The Attitude Interview™
More than skills: Let’s explore what makes you, you
The Attitude Interview is an interview stage that was put together by a team of talent professionals and Reaktor consultants.
Details
Duration: 90 minutes
Interviewers: Two people from the Talent Acquisition team, unless otherwise stated
Location: Google Meet
Background
The Attitude Interview is an interview stage that was put together by a team of talent professionals and Reaktor consultants.
This interview stemmed from reading a few books, but mostly comes from Hiring for Attitude by Mark Murphy. Murphy emphasizes the importance of hiring employees based on their attitude rather than solely on skills and experience. The central idea is that while skills can be taught, attitude is a more ingrained and decisive factor in long-term job performance and cultural fit.
Workshopping together, Reaktorians considered what makes people successful at Reaktor specifically — Murphy himself says that what makes people successful does vary from company to company.
One of the big points from Murphy is to avoid common errors such as hiring based on likability and overemphasizing technical skills — this means removing affinity bias.
What is an Attitude Interview?
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Everyone at Reaktor goes through some version of this interview
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It is a selection of questions that assess your non-technical skills. Later in the process we discuss your technical/hard skills for the specific role you’re interviewing for — it is a deliberate choice to do our Attitude round early on
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What is the ‘right’ attitude? This does not exist — people are complex. In Reaktor we have low hierarchy, self-organising teams, and our client work can involve complex people and communication challenges. Software Consulting involves both talking and building, and interpersonal challenges can be the hardest to tackle
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Further, working in Reaktor’s network-based culture means that things such as back-office hierarchy are often tricky to understand. We do not have clear org charts mapping who to ask for what
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Therefore we ask open questions about your past workplace experiences, in order to understand if you have encountered similar challenges in your past
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Stopping the process after the Attitude round doesn’t mean that you’re a ‘bad’ candidate or won’t be extremely successful in another environment. It means that your stories did not show us clearly that you will thrive in our low-hierarchy, communication-heavy environment
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We are optimistic, we have the intention to hire and there are no trick questions!
What should I expect?
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This is a 60 to 90-minute (role dependent) video-call interview with two non-technical interviewers
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No need to panic if your interview doesn’t last the full allotted time — we schedule plenty of time to be safe, sometimes they run a little under
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There will be some introductions at the start of the conversation, followed by the questions, and there will be time at the end to ask questions about Reaktor
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Both interviewers will be writing separate notes, so there might be silence while people finish typing!
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Interviewers will keep an eye on time and ensure each answer is clearly understood before moving onwards
What should I talk about?
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Think about one specific experience or situation, based in your past, and talk us through it — the classic S.T.A.R method is a good starting point for storytelling in interviews
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Avoid hypothetical or theoretical answers — we are interested in one story with all the small details included
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You’ll be interviewed by non-technical Reaktorians, so talk to us like we’re non-technical clients/colleagues
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Stories can involve technical context and details, but please bear in mind that we are more interested in the communication and people aspects
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Whilst we love hearing about teamwork, we really want to understand your role in a project — so remember to use a healthy dose of “I”
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Your stories can come for any industry or time in your career — we care about your mindset and actions, not about the company you worked for at the time
How should I prepare?
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The best way to prepare is to refresh yourself on your CV and past companies you have worked with
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Think back to your past experiences, both professionally and personally, people you have met, teams you have worked in, and meaningful incidences that have occurred