Do Your People Get to Do the Job in the Interview?

In this short video, recorded from his live session on Wednesday 10th July, Henry Stewart talks about getting people to do the job in an interview. He shares examples from Happy's recruitment process as well as from Toyota.

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Watch the session below

Read the transcripts

Okay. So, when we employ facilitators, we get them in groups of six. And the reason for that is because one of our values is to be positive and supportive of people. And what we don’t want to say is, oh, when have you been positive and supportive? We want to know that they are positive and supportive.

So, after that, we do training for 15 minutes, because we want them to know exactly what is needed, and we also sent them a video earlier. Then we get them to train. In the second session we put them together for six minutes as a facilitator. And then we coach them, then they come back into the room. And what we want to know is that they’ve done well with that coaching.

And at no point in time did we ask questions. We used to ask questions. We used to ask them what would be a great trainer, and they’d all answer, you know, with all the great kind of stuff. But then when we put them in the room, they’d do something completely different. So we don’t ask questions of these people. We just get them to do the job.

The point is that do you test how well people do stuff or how well they talk about doing stuff?

Because often, that is different. Some people are good at answering questions, and some people aren’t. But that would be fine if answering questions is part of the job.

We do this with, if it’s a software development person, we get them to code. If it’s a technician, we get them to do stuff.

I did it with a head teacher where we got them to work with parents, with students. We got them to work on the most difficult departments. We got them to do a staff meeting. And we also had a session with questions, but the person who did the best in what is really the job, didn’t do the best in the questions.

At Toyota, they actually have for the recruitment, they actually have a separate production line. That’s because, they found when they asked questions, that often people left on the day, whereas where they have a great production line, then people do get to stay.

So my question to you is, do you get to do the job in the interview? I’ll put that in the chat.

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In this video, Henry Stewart talks about getting people to do the job in interviews, and why this is effective.

In a traditional job interview, applicants will be asked questions about the role. But at Happy’s interviews, they are asked to show that they can do the role instead. Not everyone who is good at the role is good at answering questions.

For example, one of the qualities Happy looks for in facilitators is that they are positive and supportive of others, and that they can be coached. So each interview is conducted in groups of six, where each candidate delivers a session then receives feedback from their fellow candidates. They then have to deliver the same session again, taking this feedback into account.

“We used to ask them what would be a great trainer, and they’d all answer with the great kind of stuff,” says Henry. “But then when we put them in the room, they’d do something completely different. So we don’t ask questions of these people, we just get them to do the job.”

Do you get your people to do the job in the interview? How could you get people to demonstrate the attitude you are looking for?

Related resources

Download The Happy Manifesto — Download Henry Stewart’s book The Happy Manifesto for free to learn the 10 core principles of creating a happy workplace.
Join the Happy Workplaces Round Table — Sign up to the next free weekly session, just 45 minutes at 9am every Wednesday, to discuss how you can create happy workplaces.
Level 7 Senior Leadership Programme — This 24-month Level 7 programme is for Senior Leaders who want a cultural transformation of their workplace.
Happy Leadership Programme — Gain personal insight and develop practical leadership and management skills to create a high performing team in our flagship leadership programme.
Why We Should Stop Asking For Degrees in Recruitment — Maybe graduate schemes should be changed to simply employ the brightest and the best, whether or not they have a degree, says Henry Stewart.
Five Successful Organisations That Recruit for Attitude — At Happy, we ‘recruit for attitude, train for skill’ when hiring new people, and we’re not the only ones. In this blog, Billy reveals five successful organisations that use this method for their recruitment.

Learn the 10 core principles to create a happy and productive workplace in Henry Stewart's book, The Happy Manifesto.

Support your aspiring and current managers to be empowering and confident leaders with Happy

Happy offers leadership programmes at Level 3, Level 5 and Level 7, from new managers/supervisor level all the way up to senior leadership teams and CEOs. These programmes are based on the ideas of trusting your people. They are practical and based on applying what yo’ve learnt. We aim to inspire and ignite change in your organisation, as well as giving you valuable management skills such as business strategy, decision-making, negotiation and project management.

We also offer programmes tailored specifically to people from Global Majority backgrounds. The content is the same, but have been designed to give new and experienced managers the skills they need to navigate organisational culture with a clearer perspective on their own potential, as well as building their confidence and expanding their professional strengths.

Henry Stewart

Henry is founder and Chief Happiness Officer of Happy Ltd, originally set up as Happy Computers in 1987. Inspired by Ricardo Semler’s book Maverick, he has built a company which has won multiple awards for some of the best customer service in the country and being one of the UK’s best places to work.

Henry was listed in the Guru Radar of the Thinkers 50 list of the most influential management thinkers in the world. “He is one of the thinkers who we believe will shape the future of business,” explained list compiler Stuart Crainer.

His first book, Relax, was published in 2009. His second book, the Happy Manifesto, was published in 2013 and was short-listed for Business Book of the Year.

You can find Henry on LinkedIn and follow @happyhenry on Twitter.

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