Is Coaching Candidates During The Interview Ethical?
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Krissy Manzano: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Blueprint Roundtable. Today I’m going to be your host, Krissy Manzano, and I have with me Lizzy and Emily. And today’s question on the roundtable is Is it ethical to coach candidates during the interview process? And I mean that from the recruiter side, all the way through the hiring manager side, right?
Krissy Manzano: To give them insights into the next interview, to let them know what people are looking for. We definitely have some thoughts on this, but Lizzy, I’ll start with you first.
Lizzy Castro: Yeah, I think it’s definitely ethical. I think there’s a certain way that you can go about coaching candidates to a point where you’re not giving them the answers. I think in personal experience, the way that I’ve done it before is like, setting up an interview prep and my coaching is really asking them 1, do you have any questions leading into this final interview? Can I help you answer those questions? And then 2. Almost, I wouldn’t even say giving them the answers as to like, what’s going to be asked, but saying, Hey, be prepared to speak in detail to the knowledge of X company. Do you have anything you would like me to clarify on?
Lizzy Castro: So you have that information. So you’re prepared to speak on it. I think that’s a really good way to go about it too. And then with also coaching, I think giving feedback from hiring managers. I think the next interview is really big. You don’t have to tell them exactly word for word what the hiring manager may have said in that scorecard, but I think letting them know that the hiring team really wants to see them show more of like walk me through your sales process or how do you qualify with the decision maker and making sure they know, okay, go into more detail because we want to see that.
Lizzy Castro: I think that’s the right way to go about coaching somebody, but Emily, what are your thoughts?
Emily Bell: Yeah, I definitely think it’s ethical. I think it’s ethical. So long as you’re not giving them like answers to the test. Like an example would be like, would you not use a navigation system in order to figure out where you’re going somewhere for the first time? And like, could you get there without said navigation system?
Emily Bell: Yes. But would you have to maybe like backtrack and like, make a wrong turn here or there? And it’s, it’s really just to like, clear out the noise so the interviewers can get a really good assessment of those natural skills and sometimes that can be overshadowed by nerves or by confusion. And so, I think that not giving the exact answers allows you to get that organic response to the questions, but like you said, I mean, giving someone, at least sending them in the direction of where you would recommend they prepare, not necessarily prescribing exactly how they do that or what they present, but saying, you know, I’d recommend X, Y, and Z. And I think the other piece of it is making sure that that’s consistent across all candidates throughout the process.
Emily Bell: So that’s another level of ethics applied to that scenario where if you’re going to do that, you must do it for each and every individual, and you must try to be as streamlined in that approach as possible to incorporate fairness and equity into the process. But yeah, I think it’s totally equitable.
Emily Bell: I mean, we wouldn’t, you wouldn’t go into a major test that would determine a final grade of, you know, a class without studying just a bit, you know, and your professor is not going to give you all the answers, but they’re going to maybe guide you to the topics that you might want to study on. So it’s still a very good assessment of, you know, what you know internally, what your natural instincts are. And, I think asking candidates to go into conversations completely blind, may work out. Some people are really good at that and some people aren’t. And it really is no indicator on whether or not they’d be good at the role. I’ve seen people be really good at interviewing and not necessarily good at the tactical execution of said role.
Emily Bell: It’s not often, but it can happen. And so I don’t think that, you know, I think sometimes companies might worry that if they give too much information that they’re, you know, spoon feeding responses. And I think it’s, I think it’s really, really rare that that happens. I think sometimes from the perspective of a company, like, you know, all that, you know, and you sometimes, especially if you’ve been there for a while, you forget that other.
Emily Bell: Like, external candidates, like, might not know the inner workings. They’re, they’re hearing everything for the first time. And so that information overload alone, constitutes a need for giving them at least, you know, high level direction on on where they might want to take it or prepare. But yeah, I think we’re all kind of aligned on on that high level, but curious if you have an ending thought, Krissy.
Krissy Manzano: Well, I have a question, actually. So, some people would say, okay, that’s great. But… I, I don’t want to hire people that I have to explain what I’m expecting out of this presentation, this discovery call. Like, if they don’t know that right away, then they’re not the right candidate for us. Like, if I have to outline, you know, this is what I want you to prep for, then they’re not the right candidate. Otherwise, I’m not going to trust that. Like, they really understand those basics around whatever role they’re hiring for. How would you, how would you respond to that?
