Humility vs Arrogance – assessing in the hiring process

Published on September 23, 2017

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Recently I interviewed a rookie candidate, just graduated, with no industry experience. He told me that he would be awesome at the job, would be the best, he would be great at anything he put his hand to. I have to say, his confidence was impressive and he certainly said all the right things of how he would achieve this, but what he lacked was humility .

Not only in sales, but across the board, I think humility is highly linked to emotional intelligence and this is something which is incredibly hard to teach (often it is innate). Often a lack of humility can also lead to arrogance which is a trait which most people don’t warm to very well (I am sure you will agree). When hiring your team I think it is important to assess these traits, not only for team or culture fit but also in relation to your customers and what personalities they like to deal with.

So how do we assess this at interview? I have collated some questions which I think will allow you to tease out humility vs arrogance to help you build the best team you can!

Do you ever feel like you are missing a certain skill?
The short answer you want to hear here is yes. You want the candidate to tell you that actually there is a particular skill they think they are missing and what they are doing to improve this i.e. are they doing training, are they taking a course in their own time etc? If the candidate struggles to tell you what they are doing for development or even says a flat no, more often than not it is due to a lack of humility and they simply don’t identify any areas of improvement.
Can you tell me the last time you made a mistake and how did you handle that?
You want to hear that they firstly owned up to the mistake, apologised to people involved and tried to do everything they could to resolve the problem. Many answers I have received to this question involve telling their manager and hoping the manager would sort out the issue; obviously this isn’t ideal either. Someone who has humility would make him/herself accountable and (maybe with the assistance of their manager) and aim to rectify the problem as soon as possible with as few issues as possible for everyone involved.
Describe the type of relationships you have with your colleagues.
Someone who builds long lasting and professional relationships with their colleagues is a sign of a good employee and often someone who has humility. Sometimes I will go further into this question and ask How would the others in your team describe you? This will give you further insight into the candidate’s professional relationships and their daily attitude to work.

Hopefully these questions are helpful in your next hiring process and help you to find the next member of your team.

Humility (noun) – The quality of having a modest view of one’s importance.

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