Questions Interviewers Should Keep in Mind for Mid-Career Hiring. Associate Co., Ltd.

It is easy to misjudge if you only ask about work experience, skills, and motivation during an interview.

In mid-career interviews at small and medium-sized enterprises, I believe there are many cases where decisions are made based on education, university background, work experience, skills, and motivation, and ultimately based on impressions (compatibility).

It goes without saying that you must never hire someone who should absolutely not be hired, but especially in the case of mid-career hiring for sales positions, manager candidates, managers, management layers, and startup/venture companies it is extremely dangerous to hire based solely on education, university background, work experience, skills, motivation, and impressions (compatibility).

What do you need to know in an interview?

Values and ways of thinking regarding work.

Especially in mid-career hiring, values and ways of thinking regarding work are important.
People's values and ways of thinking about work change through work experience and life experience, but you need to understand the applicant's values and ways of thinking about work through the interview.

Whether they have had such experiences.

※ This needs to be kept in mind especially for mid-career hiring for sales positions, manager candidates, managers, management layers, and startup/venture companies.
※ This is essential for all job types in startup/venture companies.

Prerequisites: In your previous work (duties),
● Have you ever had the experience of achieving results that you can explain to others while aiming for a goal on your own?
● Have you ever had the experience of pushing yourself to the point where you never want to do it again?
● Have you ever had the experience of causing a problem yourself, and through trial and error from a desperate situation,
solving that problem?
People who have had such experiences and those who have not have completely different values and ways of thinking about work.

The same applies to new graduate hiring.
※ This is especially effective for sales position hiring and new graduate hiring for startup and venture companies.
You may consider this under the [Prerequisites: In your life so far].

What to ask in an interview.

Regarding such experiences, you need to listen carefully during the interview.
※ The point to be careful about is never to believe words alone. It is important to focus only on the specific actions actually taken.

Focusing on the person,
1. What did they feel and
what did they think under the most difficult situations or when setting objectives (goals)?
(Anyone can answer 'I felt this' or 'I thought this' to some extent. The most important part is section 2 below.)

2. How did they actually use their own body to take action against the various problems that occurred in the process of achieving objectives (goals) or solving problems?

(Using one's own body and the specific actions actually taken are important. The intensity and thoroughness of the actions actually taken are the most important points.)
3. What was the result?
4. What did they learn from the result, and how did they apply it afterward?

(Whether the result was good or bad is completely irrelevant; the point is what they learned from that result and how they applied it afterward.)

It is about whether you can evaluate someone who has had such experiences, and whether you can evaluate that experience through dialogue in an interview more than their education, university background, work experience, skills, and motivation.

Whether the other person is good at speaking or not does not matter much; if the person is seriously telling the truth, you will understand to some extent.
Conversely, people who are lying or who have only had lukewarm experiences but talk as if they have had such experiences will eventually become inconsistent in their stories, so you will know.

It goes without saying, but it is also necessary to simultaneously consider the improvement of the interviewer's dialogue skills, such as questioning skills and listening skills, as well as what is called communication ability, which is the ability to properly understand what the other person wants to convey through verbal and non-verbal information.