Emily Bell: I think, two things. I would respond with a question. I would ask them what their onboarding process looked like. And if their onboarding process is not streamlined and it is basically the expectation of that person to be able to come in and very much self lead and self manage, not a bad idea to make sure that you’re onboarding process, which most, most folks that are in, you know, series B, series C and beyond have something like that formalized. I don’t think it’s that big of an issue. I think maybe for like early, early growth, that might be, you know, the scrappiness that you’re looking for. But I think more often than not, it’s an unneeded concern that, distracts from the actual thing that you’re looking to assess for, which is, do they have the skills to come in and do this role? Not do they have the skill to read my mind? Yeah. I’m curious what you think, Lizzy.
Lizzy Castro: I agree with that. 100%. I think that’s sometimes where hiring managers and like maybe the recruiters and the candidate, they can all be misaligned on what’s happening in the process. I also think too when you’re coaching candidates, you are basically testing the candidate to see if they’re coachable for any position.
Lizzy Castro: You’re not, again, you’re not, I’m not giving you the answers. I’m telling you, Hey, Emily, Krissy really liked you, but in your final presentation, going in, we really need to see your closing skills because on the mock call, you didn’t go for the close as strongly as you said you did in the first initial interview.
Lizzy Castro: So really focus on that. If then Emily goes into the interview and she won either doesn’t do it, then she clearly can’t take the coaching advice. Sorry, Emily.
Emily Bell: Yeah. Good example.
Lizzy Castro: she does do it. That’s something that hiring manager should be like, okay, this candidate took the feedback they were able to be coached and they applied it and then they crushed it.
Lizzy Castro: So, I think that’s definitely one of the big pros in all of this is you are testing the candidate to see, are they coachable or not?
Emily Bell: Yeah.
Krissy Manzano: Totally.
Emily Bell: true. Interviews shouldn’t feel like a gotcha. You know, like you should want them to succeed. It’s like going to watch a really good show, you know? Like you really want that person on stage to like do their best. It makes everybody feel more comfortable. But they still have to do their part to show up on that day and perform.
Emily Bell: And you can’t fake it. You can’t fake the preparation. So I would agree with you 100%. I think that it’s better. There could be scenarios where you might lead someone in a direction that they may not have gone in before, but if they can take that direction and crush it, like, that’s the type of employee that more often than not is going to be really successful.
Lizzy Castro: I also think too, for just one of my final thoughts, if we didn’t coach candidates and help them improve during the interview process. No, we would not, any company would not be getting hires in a timely fashion. It would take a lot longer and I think it would complicate a lot of things. So being able to coach these candidates in the right way without giving them all the answers and also the questions to it, I think really helps just also smooth out the interview process too and candidate experience.
Krissy Manzano: Yeah. I, I agree. I mean, I think Lizzy, your point was really valid in the sense of, you know, the coaching element of like implementing feedback. The only thing I would say I slightly disagree with when you said, Emily, there are, it’s rare, but there are some people that are really good at interviewing.
Krissy Manzano: I think it’s even rarer than rare. I think like this notion that, like, people are such good interviewers, like, if it is more around companies having bad hiring processes and relying on guts to interview people. They made me feel good. They’re not a good interviewer, they just made you feel good.
Krissy Manzano: And because you have no process, you couldn’t sniff that out. Which you would have if you had a good hiring process really easily. I honestly, we’ve been doing recruiting for almost four years now. And from being operators beforehand, I literally can’t tell you the number of times when you give people an outline of what they need to follow if they don’t have the skills, they can’t, they won’t do it.
Krissy Manzano: I mean, I literally just got out of an interview with someone who, I asked a question to three times. I’m like, well, this is what I’m looking for. This is, this is what I mean by that. And they couldn’t provide that information because they don’t have that experience. Like, and that’s a little bit different than what we’re talking about.
Krissy Manzano: But this, you want people to feel comfortable and understand what you’re looking for in order to see if they can show you. If, you know, if I’m asking someone to go kick a soccer ball, you know, the top left hand corner and they don’t have that skill set, like, you know, and that ability, they’re not going to be able to do it unless it’s a fluke, right?
Krissy Manzano: Which is very unlikely. And so I think we have really underestimate how powerful skills are here. You want to see what their skills are. You wouldn’t ask a rep to do a demo without ever showing them what it looks like. I mean, you literally can show someone a perfect demo. Walk them through everything and say go do it and if they don’t have the skill set or experience they’re gonna flunk right like it’s no different in interviewing.
