Dr John Sullivan Talent Management Thought Leadership
Their accurate view of the future is a key sign that you have a top candidate. So when you need a forward-looking candidate for a key job, you should add a futur-view interview to capture both a candidate’s forecast of upcoming problems and how they plan to act in order to minimize at least one of them.
Interviews Can Focus On 3 Different Time Periods (Yesterday, today, and tomorrow)
Interviews are information-gathering tools that can focus on three different time periods and two different work environments. Of course, the most widely used type of interview is the standard behavioral interview. This tells you what occurred in the past at another employer’s work environment. And unfortunately, in our rapidly changing world, what you did as little as 1 year ago under a different culture may already be ancient history!
The second type of interview is a “How would you do it differently today?” interview, which asks the candidate to update what they’ve done in the past. So that it now includes how they would do it differently today in your company’s work environment, using the latest tools.
And the third and perhaps most insightful interview iteration is the Futur-View Interview. This is designed to reveal how a candidate will act in the future under your company’s work environment. The futur-view interview often starts by asking the candidate to give their forecast of upcoming problems/opportunities. But then it shifts to asking the candidate to highlight a variety of future-related topics. Including how their job’s skill requirements will change, how they will act to prevent an upcoming problem, and even to predict the future direction of their job and industry.
Advantages – The Many Benefits Of Using Futur-Views That Focus On Tomorrow
To me, the benefits of learning how a candidate views and will act in the future are obvious. But for those in need of more, below you will find that I have highlighted a handful of the major benefits that result from adding futur-view interviews.
- Futur-views are only needed for jobs that require an accurate future perspective – it’s an overreach to use futur-views for every job. So realize that they add the most value when they are used in leadership roles within strategic departments. They should also be used for jobs that involve planning, competitive analysis, and forecasting. And finally, in some rapidly changing fields (like AI and Quantum Computing). They need to be applied widely to all candidates because everyone on the team needs to be forward-looking and prepared for what’s around the corner.
- Futur-view interviews provide your company with a competitive advantage – in the highly competitive world of recruiting. You won’t routinely beat your talent competition for the top future-oriented candidates if you use the same tools as your competitors. So you can gain a competitive advantage by using futur-views. First, because for some reason, they are rarely used. But also because they enable you to hire candidates who are forward-looking. So your team will be better equipped to handle the future problems and opportunities.
- The candidate’s responses must be put in the context of your organization and culture – because candidates during futur-view need to provide answers that fit the environment and culture of your company. You will know almost immediately when a candidate hasn’t done the expected research into your company’s work environment (i.e., culture, values, and goals).
- Futur-view interviews will excite top candidates – it’s a fact that many top candidates become bored during standard behavioral interviews. Because they only allow the candidate to talk about the past. So you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that top candidates often get excited when you instead ask them about their vision of the future and what emerging tools they will use. And as a side benefit, this opportunity to shine will likely increase their excitement about pursuing this job and your company.
- They don’t require much preparation – futur-view interviews are easy to implement. Because they only involve asking a handful of future-oriented questions from a predetermined list. And as an added benefit, they don’t require any additional training or budget expenditure.
- Futur-views also provide strategic input – after you ask a number of candidates in a job family to forecast the upcoming problems and opportunities, as well as the direction of that function. That information can serve as a valuable input for your strategic planning and for understanding what your competition is likely to do.
If you were hiring a general to lead upcoming wars
Given what we’ve recently learned about changes in war from Iran and Ukraine
You would best identify the most future prepared candidates
Not by asking them how they would fight today’s war
But instead, by asking them what radically different things they would do in order to win future wars.
Possible Questions – What To Ask During A Futur-View Interview
A futur-view interview starts by letting the candidate know the goals of this type of interview. This includes learning whether the candidate is future-focused. And whether they have already identified the upcoming problems and opportunities that the incumbent in this job will face. Another goal would be to learn how much preparation they have already put into determining the future actions that they will need to take in order to prevent or minimize these emerging problems. So in order to learn these things, consider asking your top candidates several of the following six futur-view interview questions.
Q1 Are you a future-focused individual? – because our company operates in a fast-moving environment. The candidate should know that we strive to hire forward-focused individuals who are always learning about and preparing for the future. So, as a candidate, if you consider yourself to be a forward-focused individual, say yes. And then please highlight the foundation steps that you consistently take in order to learn about and prepare for the future?”
Q2 List the top emerging problems and opportunities – our company has found that most successful new-hires in key jobs are continually learning about the problems and opportunities that they will soon face. So that they can either prevent them or at least minimize their impact. “So, please list the top three emerging problems (and the top opportunity) that you expect to encounter during your first year in this job. And please explain why the top problem will soon have a much greater impact.”
Q3 Outline your learning, self-development, and relationship-building plan for this job – our data reveals that the very best candidates are those who have a plan before they start the job. Have they already begun developing an outline of a development plan that covers how they will learn during their first months on the job? So, ask top candidates to “Outline the elements of your learning and development plan that cover the first 3-6 months on-the-job. In your answer, please highlight your critical learning/development steps. As well as how you will build relationships with the team and any important partners inside and outside of the company.”
Q4 Forecast the evolution of your job – in a fast-changing world, it’s best to assume that there will be major shifts in the required skills and the responsibilities of every job. So ask your top candidates to “Forecast at least five ways that your job and its required skills will likely evolve over the next two years as a result of changes in the business and technology environment.” And of course, you should resist hiring anyone who believes that their job won’t change significantly.
Q5 Forecast the increasing impact of technology on your team – because the growth of new technologies like AI and robotics has now begun to impact every company. It would be smart to get your top candidates to project which emerging technologies are most likely to impact this job and its function. So ask candidates for jobs that will likely be most impacted by new technologies. “Given your learning about emerging technologies, what are the three technologies that you expect to have the most impact on your job, team, and function?”
Q6 Forecast the evolution of our industry – the best new hires are also able to anticipate upcoming changes in our industry. So ask top candidates to “Please highlight the 3 major emerging trends that will radically reshape our industry over the next few years. And for each emerging trend, highlight a few actions that you will take in order to prepare yourself and your team for it.
Final Thoughts
In my view, given our rapidly changing and highly competitive world. No modern corporation can wildly succeed until the majority of its professional workers are future-focused. And with that as a goal. I have found that futur-view interviews stand out as the only complete assessment tool that gives interviewers a window into how a candidate views the future. And how well prepared they are to take the required actions.
The use of these futur-view interviews does, however, leave one important question unanswered, which is “In order to make our organization stronger, should we be hiring a significant percentage of candidates that hold a clearly contrary view on either the problems we will face, or what actions will best prepare us for the future?”
Thank you for finding the time to read and share this article.
Notes for the reader
This is the latest article from Dr. Sullivan, who was called “the Michael Jordan of Hiring” by Fast Company.
You can subscribe to his Aggressive Talent Management newsletter (which focuses on recruiting tools, current recruiting opportunities, and recruiting trends). Either here or by following him on LinkedIn.
