Reprinted by permission from September 1977 Issue of Association Management. Copyrighted 1977 by the American Society of Association Executives.

Interviewing is a great guessing game — perhaps the greatest yet invented. If you have ever interviewed and then hired a person who looked and sounded as if he or she were perfect for the job and then turned out to be a real disaster, you know the problems. More than 90 percent of the people who perform at an unsatisfactory level because of low motivation, poor attitude, or poor interpersonal skills could have been easily spotted in the interview if the interviewer had known what to look for. It doesn't take a personnel expert to have the clarity of vision.

I have worked with nonpersonnel managers, supervisors, and executives at all levels throughout the country improving their interviewing skills. In the article that follows, I shall provide you with the tools to make you 98 percent accurate in every employment interview assessment you make.

Problems often develop when someone untrained in personnel work conducts the interview. In an association, where the workload is heavy and the staffing is often inadequate, this can easily happen. There are, however, interviewing tools, specifically designed for the nonprofessional interviewer that can help you make more accurate judgments when evaluating candidates.

Let's assume, first of all, that any candidate referred to you will have the necessary professional qualifications, experience, and skills. Your job now is to select the candidate that best suits your needs in terms of personality and motivation to perform with the necessary level of accuracy.

In addition, one of your objectives is undoubtedly to ensure that the person you choose will remain with your organization and provide at least several years of good performance as a return on your training efforts.

To make sure that you get the right person, you'll need to analyze the job according to two areas:

1. The environment of the vacancy.

2. The motivation of the candidate.

Examining the work environment

In identifying the environment of the job vacancy, carefully examine your own management style, the group dynamics of the staff you already have, and the requirements of the job.

When you examine your management style, you may see yourself as a perfectionist who demands superior performance from your staff. Perhaps you prefer people to concentrate on their work and leave the socializing for after hours. If this is the case, then you certainly don't want to add a person to your staff who sees work as a social situation or one who makes friends with everyone in the office, rather than focusing on the job at hand.

Suppose the group dynamics of your staff indicates a warm, close, and friendly group where the members go out of their way to help one another. Perhaps they spend leisure time together as members of a bowling league or as drinking buddies. If this is the case, you certainly don't want to add a loner to your staff, a person who maintains a decidedly cool and distant attitude toward co-workers.

Many jobs require precision and accuracy; others don't. For example, suppose your work involves working with the public, such as public affairs. You may feel that warm, concerned, and outgoing personnel are the key to success. A person who maintains an attitude of aloof and cool efficiency is probably not the person for this kind of work.

In identifying the needs of the vacancy, you need to determine the

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personality you need to look for when adding to your staff.

What motivates people

Determining the motivation of the candidate may be somewhat more difficult. One theory of what motivates a person has been developed by David McClelland, author of The Achieving Society and a member of the faculty of Harvard University.

His theory is that a person's relationship to his work is based on a sense of self-identity that incorporates three basic motivational needs:

1. The need to achieve.
2. The need for friendship or affiliation.
3. The need to assume a leadership or controlling role.

Let's examine each of these in relation to the candidate it characterizes.

The need for achievement

In the interview situation, the candidate with a strong need for achievement will speak at length about quality work, excellence of performance, and high standards. You'll note a significant lack of interest in anything human or personal. For example, in response to the request, "Tell me about your previous job," the candidate will describe his experience chronologically, task by task. Frequently the candidate will speak of developing a new way of doing something or an innovation he developed.

This person is an excellent problem-solver, good for troubleshooting assignments. He is usually a perfectionist and tends to prefer working alone. In describing job pressures, this person will talk about the inefficiencies of others and frequently will tell you that he knows more than the average employee in his line of work. And often this is true.

In examining outside interests, you will find people with these characteristics are generally involved in competitive pursuits such as tennis, bridge, and chess, where the objective is to wipe out the opposition.

This person is an excellent worker and should not be considered for a position where the work is dull and repetitive. He requires a continuing challenge. If the job is not challenging, you will find that you've added to your turnover statistics fairly soon.

The need for affiliation

The person with a need for affiliation, on the other hand, will show during the interview a strong concern for the human quality of the position. For example, he will ask you about the personalities of the work group and the group dynamics of your staff. He will also talk about the necessity for people to get along well in the work situation and will emphasize his own human relations capability.

In answer to the quesetion, "What did you like most about your previous job?" the candidate will speak of group work and projects where a high degree of cooperation was necessary. These people do not like to work alone, nor do they like to be solely accountable for an entire task. They are best where the work activities require group interaction and group responsibility.

In addition, this person tends to like jobs that do not require a lot of changes and challenges. They are preservers of the status quo and so are likely to remain with you for a long time if they like the others on your staff and can make warm, close friendships.

