Recruiters wear many hats ranging from fishing fedoras to courtship fezzes, fiesta sombreros to a wrangler’s 10-gallon. We are fishermen, curbside sandwich boards, talent agents, sales people, politicians, campaign managers, producers, schedulers, counselors, coaches, mentors, mediators, moderators, negotiators, facilitators, brokers, anthropologists, interpreters, translators, sleuths, private investigators, stalkers, flirts, courtesans, heart breakers, fairy god-mothers, Robin Hoods and grave robbers, and when things - or people - go wrong we are also punching bags, scapegoats and trouble makers.

Today’s topic will be the interpreter’s hat -- distinguishing tips and techniques for interpreting non-career related activities stated on the resume or in the interview. What can these points of interests tell you about an applicant that will assist in picking viable candidates to interview or pass on to the leadership team of your company or client?

Often times a candidate will include their personal interests on their resume or during an interview. Although these activities are not hiring decision makers, I believe they indicate qualities of leadership and performance that businesses may want consider for their team.

One of the questions in my initial “get to know you” interview is a two-part inquiry into the candidate’s interests:

Tell me about yourself; what interests you outside of work?

What have you learned about yourself from being engaged in these interests that benefits you as a consultant?

As we all know, how they answer the questions is of equal importance to what they say, but that is a separate topic for a future article. What I am looking for are interests that demonstrate a behavior known as self-efficacy, coined by Albert Bandura, a psychologist famous for his social learning theory. Self-efficacy is defined by how well a person can execute a course of action required to deal with any given situation. In other words, the higher the level of one’s self-efficacy the higher rate of one’s successful outcomes.

Which activities consistently demonstrate high levels of self-efficacy? There are many, but the three most commonly found on resumes are athletes, musicians and educators.

Athletes most often have a high level of self-efficacy: demonstrating an ability to learn, observe, execute and fine tune an activity, skill, thought or theory. Many athletes have a well-honed ability to lead and manage as well. Playing on a team sport provides the opportunity for structure, discipline, communication, support, participation and shared responsibility to win and/or succeed. These qualities are most commonly found in many successful businesses.

I have observed that many engineers, analysts, programmers and developers list music (or other areas of expressed creativity) as a primary outside interest. I’m focusing on musicians here only to demonstrate that music is a complex language that requires math, observation, experimentation, application and again fine tuning. (Other areas of artistic expression also call for similar inquiry). These qualities in a person are indicators of high self-efficacy. Musicians are also generally patient and are well known for their observation and application skills; skills which would enhance the performance of engineers, analysts, programmers, developers, etc.

Anyone who can stand before a group of people (of any age) and teach, coach or speak of a topic in such a way that inspires learning also possesses a high level of self-efficacy. People who educate others in some capacity demonstrate effective communication skills, leadership and the rare but extremely valuable ability to inspire others to aspire to a higher potential. They also have experienced conflict and disagreements from their students or audience yet demonstrate strategies of patience, mediation and diffusion to find a way to move forward while still inspiring them to learn.

If you find a resume worthy of an interview, or you have an interview scheduled soon, I encourage you to ask the candidate the two-part question about their outside interests. I’m confident you will discover more about that candidate’s leadership abilities and, through your clear communication and listening, you’ll successfully identify a candidate’s level of self-efficacy.

One final note, these three interests and their correlation to self-efficacy is only theoretical. My observations on musicians and educators are not based on empirical research, but there has been research done on the correlation between athletics and self-efficacy as written by Albert Bandura and others. I invite you to share your insights on the non-career related interests of the candidates you interview.

I also invite you to share your knowledge rather than preach your knowledge. Please consider that there is no formula to recruiting. My philosophy is that recruiting is an art of balancing hats while ensuring that my candidates leave with the impression of being respected and acknowledged. What is your philosophy?

In the words of acclaimed American poet, Maya Angelou, “People may not remember what you said or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.”
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Copyright. Tuesday, April 28th, 2009.
www.careerrocketeer.com/2009/04/what-their-personal-interests-say-about