“Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.”
– Muhammad Ali
Silence makes us uncomfortable.
Lulls in conversations are awkward. Dead air during a radio broadcast has us reaching for the dial. During interviews we are tempted to nudge candidates in the right direction when they fail to respond immediately.
There is a principle in science that nature abhors a vacuum. Air or liquids rush in to fill the void. During conversations, we want to rush in to fill the gap with words.
When the conversation is an interview, interviewers may be tempted to help candidates out when they don’t respond immediately. If that’s you, stop doing it. Apply a technique mastered by journalist and detectives—the power of the pause.
In Five Little Pigs, Agatha Christie illustrates how her Belgian detective Hercule Poirot employs the power of pause to gather evidence:
But as though his expectant silence hypnotized her, she said reluctantly.
“I think I said, ‘Certainly, Mrs. Crale. It must have been suicide.”
Like Poirot and other detectives, plan for times when candidates hesitate.
The purpose of interviews is to learn as much about candidates as you can in a short time—more perhaps than candidates want to tell you and more than they realize they should tell you.
How you respond to moments of silence will impact the quality of the information you gather.
Having asked about collaborating with co-workers, we may fill the gap by suggesting how to respond. “Can you think of a project when you had to work closely with a colleague to solve a problem? Did you sit down to talk about the problem before you started to work on a solution?”
By helping out in this fashion, you may unintentionally be offering clues about what you want the candidates to say in answering your question. As detective Peter Diamond observes in The Tooth Tattoo by Peter Lovesey, “Putting words into the mouth of witnesses wasn’t a good interviewing technique.”
Just ask your initial question and wait for the candidate to respond. Five seconds. Ten. Up to 15 seconds.
You are creating a conversational vacuum that will work to your advantage. Candidates will feel that they need to fill these gaps. Don’t provide them with an easy escape. Require them to describe what they did without any prompts from you.
A common mistake that leads to poor hiring decisions is that interviewers are too talkative. It’s difficult to learn about another person when you are the one who does much of the talking. As Chief Inspector Gamache explained to a new investigator when he joined the homicide squad: “You must listen. As long as you’re talking you’re not learning, and this job is about learning (The Cruelest Month by Louis Penny).”
Of course, you can’t wait forever for candidates to respond. After 10 to 15 seconds of the candidate just sitting there staring at you and others on the interview panel, you will need to apply other techniques to move the interview along:
- Emphasize that it is important to you to hear an answer because it will be something you will be considering when making your hiring decision.
- Repeat the question, or ask the candidate to reread it if you are using interview cards that I described in an earlier article.
- Remind the candidate of what you may have said when introducing the candidate to the concept of behaviour description interview (BDI) questions when beginning the interview: “Don’t feel that you have to give us an example of some big event or task. Often a small example will provide us with the information we require.”
- Refer to an example of collaboration from the candidate’s resume or cover letter. “I noticed that in your resume you referred to being ‘part of the team’ at ABC. Tell us how you worked with others on that team.”
- Ask the candidate if they would like to move on to the next question and return to this one later.
The power of the pause can also be used after the candidate answers your question. Wait a few seconds before asking your next. The vacuum you create may form an impression in the candidate’s mind that you are looking for more, which you are. There may still be unspoken information that will help you identify the right person.
One word of caution: some candidates will understand the power of the pause and intentionally create a conversation vacuum, hoping you will fill it with clues about how to answer the question with the information you are looking for.
Want to discuss this or other interview techniques? Schedule a 15-minute telephone consultation. It’s free and there is no obligation.
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