Behavioral Interviewing, in simple terms

“The best predictor of future performance is past performance”

If you've ever been in an interview and heard a question that started with "Tell me about a time...", then you've experienced a behavioral interview question. Behavioral interviewing is said to be 55% predictive of future on-the-job behavior, while traditional interviewing is only 10% predictive. As a result, more companies are adopting Behavioral Interviewing methods. Don't let the name intimidate you; the process is quite simple. All you need to remember is "STAR"; is that simple enough?

STAR serves as an acronym for the outline of a behavioral interview question and stands for:

• Situation / Task
• Action
• Result

In a behavioral interview, the objective is to learn about a candidate through a series of questions that draw on his/her past experiences: situations faced, actions taken, results delivered. If an interviewer wants to learn about a candidate's managerial experience, he might ask "What was one of the more difficult employee situations you've dealt with in recent years." From this starting point, a skilled interviewer can delve into a variety of questions: What were the circumstances surrounding it? What actions did you take? What other actions did you consider? What led to follow the path you took? What was the outcome? Given the opportunity, would you have done anything differently?

As you can see, this one question can lead to long list of other questions. It's possible to spend 5-10 minutes on one question with the STAR outline. This is when an interviewer begins to truly understand a candidate: how they identified the problem, assessed the situation, determined a course of action, experienced the results and what they learned in the process. Best of all, everything is based on a candidate's first hand experiences, not speculation or educated guesses on how they would handle something. As one of our partners is prone to say: "One is fiction until proven to be fact. The other is just plain fact."

One final thought: candidates should not feel obligated to come up with a stellar result for each question. A candidate's most valuable experience might have had a less than favorable outcome. However, this usually requires encouraging a candidate to speak openly and assuring them that a negative result does not necessarily demean their candidacy.

FDIC Opportunities, Part II- Navigating the RAC List

One of our recent posts focused on employment opportunities with the FDIC. However, most of those require prior experience with bank workouts and represent only a small portion of the total opportunities. For most real estate professionals, the gold mine of opportunities is with firms approved as primary subcontractors for the FDIC. These are the firms that actually manage the assets, determine values and strategies for liquidation, etc. For example, CB Richard Ellis is said to be targeting 600 new hires nationally for FDIC related projects. As more real estate portfolios end up in FDIC receivership, new positions will continue to surface with FDIC contractors requiring expertise in general operations, sales and marketing. Here's a strategy on pursuing those opportunities, sometimes before they've even been posted.

Step 1: The FDIC Receivership Assistance Contractors (RAC's)

The FDIC has published a list of firms approved to help with the management and liquidation of REO assets. The list is divided according to specialty or disciplines, some that appear to cross over each other. Your first task is to build a spreadsheet with the companies and contact names that could apply to your field of expertise. Don't be surprised if you end up pulling contacts from four or five of the listed groups; that alone should give you 30-40 potential employment contacts.

Step 2: Use Jigsaw.com to go beyond the immediate list

Here's an example of how to expand your reach with the RAC list: scroll down the RAC list to the second group that's focused on Owned Real Estate (ORE). The first subcontractor listed is CB Richard Ellis' Dallas office. A general email address is provided as well. You should certainly send your information there but I'd recommend going one step further by identifying one or two others in the same CBRE office whose titles indicate some involvement with asset management or liquidation. Using an online directory like Jigsaw will save loads of time and help you quickly identify who's who in a company. The monthly fee of $25 month is a bargain and allows up to 150 contacts to be pulled each month.

Don't stop there: use Jigsaw to determine if CBRE has an office in your local market... for example, Phoenix. Look for anyone in the Phoenix office with a title related to asset management, REO, distressed assets, FDIC, etc. If you find two or three potential contacts there, you now have 4-5 potential networking contacts vs. just one from the primary list. Repeat this for all the companies in your primary groups and soon you'll have 100-200 names on your spreadsheet. Note: make sure you capture the following for each contact: name, company, title, mailing address, email address and phone.

Step 3: Send each an email but don't attach a resume

Emails with attachments from unknown senders tend to get sidetracked by spam filters. You want to share the key details of your experience quickly and simply, without the need to open an attachment. Hence, we present the "Blackberry resume". It's clear, concise and can be easily read on a smartphone. Best of all, it's almost impossible to miss the keywords which really matter. Here's an example:

John... please keep me in mind if your future needs require a Phoenix based real estate finance professional. A brief summary of my experience:

• VP Finance- Gables Residential, a nationally recognized multifamily REIT
• VP Investments- Brookstone Capital, debt and equity partnerships for real estate projects
• Sr. Analyst- Deloitte & Touche, specialization in real estate and manufacturing

• BSBA- University of Arizona
• MBA- Arizona State University
• Licensed Real Estate Agent, Arizona

I'd be happy to forward a complete resume if you're interested. I'm available on a contract or full time basis. Thanks in advance for your consideration.

Bill Smith

bill.smith@anywhere.com

602-333-5555

Step 4: If you don't receive an email reply, send a resume by mail one week later

Your mail follow-up should include a cover letter that is virtually identical to the one above; the only change would be to the closing paragraph ("I've attached a complete resume..."). Resist the urge to ramble or write something longer; it will do more harm than good. The cover letter needs to clearly define who you are, what you do and where. Keep it short and sweet for maximum impact. The goal is to detail your experience in as few words as possible.