Why Hypotheticals Fail

Amy Dardis 0:10

Welcome back to the Building A Clear Authentic Brand Podcast. I'm your host, Amy Dardis, and in today's episode, we are talking about the problem with asking hypothetical questions in interviews and what you should be asking instead. Now, the goal with interviewing is always to verify whether someone has the capacity to excel in the role and the character to thrive within your organization. And I want to emphasize this word verify. And verify means we are looking for evidence, which we are going to find within real life examples, patterns, and consistency. And hypothetical questions do not reveal any of that information to us. Now, a hypothetical question is commonly asked within interviews. And a hypothetical question usually starts like this: How would you handle it if? Or what would you do if? So some common questions that people ask are, what would you do in your first 30 to 60 or 90 days? What would you do if a customer asked you for something that you couldn't do? What would you do if you had a if you had to handle a conflict with a coworker? Or what would you do if you had multiple priorities and not enough time? And so they're creating a scenario where they think they can determine how someone would actually react within that given situation. So it sounds reasonable, it sounds practical, but there is a problem with this. And there's three reasons that this doesn't work. So number one is it's a theory of themselves. A hypothetical question asks a question about a version of someone that doesn't exist because the scenario has not happened. Now, I want to take a minute and talk about things that have happened in our life where we thought we were going to handle it one way, and in reality, we handled it differently. So when I was growing up, I had an idea of what my life was going to be like, you know, what my path, my career path, my choices. I had an idea of what I was going to choose. I was going to go to college and I was going to get a job. Although I had no idea in what fields. Now, in reality, I ended up not going to college. I ended up becoming an entrepreneur in the long run. And I never even imagined that I would become an entrepreneur. I never imagined that my life would turn out the way that it did. I also had an idea of what it was going to be like when I got married. I had an idea of what marriage was going to be like, and I would see these couples who would fight or not do date night or not celebrate Valentine's Day. And in my head, I would be like, well, I'm always going to have date night with my husband. And I'm always going to have Valentine's Day with my husband. Like I'm never going to not celebrate Valentine's Day. And you know what? We did this last Valentine's Day? Nothing. Didn't register it at all. Because after 15 years of marriage, you prioritize different things. Reality turns life into things that are different. Now, you know, just as a caveat, like I love and adore my husband, and we do other things that are very special to us. But for us, we have found that Valentine's Day just doesn't do it for us. And so therefore, it's not something that we choose to celebrate or recognize. Now, did I know that about myself 14 years ago? No, I didn't. Also, with parenting, I had an idea of what kind of parent I was going to be. I had an idea of how I was going to discipline my kids, of where my kids were going to go to school. And in reality, none of those things ended up happening the way that I thought that they were going to. Now, if I had been in an interview and you had asked me, how would you handle it if your toddler threw a fit on the plane? Now, I would have my best answer for you of what I would do and how I would prevent that situation and how I would make sure all of these things to avoid that happening. And if it still did, what I would do. And then you find yourself being the parent who is gripping your kid as the flight attendant is like, excuse me, but you know, you need to put his seatbelt on. And I'm like, what do you want me to do? My kid is screaming in the back of the plane. And all I can think of is like, oh my gosh, like, please just let this plane land. Like, I don't know what else to do. That was reality. Like, that is what actually happened. So when we are asked hypothetical questions, what would you do if? How would you handle it if we're answering it for a version of ourself that doesn't exist? We can only speak to what we have lived through, what we have learned. The second issue with hypothetical questions is it disconnects from moral responsibility. When we ask a question that's based on what has happened, we are asking for a real life situation where there was specifics, there were details, there was context, there were people. And I have to choose to tell you the situation exactly how it happened, or I have to make a conscious decision to lie or to shade the truth. When you ask a hypothetical question, you're not asking about a specific situation that has happened. So how someone answers, it's easy to pivot because you're not technically lying about what the situation is because it never happened. And so psychologically and emotionally, it disconnects us from the responsibility of saying, is this how I actually acted? Or saying, I think this is how I would act. And whether that's true or not, or how far away from the truth that is, I don't feel the weight of that as much. And the third issue with asking hypothetical questions is it doesn't reveal evidence or patterns because we're asking questions about things that have not happened. So we can only find evidence, which is real life examples, patterns, and consistency over time. We can only find that within our life story. We can only find that through what has actually happened. So instead of asking someone, what would you do or how would you handle it if, we're going to reframe the question and we're gonna say, ask about what they have done. So instead of what would you do if, we're gonna say, tell me about a