Dr John Sullivan Talent Management Thought Leadership
Yes, a simple follow-up “how would you do it differently today?” question will boost your recruiting results. Why? Because “what works and what no longer works” in the business world changes as frequently as every 18 months. And in this changing environment, hiring managers need to know not only how a candidate actually handled an important situation a few years back in a previous job, but more importantly, managers will now need to know how a new hire would handle the same situation today with more modern tools.
Rather than asking them a completely different question later in the interview, this “how would you do it today?” question only requires the candidate to highlight the highest-impact changes they would make to the tools and technologies they would use this time around (i.e., productivity tools, technologies, and strategic methods).
Fortunately, I have found that when you point out this “outdated methods problem” to most hiring managers, they almost universally agree with my conclusion: all interviewers should make it a standard practice to add this follow-up question after receiving the answer to a behavioral interview question.
“Thank you, and now a quick follow-up.
If you were faced with the same or nearly the same situation again today.
Please highlight the most current tools, technologies, and/or practices that you would use today.“
The Benefits Of Using A “How Would You Do It Differently Today?” Question (a.k.a. HWYDIDT)
When you apply this “how would you do it today?” approach, hiring managers can expect multiple benefits, including:
- This more current assessment will lead to better quality hires – because adding this follow-up question will provide the interviewer with insight into the current, more updated tools and technologies that the candidate would use. Adding this supplemental question will eventually lead to the hiring of more capable and better-performing new-hires.
- Overall team productivity will increase – asking this question will cause the percentage of your team members who can use all of the latest productivity tools to increase. And over time, the productivity of the team will increase proportionally.
- Your new hires will get up to speed faster – because most of your new hires will already have the capability to use modern productivity tools and technologies. More of them will reach their minimum productivity level months sooner.
- You can more accurately assess the growth pattern of a candidate – among the most important of all candidate hiring requirements is whether the candidate acts like a professional. And it would include evidence that they have continually met the professional goal of constantly learning and growing in their capabilities. This question allows you to compare their latest tool use with the tools they used early in their career. It is relatively easy to assess their growth over time.
- You will have fewer costly hiring failures – because the assessment of each candidate’s capabilities will now include their ability to use modern tools and technologies. This more accurate assessment will lead to fewer costly new-hire failures (up to three times salary). And the expense of leaving the position vacant for too long and of having to refill the open position.
- You’ll be able to hire faster – because you will have more and more current information. The hiring manager will be able to make a more accurate and faster hiring decision.
- Your new-hires will require less training and fewer hours of management time – because most of your new-hires will already know the latest tools and technologies. They will require fewer hours of costly formal training and will also need less hours of coaching from their manager and teammates.
- As the word spreads, your team will experience better recruiting and retention – as your current employees realize that they are lucky to be working in an environment that emphasizes modern tools and technologies. Your employee turnover rate will decrease. And as word spreads externally, giving employees access to the latest tools will also boost your future recruiting.
Why The Use Of Up-To-Date Tools Has Become So Essential
You may be asking yourself why it is now so critical for companies and teams to be using the latest tools and technologies. Those who measure the average shelf life of existing tools now conclude that these tools, technologies, and best practices are becoming obsolete faster than at any time in business history.
The causes of this more rapid obsolescence are multiple. They include increased global competition, more data-driven business functions, innovations in technology, greater connectivity, faster best practice copying, and, of course, the expansion of AI.
But no matter the cause, it’s a fact that in our fast-changing world, new productivity and technology solutions are introduced every day. For those who interview candidates, this means realizing that many of the tools, technologies, and methods justifiably used as few as 24 months ago will now be obsolete. Even worse, their use today might even hurt their team.
Tips For Adopters Of “How Would You Do It Differently Today?” Questions
Fortunately, the implementation of the HWYDIDT approach is simple and highly intuitive. But for those who need them, here are some implementation tips I have developed over the years.
- Tips for assigning points to answers – consider assigning zero points to candidates who quickly answer “I wouldn’t change anything” or report that “they haven’t thought about the topic at all.” Also, provide the highest number of points to candidate answers that include the same technologies and tools that you consider to be the most advanced, or those that are currently in frequent use at your company.
- Limit the number of questions – because each answer may take up to five minutes. In most cases, you should limit the number of HWYDIDT questions to three. And reserve them for behavioral questions that cover situations that require the heavy use of productivity and technology tools. Finally, consider not asking any behavioral questions at all for situations that occurred more than 4 years ago.
- Consider asking which tools the best should stop using – consider asking each of your finalist candidates to identify the currently popular tools and technologies that, in their view, the best should soon replace.
- Consider alerting your finalists in advance – make your interviewees aware that their interview will focus on their capability for using new and emerging tools and technologies, so that your finalist candidates can focus their preparation.
- Be aware that all interviews are problematic – over 30 years of research by Schmidt and Hunter revealed that a behavioral interview… is only 12% more accurate than flipping a coin. And the painful fact that traditional interviews currently fail to identify the best candidate a whopping 91% of the time. You can learn more about the value of using scenario interview questions here. And what’s wrong with interviews here. Specifically, more about what’s wrong with behavioral interviews here.
Realize That Not Knowing The Latest Tools Might Not Be A Candidate’s Fault
Obviously, you should discount any candidate who isn’t aware of available modern productivity tools and technologies. However, in most cases, you shouldn’t reject a less aware candidate completely, because part of that failure might not be their fault.
For example, many companies that are dominated by cost-cutting put a low priority on supplying and training their employees with the latest tools. While still other companies will have spent all their “tool money” on AI tools.
It is also true that many scientific, technological, and global companies place an extraordinary emphasis on consistency and collaboration. These companies may literally require everyone to use identical and somewhat dated tools for a prolonged period of time. So, despite these roadblocks, if your top candidates have somehow learned about these new tools and technologies on their own, they definitely deserve further consideration.
Final Thoughts
At least to me, it’s puzzling that, almost without exception, the majority of the interview time is devoted to events from long ago (experience and education). When in a rapidly changing world, the interviewer is likely to gain the most value by devoting their time to learning what the candidate can do today and in the future. Go figure!
And thanks 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.
