Part 1: Asking About Accolades

“Ok Jordan, where do you go with this story?” It’s a question we are often asked in our coaching work. This post is the first in a series that will discuss common “story archetypes” that candidates share, and what kinds of information you are seeking in each. More to come!

When you ask a candidate about meaningful accomplishments from their career past, you will often hear stories about accolades they received—key promotions, big awards or new opportunities they were offered, ostensibly due to strong performance.

We often see interviewers waste enormous amounts of time on these stories, going down rabbit holes that provide little useful data. And these same interviewers often fail to pick up the vital 2-3 points that you really want from these stories.

When a candidate tells you they are proud of getting promoted early, the story is about the promotion. Digging into the details of the new job, for example, is essentially opening a new line of questioning—i.e., you have already moved past the proud moment, which was the promotion itself.

When a candidate tells you their big high point was being selected for a High Potentials program at a big company, the story is about the selection, not necessarily about the details of that program or what they learned in it. When you deviate from the accolade itself, you have no guarantee that the new content will be noteworthy (i.e., a good use of time).

Bottom line, the most important information you need from “accolade” stories is the information about the receiving of the accolade itself. As a general rule, you are looking for:

• What specifically they did to earn the promotion/award/new opportunity,
• How they did it (if it is particularly relevant or needs to be clarified), and
• What percent of the relevant peer group was granted a similar opportunity–not just the numerator (how many others got it) or the denominator (out of how many peers), but the fundamental rarity of the accolade.

Once you understand the nature of the accolade, how it was earned, and how common (or rare) it was, you are generally done. Really! If you jump on some aspect of the story that does not involve the accolade itself, you are shooting in the dark—and probably wasting time.

Here is a sample dialogue:

Interviewer: “What was your proudest accomplishment in your VP Alliances role at SaaS Co?” Candidate: “We were awarded the “Partner of the Year’ by MegaCo 2 out of the 3 years I was in that role. MegaCo was our most important channel partner. I got a trip to Germany, which was great, and I also could participate on their ISV Council and actually help shape how they worked with partners.”

[Alert: you may be tempted to start asking questions about this ISV Council, and what impact the candidate did or did not have on it. But we don’t know whether that council is a particularly noteworthy event in this person’s career. We do know that the award itself was noteworthy, so let’s stay on topic!]

I: “Interesting! How many of MegaCo’s partners were in the running for that award?”

C: “They had a couple hundred I think. And some of them were way bigger than us.”

I: “How many partners got that award that year?” [Notice: we did not assume ‘Partner of the Year’ is only given to one company!]

C: “It went to the top 20 or so I think.” [Bingo, we know the percentage—approximately 10%]

I: “And what was it based on?”

C: “It was primarily based on their implementation team’s feedback on the working relationship with us as a software vendor, basically who got the highest ratings.”

I: “What role did you play in achieving that feedback rating?”

C: “I played a huge role in it—I built relationships with every implementation lead to make sure they had what they needed, removing every obstacle.”

I: “What’s your best example of that?”

Etc….

After getting the necessary level of details here, we are ready to move on. We learned what the candidate did (earned Partner of the Year with top channel partner 2 years out of 3), how they did it (exceptional relationship/project management with partner), and how big of a deal it was (top 10% vs. competitors, including larger ones).