I leave it off my LinkedIn profile because of how long ago
it was, but I started my professional life as a corporate recruiter in New York
City. It was a tough, high volume recruiting role sourcing and screening
telephone operators, office assistants, and office managers for a commercial
real estate company that managed temporary offices, a sort of WeWork before
WeWork. These were the pre-historic days of recruiting involving local
newspaper ads, fax machines and phone interviews. In an average week, I would
interview 30 – 50 candidates. I was a recruiter for about a year before being
promoted to an HR Generalist, and later continued my progression through HR
Manager and Director, Corporate HR, but interviewing remained a key part of my work.
Flash forward to the last, well let’s just say decade, in software-as-a-service and Customer Success. Recruiting and interviewing continues to be a cornerstone of my role building, growing, and leading post-sale Client Experience teams. This year alone we have added more than 20 extremely talented individuals to our CX organization and I am proud to say I interviewed every single one of them as well as many of the other talented individuals who applied.
Flash forward to the last, well let’s just say decade, in software-as-a-service and Customer Success. Recruiting and interviewing continues to be a cornerstone of my role building, growing, and leading post-sale Client Experience teams. This year alone we have added more than 20 extremely talented individuals to our CX organization and I am proud to say I interviewed every single one of them as well as many of the other talented individuals who applied.
Over the course of my career, and the many thousands of interviews, my interviewing
style has definitely evolved. I learned early and continue to believe strongly
in the behavioral based interview style. My favorite questions in my HR roles
were always, “Tell me about a time when …” Over the last couple of years, I
have started to rotate through some new favorite interview questions that focus
more on my role as an executive conducting near final interviews with
candidates. Here are my current favorites and what I am looking for.
What is your marquee
moment?
The question is, “If you think back over your professional
life, what is the one moment or accomplishment that you are most proud of, your
marquee moment, and what were the challenges that you had to overcome?”
I like this interview question because it gives the
candidate an opportunity to highlight the story they are most proud of that may
not have come up in the prior discussions. This is a question candidates are
often well prepared to answer. What I am most looking for is candidates that
highlight a customer story, showing a focus on the client while discussing how
they coordinated, partnered and/or rallied internal resources to help overcome
the business challenges. In software as a service it is rarely the work of one
person that delivers a customer’s success, so I look for those candidates who
talk about how the team delivered results and highlight the specific role they
played on that team. Classic “we” versus “I” answers go a long way.
What would you use a
do-over on?
The next question is, “If you think back over your
professional life and you could get one do-over, maybe a project, initiative or
decision that didn’t go well, what would you use your do-over on and what have
you learned, either because of the failure or since, that you would do
differently?”
This might be my favorite question of all. Candidates are
well prepared to talk about their success but often take a long pause to think
about where they would use their do-over. The lack of prep and pre-polished
interview answers often results in candor that I might not otherwise see in an
interview. I look for candidates that demonstrate honesty and humility in their
responses but put a heavy emphasis on the learning coming out of failure. I
admire the candidates that offer up a very genuine failure and talk not only
about what they learned but how they applied that learning to better handle a
similar situation later in their career. Again, I look for candidates that talk
about customer stories, customer impact and talk in terms of customer
satisfaction and success.
Have you started
using Degreed?
This is not intended to be a gotcha question but,
unfortunately, it is about half the time. Degreed is both an enterprise and
consumer application, meaning consumers (in this case, applicants) can create a
Degreed profile for free to experience the product and start tracking their
lifelong learning. About half the time candidates have created a profile and
offer some immediate feedback on the experience. I love the opportunity to hear
this feedback and candidates who have taken the time to explore the product are
often excited to share their insights. The follow up question I ask is, “Did
you use Degreed today to track your learning?” This question serves to identify
the candidates that are truly passionate about learning and Degreed versus
those going through the motions. Candidates will tell me they are passionate
about lifelong learning, love Degreed’s mission and the product but… did little
more than look around after creating a profile. This explanation often includes
a long awkward pause. While not a deal breaker, taking the opportunity to use Degreed
to start tracking their lifelong learning is an easy differentiator in a very
talented pool of applicants.
Degreed is a lifelong learning platform, so my interviews
today focus on that: what people learn from success, what people learn from
failure, and how people adopt Degreed. Over the last few years I have continued
to rotate the specific questions I ask to keep the interviews interesting and
challenging (and fuel my own learning). So the next time you’re across the
table from the Bobs, more than just answering, “What would you say… that you do
here?”, be prepared to tell them what you’ve learned.
About David Verhaag
David is the Vice President, Client Experience at Degreed, the lifelong learning platform. Prior to Degreed, David established and scaled the Customer Success function at Kahuna and HireVue and spent eight+ years with SuccessFactors where he led the development of the global Customer Value team. David lives in Park City, Utah.
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