Are You Experienced was the first studio album from Jimi Hendrix back in 1967. In my line of work I meet a lot of ‘experienced’ people. I hear that “I’ve got 20 years of experience” or “I’ve worked here for 15 years”.
Sometimes, on further questioning, I find that these people have just 1 year of experience multiplied by the number of years they’ve worked at a particular company.
If you’re looking to recruit experienced people how do you ascertain if they have real experience?
Ask individuals about three Leadership Challenges:
Managing the Business
- How have they broadened the scope of the business?
- Get them to tell you about how they made a comeback from an unsuccessful event.
- Do they have real P&L responsibility?
Managing People
- How did they adapt to managing and coaching other managers?
- How did they confront and deal with subordinate performance problems?
- Have they managed teams in cultures other than their own?
Managing Change
- Get them to tell you about something new they have created. A product/service or a procedure that improved the business.
- Influencing without authority. How good are their persuasion skills?
- Overcoming obstacles. They’re all around us. Do you go through, over or around?
This way you will find out if someone is really experienced and the right person for your team.