Once, I had to hire five people in two weeks. The first day, I interviewed about ten people. By the end of the day, I couldn’t remember which was which, or who said what. So on Day 2, I had a plan. I asked each person when the last time they dressed up for Halloween was, and what was their costume.
Not only did I get a lot of good costume ideas (my favorite was a two person costume: one wore hospital scrubs on the top and camouflage on the bottom, the other wore the camouflage on the top and scrubs on the bottom. You’ll have to keep reading if you can’t figure it out), I discovered the answers told a lot about the interviewee. And I had an image of each person in their costume to help my memory.
The interviewees who said they didn’t remember tended to bores. Almost everyone was surprised by the question. Some launched into great stories that gave us insight into their personalities. By the end of the week, my boss and I were referring to the applicants by their costumes instead of their names.
By the way, the masqueraders above were “upper” and “lower” GI’s. Pretty clever. Happy Halloween.