When you examine their outside interests, you'll find they get involved with clubs and alumni associations but not in a leadership role. Frequently they do volunteer work in a helping capacity such as working with the retarded. They are likely to be regular members of a bowling league, softball team, and so forth.

The need for leadership

The third type of person has a strong need for leadership. In an interview, this candidate will express a preference for being in charge of a project. These people like responsibility and do well in a leadership role. Status symbols are very important to them, and so these people will be hard bargainers on the issue of salary and job title.

In answer to the question, "What would you like to know about this position?" this type of candidate will ask about the organizational structure of the department and the reporting line of authority. He is also likely to ask you how long you've been in your present position, and how long you feel he will be in the position for which you are interviewing before being considered for a promotional opportunity.

These people seem to enjoy working closely with those in authority, and if they have done so on previous jobs, they are certain to tell you about it.

Their outside interests seem to revolve around activities they feel contribute to their status in the community. Frequently they are involved in local politics. They may also

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express an interest in real estate, stocks and bonds, and the economy of the country. These people don't buy a home, they "invest in property" and live on the premises of their investment.

This type of candidate is a natural born leader and will want some assurance of promotional opportunities or training leading to more responsible assignments.

Watch body language, dress

In the actual process of the interview itself, you can begin to differentiate the three types by watching their body language, mannerisms, and dress, as well as the way they speak. The achievement-oriented applicant tends to be rather cool and businesslike in his presentation. Often he will shake hands before seating himself in a rather formal position. The affiliation-oriented applicant will appear somewhat casually dressed and will take a more relaxed position in the chair. Achievement-oriented applicants tend to wear darker colors, whereas affiliates show a decided preference for bright colors and are quite warm and friendly.

The leadership-oriented applicant is neither formal nor friendly. He appears appropriately dressed for the interview.

Since items of status are of great importance to him, the leadership-oriented man wears initialed shirts, ties, and cuff links, and the leadership-oriented woman carries a Louis Veton pocketbook or wears a Pierre Cardin scarf.

Each type of applicant is certain you are looking for a very specific package of qualities: the exact same assortment of qualities that he believes he has to offer. The achievement-oriented applicant believes that the important qualities a potential employer should look for are dedication, loyalty, efficiency, and skill. The affiliation-oriented applicant will emphasize the importance of such qualities as good human relations, cooperation, and friendliness. The leadership-oriented applicant thinks you are looking for a person with leadership potential, someone who wants to move up in the organization, to grow — a take-charge person.

Job performance differs

There is no such thing as the perfect candidate. Each person you interview will be strong in some areas and weak in others. The important thing is to know what assortment of qualities you are most likely to get with any one particular individual. For example, the achievement-oriented candidate will turn out to be your best worker. This is the person to hire if you are shortstaffed, because he will go beyond the objectives. He is a workaholic; he doesn't know the meaning of the word overwork. This individual will do more than any two other employees combined, and whatever he does will be done to perfection.

In one association, there was an achievement-oriented bookkeeper, the director of the organization asked her to list the increase in membership figures by month for the last two years. He anticipated receiving one sheet with 24 notations on it. What he got from his bookkeeper was 15 pages of figures showing, by type of company, where the increases had been coming from and a statistical explanation of how each of the association's activities had affected those figures.

Achievers are perfectionists

However, on the negative side, human relations are a very low priority to achievement-oriented people. They believe you are paying them to get a job done. Their desire to achieve a high degree of perfection in everything they do makes them highly competitive with other members of the work team.

Since no one else could possibly meet their standard of perfection, their presence in a work group of average employees is like an indictment against those of lesser capability. This does not make for compatible working relationships. Incidents of interpersonal friction will be high when achievement people are present.

In contrast, the affiliation-oriented candidate will never be the focus or instigator of interpersonal friction. This person sees fellow workers as friends rather than competitors. He sees work primarily as a social situation and will go to great lengths to preserve and maintain cordial relationships.

As a matter of fact the issue of cooperation and support is so strong with this type of candidate that he will gauge his individual output by what other members of the group are doing. That clearly is the dues for group membership. Individuals pace themselves so that each does exactly what the others do — no more, no less.

They believe that a true friend would not outdo another by performing at a better level, nor would he create a situation where others would be forced to do more than their fair share because one member was not doing his job.

Affiliates need people

Once hired, affiliation-oriented applicants will support one another in their bad behavior as well. For example, let us say that you have four affiliates working for you in clerical jobs. If one starts coming to work late and you say nothing, within one week the other three will begin arriving late also, usually within two or three minutes of one another.