time when. That's this small, very important, very significant shift we make in how we ask our questions. Because no one can speak to situations that they have not lived through. And everything you need to know about someone has been shaped by what they have lived through, by what they have experienced, how they think, how they operate, their abilities, their potential, all of it they have lived through. And they either have the abilities and the potential and the character and the values and the motivations that align with what you're looking for, or they don't. And it's all based in their life story and what they have actually lived through. When we ask, tell me about a time when, even if it is for a role that they don't have specific experience with, it requires an ability or a thought pattern that they need to have in order to step into that role. So we're looking for the common denominator, not necessarily the specific situation, like conflict with a coworker. No one has gotten through their life without experiencing conflict. Now, even if you're hiring someone for their very first job and they're 16 years old, they have experienced conflict in their life. Conflict with a team member at school, conflict with a team member on a sports team, conflict with a sibling, conflict with a parent. What you're looking for is how have you handled conflict? How do you handle conflict? It doesn't matter whether or not it was with a coworker, it matters about their approach, their thought pattern, their communication ability when it comes to conflict in general. So we apply this principle to everything that we're looking for. If we're looking for someone who can handle high call volume, we are looking for someone who has the ability to prioritize, someone who has the ability to triage, someone who has the ability to handle multiple different signals coming out them at once, stay calm under pressure and make a decision based off of what needs to happen first, second, third. So we're going to ask for specific situations in someone's life where they have had to deal with that. Now, if you're a stay-at-home mom and you have kids and they have three different sports schedules, plus school pickup and school drop-off, and there's dinner and there's play practice at night, you are triaging, you are prioritizing, you are problem solving to figure out what am I going to do, how am I going to work this, what needs to happen first, second, third, what do we not have time for today? What has to go? How are we going to get this done? And in what order are we going to do it? That is someone's ability to prioritize and triage and problem solve. These abilities show up in different situations of life, and that is what we are looking for. We're looking for specific examples and stories. We're also looking for consistent patterns over different contexts. So we're looking for real life experiences that have happened in work and outside of work in all different types of relationships. When we ask someone about real life situations, it puts them in a position where they have to consciously decide: am I going to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Or am I going to make a conscious decision to lie or to omit some of the truth? It's going to require that they speak to real life experiences. And we're looking for how much information are they willing to share? What kinds of details, timelines, context, trade-offs, reflection are they sharing? And in all of our stories, our stories are not highlight reels. They are not perfect. There is not anything that I have done that I have done perfectly. But there are lots of things where I have messed up. And looking back, I can say, this is what I did. These were the options that were on the table. This is what I chose. This, these were the consequences of that decision. And this is how my life has changed since then. This is what I have learned since then. So we are looking for someone who's willing to be transparent and honest about all of the things, whether it was messy or not, as well as being able to show that they have processed through that experience. They have grown through that experience. So that's leading into maturity and integrity and self-awareness, which we are looking for. So these stories are providing insight into how someone thinks and how they operate. And that is what we need to know. How do they think? What are the mindsets and the values and the behaviors that drive them? What is their wiring? What are their abilities? How does their brain work? How do they learn? That is what we need to know about a person. And all of that has been shaped by what they have actually lived through, nothing else. So everything we need to know about someone can be found within their story, and we can be very creative about what we're looking for in their story and being able to pull patterns and pull context and pull examples from their life in different environments and in different contexts. So when you start asking questions through an actual lens on a tell me about what has happened lens versus a hypothetical lens, you are going to find real evidence. You are going to find so much more information, so much more depth. And one of the biggest red flags is if someone is not able or willing to give you the level of detail that you need. And when we can avoid that, we avoid a mis-hire. So if we want to make great hiring decisions, we need all of the evidence we can get and a way to verify it. And we verify it through finding real life examples, patterns, and consistency. And we're gonna find that evidence through asking our questions the right way by starting with tell me about a time when, not what would you do if or how would you handle it if. So if you want some great starting questions that don't include any hypothetical questions at all, you can download our high signal interview questions. Just go to ClearAuthentic Brands.com slash resources. You can download it there. That is all for this episode. I'll see you in the next one.