring to Build Great Teams (2007). Adler holds an MBA from the University of California in Los Angeles and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Clarkson University in New York.