Then, if you take the first one aside to discuss his tardiness, he will say, "Why are you picking on me? All the others are coming in late too." Moreover, within 30 minutes of your conference with this one employee, the other three may come into your office together and state, for the record, that they think you are being very unfair to their friend.

It is impossible to discipline affiliates individually. They take their behavior cues from the group. The achievement employee, on the other hand, sets his own standards, totally disregarding the norms of the work group.

The results can cause trouble. The director of an association that was heavily involved in public contract issues decided that he needed an affiliate-oriented person to handle the telephones. Although his staff was quite large, the association had only maintained a small, one-person switchboard.

The switchboard, however, was located in the basement of the building, three floors away from the office. The new affiliate-oriented switchboard operator had been on the job only a few weeks when it

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became apparent that a larger telephone capacity was needed. Members began to complain that whenever they called, the lines were always busy.

In discussing the problems with the switchboard operator, I learned that she was lonely sitting all by herself way down in the basement, so she had gotten into the habit of setting up conference calls with her friends during working hours.

Leaders like to delegate

If you hire the third type, the leadership-oriented candidate, you'll find he will never work to his full potential. These people have a keen sense of what constitues expediency. They will always do a good job, not perfect, but always very adequate. The achievement-oriented person will give you his best every day, all day. The leadership-oriented person quickly learns the game plan and gives you only what is necessary to get the job done well.

Since these people like responsibility and do very well with it, this is the person to hire if you need someone to supervise others or take charge of some particular aspect of your organization.

One association director employed a leadership-oriented person as his administrative assistant. After several weeks, it was brought to his attention that his administrative assistant had changed his title to assistant to the director and was sending out correspondence that way.

Upon further questioning of staff members, the director found that his administrative assistant had been busy delegating some of the more tedious aspects of his job to others.

Watch how you advertise

As these illustrations have shown, each of these people sees himself in a different manner. That's why if you advertise in the newspaper when staff vacancies occur, the type of candidates who respond will depend upon the way you advertise the job.

Ads that typically attract achievement-oriented applicants use word patterns like this: self-starter, work with little or no supervision, challenging, difficult, new position, we are looking for the best.

Ads that typically attract affiliation-oriented applicants use word patterns such as this: friendly work atmosphere, nice surroundings, close to public transportation (or shopping centers), good benefits.

Ads that typically attract leadership-oriented applicants use the following type of word patterns: will be in charge of, work closely with the director, supervise, growth opportunity.

Knowing what you need

Remember that each type of candidate is necessary to the successful operation of most organizations. The critical question you need to answer is, "Which type of person do I need for this particular vacancy?"

Every candidate you interview will be a combination of all three types. However, one of the three will stand out much more clearly than the others. The candidate will be attempting to sell you on the best kind of employee he thinks there is: the kind he happens to be.

During the interview you will be able to get a clear picture of the candidate's motivational makeup. All you need to do is listen; the candidate will tell you how he is motivated.

Once you have an understanding of the candidate's motivation, you then must decide if this type of person matches the environment of your vacancy. This way you'll hire people whose self-identity and motivational needs do not conflict with the environment of the position. This will do two important things for you. It will ensure that you have highly motivated personnel, and it will also minimize your personnel turnover and leave you time for more important matters.

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Knowing what to look for is half the battle in selecting a job applicant. Listed below are five questions usually asked during the interview and a description of the typical response given by the three motivational types. By learning to identify responses with motivational types, you can better select the right person for your job.

1. Tell me about your most recent job:

Achiever: task-by-task listing of all the activities that made up the job.
Affiliated: description of the personalities of co-workers, supervisor, and, if applicable, client population.
Leader: "Worked closely with (name of important person)"; "In charge of (people or activities") discussion of control issues such as budget, supplies, and so forth.

2. What aspects of your job do you enjoy doing most?

Achiever: paperwork (detail work), keeping things in order.
Affiliate: dealing with people, helping others.
Leader: managing, supervising others, working in a leadership role.

3. Why does this kind of work interest or appeal to you?

Achiever: challenge, working without supervision, likes to work, never did that before, learning opportunity.
Affiliate: near my home, something I can handle, did it before.
Leader: chance to grow, step into the future, work for an influential organization.

4. What kinds of things make your work difficult?

Achiever: people who are slow, stupid, dumb, or won't listen.
Affiliate: too much work, long hours, working by myself, having to make decisions without enough information.
Leader: not enough control over the job, too much red tape, being over supervised.

5. Give me an example of a difficult problem you solved or decision you had to make.

Achiever: will discuss things, not people-related situations; designed a change in procedures, forms, and so forth.
Affiliate: will describe a people-problem, perhaps one of a personal nature.
Leader: taking over, taking charge, making a leadership decision influencing others.

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