Krissy Manzano: They’re like yes I mean you could technically give someone the perfect answers, but this isn’t about giving answers. It’s about making sure someone understands what they should be prepared for so all that to say I think you all make great points. That’s all the time that we have today, but I think we should review how we look at coaching as, instead of looking at it as a negative, looking at it as a positive to weed out the people.
Krissy Manzano: Because we, people will show you who they are if you let them, right? But if you try to do gotchas and stuff like that, you’re gonna miss, the folks that, you know, you should be weeding out. So, great thoughts today, y’all. Until next time, we’ll see you later. Bye.
Episode Summary
Interviewing can sometimes feel like a strategic game, where both sides are cautious, aiming to unravel each other’s backgrounds and intentions. Initially, the company may hold more bargaining power, but as the interview progresses, gut feelings and potential pitfalls often become recurring themes. Instead of genuinely grasping a candidate’s valuable skills and behaviors, interviewers sometimes focus on these to eliminate rather than understand.
It’s important to note that no two interviews are identical, yet there are moments when interviewers expect candidates to read their minds or intuit the next step. This leads us to this week’s thought-provoking question: Is it considered unethical to provide guidance to a candidate during the interview process?
Join us, Krissy, Emily, and Lizzy, as we delve into this somewhat controversial topic, offering distinct perspectives on navigating it ethically and ensuring a win-win outcome for both parties involved.
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Transcript
Krissy Manzano: To give them insights into the next interview, to let them know what people are looking for. We definitely have some thoughts on this, but Lizzy, I’ll start with you first.
Lizzy Castro: Yeah, I think it’s definitely ethical. I think there’s a certain way that you can go about coaching candidates to a point where you’re not giving them the answers. I think in personal experience, the way that I’ve done it before is like, setting up an interview prep and my coaching is really asking them 1, do you have any questions leading into this final interview? Can I help you answer those questions? And then 2. Almost, I wouldn’t even say giving them the answers as to like, what’s going to be asked, but saying, Hey, be prepared to speak in detail to the knowledge of X company. Do you have anything you would like me to clarify on?
Lizzy Castro: So you have that information. So you’re prepared to speak on it. I think that’s a really good way to go about it too. And then with also coaching, I think giving feedback from hiring managers. I think the next interview is really big. You don’t have to tell them exactly word for word what the hiring manager may have said in that scorecard, but I think letting them know that the hiring team really wants to see them show more of like walk me through your sales process or how do you qualify with the decision maker and making sure they know, okay, go into more detail because we want to see that.
Lizzy Castro: I think that’s the right way to go about coaching somebody, but Emily, what are your thoughts?
Emily Bell: Yeah, I definitely think it’s ethical. I think it’s ethical. So long as you’re not giving them like answers to the test. Like an example would be like, would you not use a navigation system in order to figure out where you’re going somewhere for the first time? And like, could you get there without said navigation system?
Emily Bell: Yes. But would you have to maybe like backtrack and like, make a wrong turn here or there? And it’s, it’s really just to like, clear out the noise so the interviewers can get a really good assessment of those natural skills and sometimes that can be overshadowed by nerves or by confusion. And so, I think that not giving the exact answers allows you to get that organic response to the questions, but like you said, I mean, giving someone, at least sending them in the direction of where you would recommend they prepare, not necessarily prescribing exactly how they do that or what they present, but saying, you know, I’d recommend X, Y, and Z. And I think the other piece of it is making sure that that’s consistent across all candidates throughout the process.
Emily Bell: So that’s another level of ethics applied to that scenario where if you’re going to do that, you must do it for each and every individual, and you must try to be as streamlined in that approach as possible to incorporate fairness and equity into the process. But yeah, I think it’s totally equitable.
Emily Bell: I mean, we wouldn’t, you wouldn’t go into a major test that would determine a final grade of, you know, a class without studying just a bit, you know, and your professor is not going to give you all the answers, but they’re going to maybe guide you to the topics that you might want to study on. So it’s still a very good assessment of, you know, what you know internally, what your natural instincts are. And, I think asking candidates to go into conversations completely blind, may work out. Some people are really good at that and some people aren’t. And it really is no indicator on whether or not they’d be good at the role. I’ve seen people be really good at interviewing and not necessarily good at the tactical execution of said role.
