Consider the job interview. The worst ones can feel like an interrogation, with one party grilling the other. But the best unfold like a dialogue, a two-way exchange of information that’s relaxed, focused, and insightful.
A successful interview reveals the candidates strengths and weaknesses while whetting their interest in your company. And an effective interview also requires more than a go-to list of time-tested questions — it requires good conversation.
“We talk all day every day, it’s the No. 1 thing we do” yet we’re not very effective at it, says Michael Norton, a professor at Harvard Business School. Michael, along with his colleague, Alison Wood Brooks, used sophisticated algorithms to analyze thousands of everyday conversations — from parole hearings to speed-dating sessions to coffee shop chitchat — to find out what works and what doesn’t.
The new field of research is causing some business professionals to reexamine their approach to our most basic social interactions. The thinking goes that if you can use data to optimize conversation, be it a sales call or a candidate screening, you’ll have a better chance at a positive outcome. And these days, companies are starving for positive outcomes.
With offer acceptance rates in many industries having dropped significantly, there’s never been a better time to touch up your talking skills. While candidates want great comp and a strong company culture, they also want to be wooed.
Here are four tips for having better conversations with your top candidates:
1. Listen more than you talk
You don’t need to be a social scientist to know that active listening is the cornerstone of good conversation. Great listeners can make a candidate feel comfortable, supported, and confident. Poor listeners run the risk of coming off as apathetic, even hostile.
But just how much listening should you do? Gong, a Palo Alto software company that focuses on customer interactions, crunched data from 2 million sales calls and learned that top performers had a talk-to-listening ratio of 46:54.
Of course you might argue that recruiters aren’t making sales pitches — but aren’t they? Companies need to be all-in to land candidates these days. And passive candidates, who aren’t actively looking, may be particularly challenging to persuade.
“Most passive candidates are willing to casually discuss potential career moves,” says recruiting veteran Lou Adler. As tempting as it is to launch into a list of ways in which your company can further a candidate’s career, it’s just as important to slow down and let the candidate know that they’re being heard and appreciated.
2. Ask follow-up questions
There’s a common misconception that good listeners are like sponges, passively soaking up everything a person says. But research shows that the best listeners are more like trampolines, says the Harvard Business Review. “They are someone you can bounce ideas off of — and rather than absorbing your ideas and energy,” HBR says, “they amplify, energize, and clarify your thinking."
One way to keep the conversation bouncy is to ask lots of follow-up questions. They signal to the speaker that you’re interested in what they’re saying, and not just biding your time until it’s your turn to speak. They also have the ability to route a conversation into a new direction that offer insights about a candidate that you might not glean otherwise.
As a bonus, follow-up questions don’t require a ton of preparation. If you’re an on-the-ball recruiter who spends a lot of time talking to candidates, they should come naturally. So long as you’re listening.
3. Keep questions open-ended
Yes-and-no questions may be the coin of the realm in the courtroom but they’re conversation killers in the workplace. Great listeners tend to be insatiably curious, says John Stewart, author of U&Me: Communicating in Moments That Matter. The best way to exercise that curiosity: Ask more open-ended questions.
Talking to Scientific American, John said that an easy hack is to structure your questions around the phrase “say more about.” For example: “Can you say a bit more about how that makes you feel?” or “Can you say more about that to help me understand?”
Open-ended questions also give you a bigger window into a candidate: their motivations, hopes, concerns, problem-solving strategies, etc. Ask enough of them and you’ll have a more complete picture of what kind of employee you’re recruiting.
4. Have a sense of humor
According to behavioral scientists, one of the core traits of conversational excellence is the ability to use humor effectively. Telling a good joke can make a person seem more likable, confident, even more competent. But there are risks.
What is funny to one set of ears may fall flat on another or, worse, be offensive. How do you navigate the minefield of playfulness without doing more damage than good?
Know the boundaries, says Alison Wood Brooks. In an experimental study, Alison and her colleagues found that people who told inappropriate jokes were perceived as lower status and less competent, even if the joke was funny. However, an unfunny joke that was appropriate did no harm to the joke teller and in some instances increased their status.
Too much to untangle for a quick punchline? Then stay away from jokes. Unless you’re skilled at telling them, they can come off as clumsy and scripted, whereas a real-life story that’s funny and relevant to the conversation will be a lot more effective. In the end, the goal is to make a connection with the job seeker not show them how clever you are.
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