Over the years, organisations and hiring personnel have applied various techniques to get the “right person for the job”. These techniques come in the form of psychometric tests, fitness tests, technical interviews, telephonic and face to face meet up/interview. However, at the end of the day everyone seems to fall into a standardised trap, with everything boiling down to the same traditional questions:
“Tell us about yourself”
“What are your strengths and weaknesses?”
“How do you handle the pressure?”
“Why should we hire you?”
“Why do you want to join our company?” and so on and so forth…
With these set of questions being asked so many times, a standardised way of answering each question was quickly developed. With the answers easily found by googling the “Best answers for an interview”. Thus all an applicant needed was smooth and convincing answers, with no sound of hesitation and voila “You got the job”.
But do the above techniques really mean you would’ve hired the right person for the job? Here at BizWize we have decided it’s high time things are done differently. As a consulting company that believes in delivering the things that matter. We need just the perfect fit for our culture.
So we decided that all we need to know is who our applicants are and how we as a business can work together with the applicant in achieving our goals as well as theirs. How we do this is by understanding the applicants “WHY”, what drives them and what inspires them to action. In this way, we are able to determine if our company values are aligned to their personal values.
Our very 1st interview is all about the applicant taking us through what they believe is their purpose and what is it that they are most passionate about. Coupled with this we show the applicant a few videos that resonate with our values and closely align with our “Why”. The applicant then has time to express what they have learnt out of the videos and how the videos relate to their personal values and drives.
This method does surprise a lot of applicants as it is nothing Google could’ve prepared them for. However, it gives a great opportunity to begin to understand exactly who the applicant is and whether they will be a fit. At BizWize Consulting we believe that being able to express your passion in an unconventional environment, lends itself to being a great consultant and this method helps us test for that.
As a business, we have learnt through this process and each new applicant has taught us something new. It has reiterated that we are all special in our own way and the key is assembling a strong team of individuals, that strive for the same goal by using different approaches. This is our winning formula.
Dieketseng P. Rasenyalo
