by Melissa Becker-Sgroi and Paul J. Sgroi

" So, tell me, what kind of name is Sgroi?"

To count the times interviewers have asked us that question, we'd need memory banks in the terabytes! It's likely our interviewers were simply curious or were making small talk and had no intention of forcing us to spill our ethnic beans. Still, it definitely wasn't job related, it made us uncomfortable — and it was likely illegal.

Asking illegal or inappropriate questions is the second most common mistake interviewers in all professions make, says Dr. Paul Green, author of More Than a Gut Feeling, America's best-selling interview training video, and Get Hired, a guidebook for job-seekers. The most common mistake, he notes, is failing to use job-related, structured interviews.

Unstructured interviews are less reliable than structured ones in measuring a job candidate's skills, Green maintains. "If the interview is not structured, it's like [your] odometer is not working right," Green says. "If it's not working right, prediction of job performance is less effective."

Any interviewing mistake can be costly, especially when it leads to turnover. Personnel experts estimate that filling a position costs about one-third of the position's salary. That cost can quickly escalate if you find yourself having to heavily train or fix the mistakes of someone who doesn't have the skills you require. In the AS/400 market, where qualified IT professionals are in short supply, it's vital to recognize and hire the right person the first time. Defining what skills your IT jobs require, carefully preparing job-related interview questions, and basing your hiring decisions on demonstrated skills and past behavior can help you meet your goal: Finding a person who can do the job well.

Behavioral Sciences

All interviews fall into one of four basic types, Green says: Gut Feeling, Trait, Conversational, and Behavioral. While some interviewers adhere to a specific form, most use a combination of styles.

Gut Feeling interviews are unstructured, with no systematic attempt to uncover information about job-related skills. The interviewer relies on intuition and subjective criteria and judges answers based on personal preferences and biases. For example, the interviewer may believe cat-lovers are antisocial. Based on that belief, she may ask, "We work closely together here in the IT department — are you a team player?"

Trait interviews are structured but are also personality related, with questions slanted more toward personal characteristics than job-related skills. The interviewer may ask, "What are your strongest qualities?" If the interviewer is well trained and uses a scientific approach, the trait interview may be a good measure of personality traits crucial to the job.

Conversational interviews are unstructured, and although they focus on job skills, they resemble a friendly chat between equals. Questions aren't prepared and seem to flow from the conversation; however, they may become rambling and ineffective.

Behavioral interviews are structured and job focused. The interviewer is objective and systematic and doesn't let biases interfere with judging the interview. This interview technique relies on the belief that past behavior is the best prediction of future behavior.

Preparation Is Key

Greens' recommended interview method — the structured, skills-based Behavioral interview — consists of five steps:

1. Analyze skills. Analyze the job you want to fill to determine what skills are important to doing the job well.

2. Define skills. Write descriptions of individual characteristics needed to do the job well. If the job requires the candidate to work in a pressure-cooker environment, for example, "coping" may be one of your selected skill definitions.

3. Develop questions. Use open-ended job-related questions that encourage a candidate to share rather than using closed-ended questions that can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no."

4. Conduct the interview. Maintain a friendly but professional demeanor. Stick closely to your prepared questions. Avoid off-the-cuff small talk that could lead to illegal questions.

5. Rate the interview. Judge the candidate's skills against your prepared definitions.

The Behavioral interview may seem complicated and difficult to practice, but in reality, it's probably the easiest type to conduct because all the questions have been thoughtfully prepared. "When you have a structured interview, you've already taken time to think through the questions you're going to ask," Green notes. "It's not off the cuff. The pressure is off."

The pressure is on, however, during the preparation stage, says Rob Barber, director of IS for Wenger's Feed Mill, Inc., in Rheems, Pennsylvania. The company uses AS/400s, a LAN, and wireless telecommunications — which represent a lot of fast-changing technologies to keep up with. "I used to be a programmer; now I consider myself a dangerous programmer," Barber admits. "I don't do enough of it to know all the ins and outs, so a lot of the preparation time is rehashing things that have changed. You can dedicate your life to programming in RPG alone."

Preparation is the key to a good interview, agrees Earl Monk, employment manager at C-TEC Corporation in Princeton, New Jersey. "If the candidate is sharp, it's a two-way street," Monk says. "You don't want the candidate to say, 'Here's a guy who hasn't even taken five minutes to look at my resume.'"

Formulating good questions takes time and skill. It's easy to ask closed-ended questions, such as, "Are you a problem solver?" Anyone who really wants the job would answer "yes" and probably not volunteer more information. More effective are open-ended questions — such as, "Can you describe a time when you implemented an unsuccessful application and were able to develop a solution?" Green also advises seeking contrary information, for example, "Give me an instance of when you were leading an IT project team and the company's objective was not met."

