Why Interviewing for Internal Roles May Be the Key to Your Next Career Move

Call Design on November 30, 2023

In many organizations, people are promoted because they’ve been in a role for a while, and they know the right buttons to push or the right people to work with. And I think that’s a problem.

Don’t get me wrong, I think internal promotion and giving people a career path is fantastic! Study after study has shown how important professional development and career growth are to retaining talent, especially younger generations. The point isn’t to say we should stop promoting people internally, but I think that people should be interviewed, even internally, when receiving a promotion.  

I can hear your comments now. “I shouldn’t have to interview for a position I’ve already earned” … “Interviewing for a promotion is just an extra hoop to jump through” … “I hate interviewing! If they make me interview, I’m going to tank and lose out on this opportunity.” I get it and I think your concerns are valid and should be considered as these processes and policies are implemented. But what you don’t realize is that the organization is doing you a disservice by not interviewing you for the role. Hear me out.

In my role, I’ve had an opportunity to help people move from one organization to another. Whether that’s hiring them into my team or coaching them through their job search process. One of the biggest challenges I’ve seen from people is their inability to articulate their value in an interview. “Why should we hire you.” It’s a common enough question but so many people swing-and-miss on this question and it’s such a critical answer for you to nail!

I’ve heard plenty of people mention how they are self-starters, self-learners, quick learners, self-motivated, team players, great communicators, etc, etc. These are likely all true and possibly valuable. However, why would I hire you, a self-starter who loves to collaborate, over someone else that expresses the same thing? There needs to be more definition, a finer point, or a better way to communicate your value.

And here is where interviewing for internal roles comes in.

When organizations interview for internal roles, it gives you the opportunity to practice articulating the “why me” answer. It gives you the chance to self-assess and look for the core nuggets of why you’ve been successful and then how to articulate that to other people.

There will be a temptation to simply point toward the projects you’ve run well or the team that has grown under you. The problem is that those examples don’t get to the core of your value add. Great, you ran a project well, but what was it about your skillset and unique ability that allowed you to do that? You’ve got to dig deeper and articulate something specific and unique.

So how do we do this and what does it look like? I’m so glad you asked!

You think you work well in team environments and that is a reason someone should promote you or possibly hire you. But when is that true and when has it not been true? Do you work best when teams are made up of certain people or in certain environments? So you refine your answer to “I’m a great team player with people who love to dream and cast vision”, but why is that true? What is it about working with them that you enjoy and that makes you so valuable in that environment? You refine further. “I love working in a team environment with people that cast vision and dream well because I don’t do those things well.” We’re getting closer but we don’t want to end on a negative. Plus, we need to go one level deeper. So instead of saying “I’m a great team player” you can say “I work well in team environments with individuals that cast vision well. I’ve found that my skill is in taking someone else’s vision and making it a reality. I love refining and executing big picture thinking and I work well in environments that include that.” You don’t just work well in team environments, you’re an executor and refiner!

For myself, I could just say “I’m curious and I like to ask questions”, and that might be a bit unique but it’s far short of what it could be. My answer is “I’m incredibly curious and love to ask questions. I’m very comfortable being the dumbest person in the room and asking the questions that everyone thinks but no one wants to ask. My questions typically help teams investigate assumptions and norms to ensure everyone is aligned and on the same page before moving forward. Simply put, you should hire me because my curiosity can help your organization improve communication and move faster by uncovering the unanswered questions.”

This type of self-assessment and ability to articulate your unique value can lead to greater confidence and impact, even in your current organization. When you don’t interview for internal roles and promotions you miss out on the opportunity to assess why you’ve been successful, find a way to articulate that and practice your answer well before trying to land that dream job, possibly at another organization.

Whether you’ve been with an organization for 2 years or 20 years, do yourself a favor and practice your answer to “Why should I hire you”, your next career move may just depend upon it!

At Call Design we believe that employees have the right to be happy, engaged, fulfilled, and aligned at work. Part of finding fulfillment at work includes knowing what you’re good at and what you love to work on. If you’d like help discovering your unique skills or being able to articulate them, please reach out and let us know. One of our coaches would love to work with you and help you find fulfillment at work!

How to Build Culture Driven Teams

Call Design on November 22, 2023

What is a Culture-Driven Team?

A culture-driven team is intentionally built around shared cultural values and norms, which are considered essential for success. It’s about identifying the values that resonate with your team and using them as the compass to guide your hiring, onboarding, and development processes. Building a culture-driven team means going beyond individual expertise and focusing on collective growth and collaboration.

Hiring for the Team, Not Just the Individual:

To build a culture-driven team, it’s crucial to prioritize the team dynamic over individual roles. Instead of solely focusing on qualifications, seek candidates who are the best fit for the team’s cultural fabric. You may be tempted to think that your new hire will typically have few opportunities to work with other people, so you don’t need to worry about team dynamics. Their “just” a forecaster, or scheduler that will be in the corner just pushing a few buttons (an oversimplification of their role!). The reality is that each person, regardless of how vocal or connected they are, impacts the whole team. As you hire each role you need to be thinking about the values your team is centered around, finding those values in the interview process, and then supporting the values during the training and onboarding process. Remember, a strong team always outperforms a lone superstar.

Possible Team Values:

There are a ton of values you can center your team around, and which ones you should pick will be dependent upon your leadership style, company values, and even your geographical area. For this blog, we’ll focus on four values that Call Design sees as important to helping people be Happy, Engaged, Fulfilled, and Aligned at work.

  • Curiosity: Look for candidates who exhibit a genuine thirst for knowledge and a desire to continuously learn and grow. This soft skill can be developed in others, but it’s incredibly hard to impart it to people who lack it entirely. Find individuals that naturally ask questions and look to dig into things.
  • Embracing Chaos: Seek individuals who thrive in dynamic environments and see chaos as an opportunity for innovation and adaptation. Contact center and WFM teams are full of days where things are constantly changing. The key isn’t just how they respond in chaos, but how they feel in chaos. Is the constantly changing environment life-giving or life-taking for them? Plenty of people can put up with the chaos, but where are the people that enjoy the chaos?
  • Transparency: Value candidates who prioritize open and honest communication, even if it means challenging the status quo and leadership! Organizations that not only allow but encourage people to push boundaries and innovate position themselves to be successful long-term. Sure, curiosity is important to innovation, but even more important is an environment where people are open and honest to push on bad ideas and share their opinions, even if it’s the opposite of the boss.
  • Kindness: Prioritize kind team members. It’s simple to say but hard to do. We all know that kindness doesn’t make up for an inability to do a job. We’ve all worked with a Kind Karen who is super sweet but is constantly needing help. And we’ve also worked with a Mean Megan who gets work done but no one wants to work with her. Reminder, we’re trying to build a team and not just fill roles. Karen’s kindness is going to have a bigger positive impact on the team than Megan’s, even if you try to isolate Megan to minimize the negativity while still benefiting from her efforts.

Interviewing for Cultural Fit:

Here are some questions you can use to find the four team values we’ve already highlighted.

  • Curiosity: “What questions do you have for me?” Normally we ask this question at the end of an interview but when we start with this question we learn a few things immediately. Did the person do any research and come prepared with a list of questions? If they didn’t, how quickly are they able to switch into questioning mode and how insightful are their questions? We can learn a lot about someone’s curiosity within the first few minutes of an interview by starting with this question.
  • Chaos: “Is chaos life-giving or life-taking”. Most people have a great answer as to how they respond in chaos, but the key here is how they feel in chaos. You can teach someone the steps you want them working through during fire drills, but if your chaotic environment is going to suck the life out of them, well that’s the opposite of what we’re looking for. Hire for feeling and train for action.
  • Transparency: “Tell me about a time you told your boss they were wrong.” If they can come up with a dozen examples they may be more interested in pointing out flaws than coming up with solutions. If they’ve never told their boss they’re wrong then they may not feel comfortable sharing honest feedback. This question allows you to see how easily the person can push against authority and possibly provide helpful feedback, even for the boss.
  • Kindness: Observe how candidates speak about their former employers and colleagues, looking for indications of a cooperative and compassionate mindset. Again, this value is so simple but it’s incredibly impactful on your team. Don’t overlook how well the interviewee would or would not get along with the rest of your team.

Side note: If you’d like some additional tips for interviewing check out our blog on being a servant leader during the interview process.

Reinforcing Culture through Onboarding and Development:

Once team members join your organization, it’s crucial to nurture and reinforce the desired culture:

  • Curiosity: Don’t just encourage curiosity, communicate that it’s an expectation. Every team meeting, 1-1 interaction, or catch-up conversation ask them what questions they have for you. If they are consistently saying they have none then that should be a big red flag. Help them understand that you expect them to have questions and to come to you with them. More than any other time, onboarding is when they need to be bringing questions to the table.
  • Embracing Chaos: After they’ve been on your team for a while ask them how they feel their job description should change. What should be removed and what should be added? Help them see that they have a chance to shape the chaos and focus on what brings them joy. Plus, they’ll be engaged and find fulfillment in a role they help shape!
  • Transparency: Lead by example and share your challenges, creating an environment where honesty and open communication are rewarded. Help them see that you value honesty and openness over being right and perfect. They’ve likely made a career of constantly having the right answer and getting things correct. Show them that even their leader is still making mistakes and trying to learn things. Set a tone that promotes transparency and honesty.
  • Kindness: Encourage team members to connect on a personal level and build relationships with their colleagues. It’s easy to do meet-and-greet meetings and just learn about the person’s role in the organization. Push your team to really find out about the person. The more they can learn about the person’s personal and professional life the better they’ll be able to collaborate and work together.

Building a culture-driven team is an investment that pays off in multiple ways. It not only enhances productivity and collaboration but also creates an environment where employees can be happy, engaged, fulfilled, and aligned. At Call Design, we are passionate about helping contact centers and workforce management teams unlock their full potential. We believe in the power of culture-driven teams and the positive impact they can have on organizations. If you’re ready to take your team to the next level, let’s connect and explore how we can collaborate to elevate your workforce management strategy. Together, let’s build a culture-driven team that drives lasting success!

Leading with Empathy: Showing Your Servant Leadership Style in the Interview Process

Call Design on April 21, 2023

Interviewing can be a nerve-wracking experience for candidates, but have you ever considered how you as the interviewer can make the process more comfortable and positive? As a leader, you have the power to demonstrate your values even during the hiring process. By serving and supporting the interviewee, you can communicate your qualities as a servant leader and ensure a more productive, respectful interview. Here are a few strategies for serving potential hires:

1. Help them reset in an interview

Interviews can be incredibly stressful for people and that stress can turn into an anxious spiral of death. Becoming more and more flustered as they can’t think of an answer, they’re confident they’re bombing the interview, and they’re pretty sure you can see they’re sweating through their shirt even through the fuzzy Teams connection. As a servant leader try to help them out by changing course, allowing them to settle in, and know it’s a safe place.

In one interview I was chatting with someone that had been distracted by their roommate coming in unexpectedly. They weren’t sure if they should get up to close the door or stay on camera. Also, their line of thinking was interrupted and they were clearly starting to spiral. Unable to answer my questions and re-center on the topic. To help them out I shifted to questions they knew backward and forwards. 

“You mentioned that you had some cats. How many? What kinds? What are their names? How old?”

This allowed the interviewee to get out of their anxiety spiral and into a space that they knew and loved, their cats! After a few minutes of small talk, we jumped back into the questions related to the job and the company. However, this quick detour helped because:

A) it created a safe space for them to reset and refocus on the interview

B) it showed them the type of boss I would be (one that asks hard questions but also cares about your cats)

Note, I didn’t change my questions or make them easier because they had started to spiral. I didn’t lower the bar for the interview to be successful. However, I was able to create an environment that signaled the interviewee was safe here and that I wanted them to be successful. Being able to serve them, even in an interview, helps them understand the type of boss I am and what they are getting themselves into by working with me. 

2. Connect them with other opportunities in the organization

I’ve interviewed multiple people that blew me away. They had strong experience, excellent answers, and clearly understood the vision of the organization. The only problem is that they weren’t right for my team. Maybe their experience didn’t match what I needed or their answers indicated they were looking for a more senior role. In these situations you can serve them by connecting them to other leaders and roles in the organization.

Oh, and be honest about where you’re at with them. I’ve said, more than once, “I don’t want to hire you but I do want to work with you!” Let them know why your role isn’t the right fit but how you are going to try and find another way for them to join the organization.

3. Provide genuine and honest feedback after or even during the interview

As someone that has done his fair share of being interviewed, I know how frustrating it can be to feel like you’ve aced the interview only to hear “There were many qualified candidates…” You wish the company well on their search and ask for any feedback they have on how you could have positioned yourself better, and then crickets. Not one ounce of feedback. I’ve even had companies tell me that they aren’t allowed to provide that information.

One more way you can serve people before they join your team is by helping them improve their interviewing skills and answers. 

One of my favorite questions to ask is simply “Why should I hire you?” The whole interview can feel a bit like a sales pitch at times but this one makes it super crystal clear “Alright, give me your best pitch.” What I’m looking for is how well do they know themselves and their unique value add. I’m less interested in their specific brand or value add and more interested in their self-awareness. On more than a few occasions I’ve gotten the cliché “because I’m a hard worker… quick learned… self-starter… eager to learn…” and while all of those may be true I tend to think they are giving me the answer that they think I want.

In some situations, I’ve tried to coach them away from those answers. Helping them see that their wide background is a huge asset as it allows them to understand the language of many teams around us and be a critical collaborator for the team. Or that they may be inexperienced but they have intentionally and strategically built a strong network that they can tap into at any time. “I may not always know the answer to your questions, but I’m confident that I have someone in my network that I can tap that would know. By hiring me you are getting someone that is eager to learn, open to coaching, and has years of knowledge at my disposal through my network.”

Lastly and most obviously, if someone reaches out asking for feedback, actually give them some! For people that I thought would handle it well I’ve even given them the notes from the interview. Helping them see what I was thinking during the interview and the answer to ultimately why I didn’t extend them an offer. You have to be careful here because some of the notes can be a bit too honest for people and you may want to edit based on how well you know the person. In the end, though, providing any feedback will go a long way and is a small way for you to serve them.

Being a servant leader during the interview process can go a long way in creating a positive candidate experience and signaling the values of your organization. By helping potential hires reset, connecting them with other opportunities, and providing honest feedback, you can serve them even before they join your team. So, the next time you’re conducting an interview, remember to approach it with a servant leadership mindset and see how it can benefit both the candidate and your organization.

If you’re inspired to become a servant leader and create a work environment that is happy, engaged, fulfilled, and aligned, then Call Design North America is here to help. We believe that every employee deserves to have a meaningful and enjoyable work experience, and we can offer you practical tips and advice on how to achieve that. Contact us today to learn more about how we can partner with you to create a workplace where everyone can thrive.

– Dan Smitley