At Social Tables, the last step of our interview process is a conversation with me. We’ve been doing this from the beginning and I don’t see us skipping this part any time soon. [1]
This structured 20 minute interview consists of ~10 questions from me and the chance for the candidate to ask me anything they’d like.
One of the questions I get the most is “what are your expectations from a person in [the open position]?” and my response is always the same: “I don’t know.”
Let me explain. While I know what other successful people have done in said position, I have no idea what the candidate is truly capable of doing. Put simply, I don’t know what I don’t know and, therefore, I can’t have any expectations.
The real answer is, however, that we aren’t looking for people who simply meet expectations. We aren’t even looking for people who exceed expectations. We are looking for people who create expectations.
These are the people that teach us new things, surprise us, delight our customers, and raise the bar to a place we didn’t even know existed. They are the people who have made themselves indispensable, creating expectations by showing us the things we didn’t yet know.
[1] I believe this is an important step in the process because it shows the candidates that we take recruiting seriously. It also gives me a chance to leverage the HR pattern recognition that I’ve developed over the years.