The Tree

Nick Corcodilos advises people and companies on hiring and interviewing. If there’s someone better, I don’t know who it is.

“Let’s talk about the work that you need done”.

Nick advises that all employment interviews should start with this one question and the many things that will follow in asking that one question will be more than enough to determine if the candidate is the right person for the job.

Instead, candidates get asked irrelevant and idiotic questions about what type of tree they would be (if, ya know, they were a tree). There’s dozens more equally inane interview questions and they’re published online, in books, on public restroom walls, etc.

Someone also decided a long time ago that asking candidates “where do you see yourself in 5 years” was brilliant. I think it’s a lazy, default question that reveals nothing about the candidate except if they're prepared to give you a rehearsed answer to that worn-out question.

Why not get right to the point as to why you’re in a room together in the first place? All of the other visceral and intangible stuff will soon present itself, none more important than “Is this a person I can work with?”

There are other reasons why hiring and interviewing can drag out for way longer than necessary but none more than a terrible interview methodology.

So...if you were a dog, what type of cat would you want to be?

Or..

We need someone to profitably grow this organization from $3 million in revenue to 4.5M in the next 18 months. What are your thoughts on how best to do this?