Emily Bell: It’s not often, but it can happen. And so I don’t think that, you know, I think sometimes companies might worry that if they give too much information that they’re, you know, spoon feeding responses. And I think it’s, I think it’s really, really rare that that happens. I think sometimes from the perspective of a company, like, you know, all that, you know, and you sometimes, especially if you’ve been there for a while, you forget that other.
Emily Bell: Like, external candidates, like, might not know the inner workings. They’re, they’re hearing everything for the first time. And so that information overload alone, constitutes a need for giving them at least, you know, high level direction on on where they might want to take it or prepare. But yeah, I think we’re all kind of aligned on on that high level, but curious if you have an ending thought, Krissy.
Krissy Manzano: Well, I have a question, actually. So, some people would say, okay, that’s great. But… I, I don’t want to hire people that I have to explain what I’m expecting out of this presentation, this discovery call. Like, if they don’t know that right away, then they’re not the right candidate for us. Like, if I have to outline, you know, this is what I want you to prep for, then they’re not the right candidate. Otherwise, I’m not going to trust that. Like, they really understand those basics around whatever role they’re hiring for. How would you, how would you respond to that?
Emily Bell: I think, two things. I would respond with a question. I would ask them what their onboarding process looked like. And if their onboarding process is not streamlined and it is basically the expectation of that person to be able to come in and very much self lead and self manage, not a bad idea to make sure that you’re onboarding process, which most, most folks that are in, you know, series B, series C and beyond have something like that formalized. I don’t think it’s that big of an issue. I think maybe for like early, early growth, that might be, you know, the scrappiness that you’re looking for. But I think more often than not, it’s an unneeded concern that, distracts from the actual thing that you’re looking to assess for, which is, do they have the skills to come in and do this role? Not do they have the skill to read my mind? Yeah. I’m curious what you think, Lizzy.
Lizzy Castro: I agree with that. 100%. I think that’s sometimes where hiring managers and like maybe the recruiters and the candidate, they can all be misaligned on what’s happening in the process. I also think too when you’re coaching candidates, you are basically testing the candidate to see if they’re coachable for any position.
Lizzy Castro: You’re not, again, you’re not, I’m not giving you the answers. I’m telling you, Hey, Emily, Krissy really liked you, but in your final presentation, going in, we really need to see your closing skills because on the mock call, you didn’t go for the close as strongly as you said you did in the first initial interview.
Lizzy Castro: So really focus on that. If then Emily goes into the interview and she won either doesn’t do it, then she clearly can’t take the coaching advice. Sorry, Emily.
Emily Bell: Yeah. Good example.
Lizzy Castro: she does do it. That’s something that hiring manager should be like, okay, this candidate took the feedback they were able to be coached and they applied it and then they crushed it.
Lizzy Castro: So, I think that’s definitely one of the big pros in all of this is you are testing the candidate to see, are they coachable or not?
Emily Bell: Yeah.
Krissy Manzano: Totally.
Emily Bell: true. Interviews shouldn’t feel like a gotcha. You know, like you should want them to succeed. It’s like going to watch a really good show, you know? Like you really want that person on stage to like do their best. It makes everybody feel more comfortable. But they still have to do their part to show up on that day and perform.
Emily Bell: And you can’t fake it. You can’t fake the preparation. So I would agree with you 100%. I think that it’s better. There could be scenarios where you might lead someone in a direction that they may not have gone in before, but if they can take that direction and crush it, like, that’s the type of employee that more often than not is going to be really successful.
Lizzy Castro: I also think too, for just one of my final thoughts, if we didn’t coach candidates and help them improve during the interview process. No, we would not, any company would not be getting hires in a timely fashion. It would take a lot longer and I think it would complicate a lot of things. So being able to coach these candidates in the right way without giving them all the answers and also the questions to it, I think really helps just also smooth out the interview process too and candidate experience.
Krissy Manzano: Yeah. I, I agree. I mean, I think Lizzy, your point was really valid in the sense of, you know, the coaching element of like implementing feedback. The only thing I would say I slightly disagree with when you said, Emily, there are, it’s rare, but there are some people that are really good at interviewing.
Krissy Manzano: I think it’s even rarer than rare. I think like this notion that, like, people are such good interviewers, like, if it is more around companies having bad hiring processes and relying on guts to interview people. They made me feel good. They’re not a good interviewer, they just made you feel good.