Preparing a template with questions specifically tailored to the job helps keep interviews on track for Alltel Corporation's Roberta Wisniewski, who's been performing IT interviews for more than a decade. But there are some questions she asks almost every candidate. "Important questions are, 'Why do you want this job — what kind of work do you really want to do?'" she says. "Surprisingly, I sometimes find a person who's applying for a position saying, 'I really don't want to do this. I thought I'd just get my foot in the door this way.'"

Barber's priority is formulating questions that establish the candidate's experience level. "I may say, 'Explain the difference between a subfile and a subfile control record format,'" he notes. "I may follow with a second question, such as, 'How would you maximize the subfile's performance?' I would then take the answers and determine whether they are at an intermediate or advanced level." In his interview rating method, Barber uses a scale that emphasizes programming knowledge. "If I'm hiring an RPG programmer, answers I receive on those questions will be rated higher than questions about LANs or Client Access," he says.

Such questions help Barber match the right person to the job. "I think there's an ongoing challenge for the director to give the programmer the ability to be creative and not stifle that," Barber adds. "If I'm hiring an entry-level programmer, I certainly don't want a 10-year experienced RPG programmer who is going to be bored 30 days down the road."

Getting to the Meat

Wisniewski says discovering a candidate's proficiency is often a matter of decoding jargon. "You have people in the technical environment who like to hide behind jargon," she warns. "You have to get to the meat of that by asking specific questions to make sure they understand what they're talking about."

You may be able to "get to the meat" over the telephone. Many interviewers, such as Wisniewski, use telephone interviews during the introductory screening process. "We do a lot of work with consultants, and you can't bring them in from another part of the country for a first interview," she notes. "You don't have body language. But then again, we don't hire based on how they look. And you still have to have those specific questions laid out. I don't think we would do a final hire over the phone, though."

Barber agrees that the absence of body language is the telephone interview's biggest hang-up. "I think you lose your ability to capture facial expressions," he says, "to capture the initial response to a question."

Speaking of initial responses, what if you don't like the candidate during your first face-to-face meeting? Maybe he wears short ties and hates IBM. First impressions count, right? Not necessarily. Another common mistake made by interviewers is what Green calls the "cloning error." It may be human nature to want a candidate who likes fly-fishing and prefers GOTOs and multiple occurrence data structures as you do, but it may not be good for business. "It's very tempting to do this," Green says, "because most people who have jobs are thinking positively about themselves and they want someone who is like them. So they set a standard that is comparing the candidate to themselves. That standard is a selection criteria. Instead, of course, they should pick people who have the skills for the job."

While you should avoid selecting a candidate based on your personal preferences, experience taught Barber that it's crucial to consider the company's work style. "We try to focus on the team and tap off of each other's resources and strengths," he says. "I don't want someone who thinks he has all the answers. We had an individual like that, and he lasted 42 days before he felt he couldn't work in the environment. That was probably my fault because I was taken with his advanced programming knowledge."

Career-Ending Questions

Perhaps the most treacherous interviewing pitfall is illegal questions. Asking illegal or inappropriate questions can lead an interviewer to a career-ending lawsuit faster than a READEQ by key hits a record. You should avoid all questions that relate to the discovery of race, gender, religion, national origin, health, age, and even lifestyle. (Can you readily identify inappropriate questions? See "Quiz Yourself.") These questions are often disguised as a simple quest for information. However, the simple "How did you learn to speak Spanish?" may lead a candidate to uncover her national origin or ethnic background. A better way to get at the information you need is to ask, "This job requires you to translate Spanish user requirements. Are you fluent in Spanish?" Likewise, "When did you learn RPG?" may force a candidate to reveal her age. Stick to job-related skills by asking, "Can you code ILE RPG?"

The most-asked illegal questions relate to women and family and child care issues. "People often ask those kinds of questions to put a candidate at ease, establish rapport," says Monk. "But any issues about family really are inappropriate." There are better, legal, ways to build rapport. Questions such as, "How was your drive?" or "Were our directions okay?" will help the candidate relax and willingly share information.

And that rapport, in turn, will enable you to conduct a successful Behavioral interview and make a wise selection decision based on job-related skills.

By the way, Sgroi is Sicilian. We don't mind telling you — you're not interviewing us.

Melissa Becker-Sgroi is a freelance business writer and formerly a television news anchor/reporter in NorthEastern Pennsylvania.

Paul J. Sgroi is Senior Programmer/Analyst at PENN SOFTWARE in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania