30,000 Interviews Later: Valuable Lessons I’ve Learned

Over the last 15 years, I’ve had the chance to lead an executive search firm through 3,000 successfully completed searches. Each search requires a shortlist of about 10 candidates that we interview in-person. That means we’ve done 30,000 face-to-face interviews with the very top talent for our searches. Last year, we studied those top 30,000 candidates. We asked ourselves, “Which candidates did the best in their interviews? And did those ‘best of the best’ do anything in common?”

The results of that study have been at the same time surprising, stunning, and simple.

We can all learn from what I wish I had known 30,000 interviews ago. And whether you’re looking to move up in your career, or trying to assemble a great team, I think these three lessons might be helpful. Here are a couple of the lessons that could’ve helped me out earlier in my career, and might help you.

1.Good habits beat out great degrees

One of the clearest, and most refreshing conclusions of our study was that great candidates do have something in common. And it’s not what you might think. The top candidates we interviewed did not share a common educational background. They did not all go to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. And they did not share common physical traits, either. They weren’t all 6 feet tall with amazing hair and teeth. They also didn’t share socioeconomic traits.

What they did have in common were consistent habits focused on human-to-human interaction. We were able to identify 12 habits that the best of the best had in common. Without going into the details of all 12, I can tell you that they were simple, learnable, and accessible to all.

So instead of worrying that you didn’t make it to an Ivy League school or, for that matter, relying too heavily on the name of the institution on your diploma, ask yourself this: “How can I learn better human-to-human skills, and how do I make those skills a second nature habit?”

2.How well you get along with others matters more than you know

If there’s one habit that won out over all the others, it was a candidate’s ability to relate to others. I was talking with one of our most seasoned search consultants on our team, asking him what he has observed, and what ends up making the difference between the person who gets the job, and the person who ends up in second place.

He answered me really quickly, “Oh, that’s easy. It usually boils down to the question, ‘Who gets along best with others?’” The longer I do executive searches and interviews, the more I realize that when people quote a golden rule like “do onto others as you would have them doing to you,” it’s actually super good career advice. In a world where people are increasingly isolated, working remotely, and working alongside non-human things like artificial intelligence, the ability to get along with others is going to be a new gold standard for human employees. Remember this the next time you go in for an interview or are interviewing someone else.

If you had to interview people who used to be on your team, would they say good things about how you treated them? If you worked on a project with others, would they invite you back to work on the next project? These are the questions I’m asking myself as I’m trying to improve my own human-to-human skills.

3.You can make a lasting impression

I was amazed at how many of the people who ranked highest in our study were people that I can still remember their face and their name. I still remember Dave who did the simple, but very intentional gesture of bringing me an apple pie. I still remember Holly, who brought me a thoughtful business proposal for how she would work if she came to work at our company. I still remember so many that stand out in the crowd.

What I didn’t know until our study is what causes people to stand out in the crowd. It’s simple habits like being on time, doing your homework, studying the person you’re interviewing with, and the company you’re interviewing for. Even getting back to people quickly makes such a difference. There are so many ways that you can simply stand out from the crowd, not with a fancy résumé or an amazing academic portfolio, but just by relating to others better and better. I’m asking myself more and more frequently, “How can I become better at relating to other humans?” I think it may be the ballgame for the future of human employment.

Most of what we found in our study might sound like intuitive knowledge, but now the data is backing up what many of our guts probably tell us. More than anything, it’s our simple human skills–how we relate to and consider others–that make the difference when it comes to standing out in the increasingly crowded crowd.