How To Get The Straight Dope
Heard a speaker this morning talk on biz planning yada yada. One point he made was that in order to get someone to tell you how they think their biz is doing and the state of the environment they are working in, is to simply ask the individual biz manager how their competition is doing.
It reminded me of a sage old HR person that I trained under 25 years ago. In the ag field at that time 99% of all applicants were male so the advice relates only to males. The advice was if you only have one question with which to size up your candidate; simply ask them to tell you about their father. The mentor said the interviewee will spill their guts telling you the good and bad about themselves that would never be told if you asked the same question directly about them.
My experience is the advice works. I have never really seen an instance that the answer didn't jibe with my long term assessment. But the thing I've always wondered is whether the converse works for women. I simply don't know. If it doesn't, is there a question that does?
It reminded me of a sage old HR person that I trained under 25 years ago. In the ag field at that time 99% of all applicants were male so the advice relates only to males. The advice was if you only have one question with which to size up your candidate; simply ask them to tell you about their father. The mentor said the interviewee will spill their guts telling you the good and bad about themselves that would never be told if you asked the same question directly about them.
My experience is the advice works. I have never really seen an instance that the answer didn't jibe with my long term assessment. But the thing I've always wondered is whether the converse works for women. I simply don't know. If it doesn't, is there a question that does?
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