MC57 The role of emotions when hiring

Inspired by Liz and Mollie's wonderful book "No Hard Feelings" we talk about the role of emotions in our work, especially when hiring. One of the key principles in this book is that our emotions are a part of who we are at work and they impact our behaviour. Being aware of this helps us better understand ourselves and others, and ultimately helps us make better decisions.

Choosing who to hire is an important task for any manager. It's also a great example of a decision where we need to be aware of how our emotions are influencing us.

01:15 min We really enjoyed this book, especially how it blends advice with really funny cartoons to bring humour to some quite heavy topics.

5:15 The book lists 4 reasons why we lose motivation at work: lack of control over our work, we don't find the work meaningful, we aren't learning anything or we don't like our co-workers. This is missed in a lot of the rhetoric about returning to the office. Sometimes it's not the office that people are avoiding but rather some of the people who are in that office.

6:15 Studies have shown people of colour prefer to remote work at increased rates because being in the office is exhausting.

7:00 Job crafting is the art of shifting your work towards what you enjoy doing. When it comes to our happiness at work, we might have more control over it than we think.

9:30 We don't have to always be positive and happy at work, it's ok to experience a range of emotions.

10:30 Expressing our emotions, even just acknowledging them, can free us to move forward. However if we keep them bottled up it means they are going to come out somehow. Perhaps in ways that we don't want.

12:15 An easy mistake to make when hiring is to unwittingly be overly influenced by your emotions. We can get swept up and hire someone just because we feel good around them. Our positive emotional response can distract us from realistically assessing their capability to do the work.

13:15 Tim recounts getting swept up in an interview with a charismatic applicant.

18:00 The benefits of using actual work samples in a hiring process and how it gives better information than you can get just from questions during an interview. But best not to take advantage of people's free labour - make it a piece of work that your company won't profit from.

19:25 For jobs like management where it can be hard to do a small work project, Tim has used role plays to see what the applicant was like "in live action". Especially valuable when followed by a feedback session to learn how the applicant gives and receives feedback (this last tip was borrowed from Basecamp's hiring process).

21:00 Behavioural questions (tell me about a time when you did X) are much better than theoretical questions (how would you do X) particularly when you use the applicant's answer as a starting point for a detailed conversation about what happened and why. In a free flowing conversation the applicant has to make quick decisions about what to say. If you listen closely they are often telling you about their priorities and values.

23:45 It can be worthwhile asking questions about the things that make us uncomfortable because we then get a sense of what our relationship with this person might be like when, inevitably, we're experiencing discomfort.

What about you, dear listener? How have emotions influenced your hiring decisions? We'd love to hear about your experiences! And we'd love any future recommendations for books.

Get in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/ or tell us on Twitter - we are @managementcaf