Bookish people, who study hard to achieve multiple degrees or other educational certifications, are to be admired for their effort.

As a result of all this work, these perpetual students are competent in a lot of different areas. They know a lot of theory, and are very fluent in the language of their specialization. They are very common in China.

The best of them can be seen as a ‘font of wisdom’ for other members of staff. Unfortunately, some may just pass for competent because they have only immersed themselves in the language of their field. They have the words but not the insight. 

We all know that people who study well are not necessarily the people who deliver well. Not unless they can combine that study with practical experience. This is not an anti-intellectual bias. Often the people who deliver are the ones who have stopped studying and gotten busy doing.

You see this at interview where candidates who present with great looking Resumes turn out to be duds. Behavioural interviewing can sort out the wheat from the chaff because it forces candidates to go beyond the language of the industry, and get down to the connections, consequences and relationships between elements of the industry.

At this stage we all know how to write up a behavioral interview , and note the differences between those who talk about ‘me’ and those who talk about ‘us’, between those who say ‘called a meeting’ and those who say ‘told my team what to do’.

Dig Deeper

To take things further I would suggest there are a few other issues that you need to look for in interviewees’ responses. 

The first is a willingness to make mistakes, combined with a willingness to admit them. No one has a mistake-free career and if we were to be brutally honest each of us would have to admit to a huge number of mistakes in our careers. If you can admit a mistake it is more likely that you will be willing to learn from that mistake.

Those in possession of high levels of knowledge should be able to challenge the status quo, and to see things in a different light. That is surely what they have been trained for. No industry is so perfect that it runs like a Swiss watch. Trends and currents offer opportunities for those with insight to take advantage. If your candidate cannot see these issues then they only know the words; they spent their time learning more when they should have been trying out what they learned.

The presentation of new evidence should also cause interviewees to change their thinking. Often it doesn’t because the interviewee is deferring to you. But if the interviewee defers to someone that he will only meet for an hour or more, how likely is it that they will challenge their superiors when they are wrong?

One of the ways you can play this up is to act as the outsider, the one who has little knowledge of the industry. Put forward a weak understanding of the industry, and the good candidates will challenge you, and inform you. They will do this in such a way as not to offend.

Another way to provoke a response is to offer a hypothesis that is unsupported by evidence. Again, the good people will challenge you, and the duds will totally miss the fault in your analysis because they are more focused on looking the part, and forming a relationship with you. If you are given a lot of MBA-speak as your answer, this is sure sign of weakness, unless the candidate has recently finished an MBA.

The final point would be to look for the candidate’s ability to transfer knowledge from one area to another. Narrow specialists learn fundamentals about their broad science or industry, and they should be able to apply these fundamentals elsewhere. This one is hard to plan for because you cannot be sure what knowledge the candidate will present to you. 

Proviso

The corollary here is that many of the competent people that you interview are not necessarily able, or ready, to do a dog and pony show for you at interview. If they feel that you do not have the necessary industry skills, or age-related experience, they will often shut-down and give you what they think you want.

So either you have the skills and engage candidates in a deep conversation about your industry. Or you don’t. In which case you use this as a way to get them to explore their industry, as your teacher.

Passing for competent works both ways.