As CEO of private staffing firm Addison Group, Tom Moran has a calendar without much daylight. To make the most of his time, he interviews efficiently, spending no more than 20 minutes with candidates. Moran told Grid some of the tricks he uses to assess candidates in a hurry.
Show me your… wallet?
“Tell me a little bit about your organizational skills.” That question is an old standby, but Moran’s follow-up is hardly hackneyed. “If we were going to go down and look at your car today, what would it look like?” Moran says. “You can tell if an individual is organized by how much detail they go into the question. A very organized person will give you an answer and then back it up with a lot of detail.” And even if you took the train to his office, Moran has a backup: “Can I see your wallet? I don’t want to touch anything, just pull it out and let me see.”
On deadline
Few jobs let you move at your own pace. Moran wants to know how you handle a deadline that’s moving too fast for comfort: You’re staring down the barrel of a Friday deadline, and there’s plenty of work to be done. “What would you do if it’s Thursday at 4 o’clock, to get the rest of the [project] done, accurately and with quality?” And no, building a flux capacitor isn’t an option, unless you can explain how. “I’ll make them walk me through it.”
Greener grass
For Moran, it’s always better to be positive. When reviewing resumes, he’s less interested in why you left than why you stayed. “What did you like about this four year job compared to the one year job?” While candidates instinctively spit-shine their shorter stays, they’ll level about the jobs they liked.
Circumstantial evidence
If candidates have happy feet, Moran wants to know why they’ve moved around so much. If candidates play the blame game, it’s an automatic red flag. “[Putting it on] the circumstance usually means that it’s everybody else’s fault but themselves, and the pattern continues,” Moran says.
Two-way street
“We want [candidates] talking 80 percent of the time,” he says. That means you should be sure to pepper in your own questions to him. “I would prefer it be that they answer the question, you get your answer, and then they return it with a question.” If Moran has to offer time for the candidate to ask questions, it means he hasn’t found a connection.
Thumb rule
Moran hands everyone a business card. He expects you to use it. Thank-you emails are a must, and you’d be remiss to spend days worrying about your syntax. “What we look for is professionalism and quality and quickness,” says Moran. “I usually use a rule of thumb about a five to seven hour time frame.”
Photo by Sara Mays