Krissy Manzano: And because you have no process, you couldn’t sniff that out. Which you would have if you had a good hiring process really easily. I honestly, we’ve been doing recruiting for almost four years now. And from being operators beforehand, I literally can’t tell you the number of times when you give people an outline of what they need to follow if they don’t have the skills, they can’t, they won’t do it.
Krissy Manzano: I mean, I literally just got out of an interview with someone who, I asked a question to three times. I’m like, well, this is what I’m looking for. This is, this is what I mean by that. And they couldn’t provide that information because they don’t have that experience. Like, and that’s a little bit different than what we’re talking about.
Krissy Manzano: But this, you want people to feel comfortable and understand what you’re looking for in order to see if they can show you. If, you know, if I’m asking someone to go kick a soccer ball, you know, the top left hand corner and they don’t have that skill set, like, you know, and that ability, they’re not going to be able to do it unless it’s a fluke, right?
Krissy Manzano: Which is very unlikely. And so I think we have really underestimate how powerful skills are here. You want to see what their skills are. You wouldn’t ask a rep to do a demo without ever showing them what it looks like. I mean, you literally can show someone a perfect demo. Walk them through everything and say go do it and if they don’t have the skill set or experience they’re gonna flunk right like it’s no different in interviewing.
Krissy Manzano: They’re like yes I mean you could technically give someone the perfect answers, but this isn’t about giving answers. It’s about making sure someone understands what they should be prepared for so all that to say I think you all make great points. That’s all the time that we have today, but I think we should review how we look at coaching as, instead of looking at it as a negative, looking at it as a positive to weed out the people.
Krissy Manzano: Because we, people will show you who they are if you let them, right? But if you try to do gotchas and stuff like that, you’re gonna miss, the folks that, you know, you should be weeding out. So, great thoughts today, y’all. Until next time, we’ll see you later. Bye.
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Hmm, what does this mean anyhow?! We recommend defining the skills and behaviors sought before running a search rather than using buzzwords or phrases from other people’s job descriptions. We help employees go beyond acronyms to ensure they develop robust job descriptions that tie to specific candidate profiles for targeting in the market. Need help? Let us know!
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Check out the roundtable discussion our leadership team recently held on the topic of post-interview thank-you notes.
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Make sure you prep before every interview, particularly by reviewing the company website, recent new articles, and the LinkedIn profiles of relevant interviewers and company leaders.
Consider business casual attire - ask your recruiter for any additional guidance. Try to make sure that you are able to sit front and center facing your camera - test it with friends prior to running an interview. If you need to take a call by phone, it’s best to let your recruiter or the hiring manager know in advance, and offer them an option to reschedule if they prefer.
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How do you charge for your services?
We have multiple services packages, depending on the needs of our clients. Please reach out to us for more information, and see our sales recruitment services page for a breakdown of our packages.
Do you recruit outside of the US and Canada?
What roles do you recruit?
- Customer Success: Standard, Senior, and Principal Customer Success Managers, Onboarding Specialists, Implementation Managers, Community, Customer Support, & Solutions Architects
- Marketing: Growth & Demand Generation Marketing, ABM, Events, and Content / SEO Marketing
- Sales: Sales Development, SMB, Commercial, Mid-Market, Enterprise, and Strategic Account Executives
- Account Management
- Revenue Operations and Enablement: Marketing, CS, and Sales Operations
- Solutions Engineering and Post-Sales Solutions Architects
- GTM Leadership: Front-line, second-line, VP, and SVP / C Level placements (CRO, CMO, COO)
I've worked with so many headhunters and recruiting firms. What makes you different?
Put simply, we aspire to be as proficient in articulating your business value prop as your internal employees. Exceptional talent does not want to speak with “head-hunters;” instead, they want to connect with educated ambassadors of your business and your brand about meaningful career opportunities.
We go deep on your business and into talent markets to foster connections that other recruiting firms tend to miss. And we work with our hiring clients to ensure excellence in their hiring process. Please reach out to us for more information!
Is SaaS experience important when hiring?
Hmm, what does this mean anyhow?! We recommend defining the skills and behaviors sought before running a search rather than using buzzwords or phrases from other people’s job descriptions. We help employees go beyond acronyms to ensure they develop robust job descriptions that tie to specific candidate profiles for targeting in the market. Need help? Let us know!