Reframing the Experience Requirements in People Analytics Roles
Someone asked me last week what my least favorite interview question was as a hiring manager and as a candidate. My answer was the same for both: how would you do [insert function or activity like People Analytics] in this organization?
The reason why this is at the bottom of my interview questions list is because:
Organizational Knowledge: The candidate likely only knows your organization through what is available on the internet (which in most cases is a bit more glamorized than reality) and their very brief conversations with the interview team to date. The answer they give you is going to be based on many assumptions.
Contextual Experience: The candidate may have done similar work in the past, but just because they’ve done it before and have been incredibly successful at it, it doesn’t mean your organization will provide the same context as their previous organization, and the success in your case can be guaranteed.
Audience Management: This is such a hypothetical question that you can pretty much guarantee that anyone who has done a bit of interview prep will give you the close-to-perfect answer you’re looking for
Now, I understand the intention of that question. We all want to know if the person we are hiring is qualified to do the job we are hiring for and if their skills will apply in the new context/organization. So, if that is the intention, I recommend spending 10-15mins and doing a mini-problem-solving case instead. Give your candidates the context, give them a chance to ask questions and interact with you, and evaluate their approach, mindset, and methodology in solving the problem instead of the actual solution.
As I told someone a few weeks ago, while I can write a whole playbook with tools and templates on how to start and scale a People Analytics function from nothing (hello PowerPoint, Excel, and incomplete data dumps), it doesn’t guarantee success at another organization because no two organizations and no two stakeholders are the same. This is also precisely why I advocate hiring HR, HR Tech, and People Analytics resources with zero experience in the field.
Unless the role is incredibly technical and requires someone with specific technical skill sets (Excel and dashboarding are not on that list), you are typically looking to hire someone to help you solve a problem. Note that this is problem-solving, not copying and pasting from what has been done before. Let’s be honest: if it’s just copying and pasting from a past solution, then you might have a better shot at getting the perfect answer with ChatGPT4 at $20/month (at the time of writing) instead of paying for a whole resource to do this work.
So, if it is genuinely the problem-solving aspect you are after, then evaluate your candidates' principles towards their work. Figure out their mindset around stakeholder involvement, teamwork, innovation, change, etc. (whatever is important to you), and then assess if these skills apply to your organization and what you are looking to fulfill in this role. The hard skills (i.e., Excel) can be taught, but the soft skills (i.e., desire to learn and grow) are more complex to teach and take longer.
I will always advise hiring managers to hire someone who has the potential to deliver on their vision and outcome (some hands-on experience may be needed to do that) rather than someone who can copy and paste an output 10x over. The impact is delivered through outcome, not output.