Don’t Hire Workaholics

I happened to see a clip tonight of Mr. Wonderful talking about how he finds great hires. The title of the clip caught my attention: “Don’t hire workaholics.”

I was intrigued — I have my own theories on the topic, but it’s always interesting to hear the perspectives of other successful people. No one successful has gotten there without making a hiring mistake — lots of them. And like you, I have made my own hiring mistakes, some that cost us a great deal of money and energy and lost time in regret (useless emotion, screed on that another day). Every one of those “mistakes” seemed like a great fit on paper and in the interview process.

Mr. Wonderful’s comments took me down a path of thinking about how asking about hobbies and outside interests could become a more strategic part of the interview process. Most of us ask about hobbies, especially if there is a blurb on the resume, but it’s largely treated as a cursory question in the bucket of “getting to know you” versus a strategic tool in the interview toolbox.

Questions about hobbies give you a good understanding of a person’s curiosity, motivation, priorities, willingness to make mistakes, and ability to be creative.

For example, someone who is still playing an instrument that they learned in high school is a great example of someone who is committed and willing to put in time that does not have a direct, immediate pay off. You could ask more questions about what they enjoy about playing the instrument, what their favorite experience was while doing that, who their favorite musician or teacher is and why, etc. Do they enjoy playing sheet music, playing by ear, classical, jazz, etc? Were they in marching band? Our oldest son Sebastian, an aerospace engineer, still plays the French horn — he plays beautifully but mostly for himself these days; when questioned, he says music is all math to him. He doesn’t see notes, he sees numbers. He doesn’t work for me (I don’t have any aerospace engineering jobs or I’m sure he would!), but if I were his employer, that would tell me a lot about how he is going to approach solving problems.

Someone who says, “I’m learning to do something new” is a good example of a person willing to live in the discomfort of not knowing how to do something, a willingness to make mistakes and be wrong, to gain a new skill set. Are they teaching themselves, or are they going to formal lessons? Nothing wrong with either answer, but I believe it would give you insight to how that person learns best and how willing they would be to learn in less formal ways; you could go in better equipped for the amount of formal training that person will require.

If their hobby involves competitions, that should trigger a pause to suss out is it for the achievement of winning, or is it for the joy of learning? We all enjoy winning, but is the winning for the team or is it for the individual? If they respond “for the team,” ask questions about how they contributed to the team experience. Listen for “we” statements over “I” statements. Look for stories where the hero of the story is the teammate, not themselves, a story of how they would have failed if they didn’t have a team.

As an employer, gaining insight on how much time a hobby takes and what the goals are around it would be helpful. If work is what a person “gets through” in order to go do their hobby, they are impaired at work, and it will show up in their performance as soon as they are past the first blush of onboarding. While their body is with you, their mind is busy planning how quickly they can get away from you to go do the thing they really love. When probed, I hear comments like, “I couldn’t figure out how to get paid for it, but it’s my real passion.” Major warning flag. Let me be clear: we don’t want workaholics, but we also don’t want to be last on someone’s priority list.

Beware the person who says, “My hobby is work” or “I don’t have any hobbies.” You are buying a lot of problems with immaturity, emotional stuntedness, and poor relationship building. Work is their escape hatch from having to deal with reality, and that is a terrifying prospect. Because it will come crashing down, and trust me, the fallout from that toxicity is a lava hellscape that will burn you and everything around them.

I’ve asked our team to put some formality into creating questions in this vein. I’m not sure we would go this deep in a first interview, but we intend to make it a bigger part of the process.

The video clip with Mr. Wonderful’s comments:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPWf0e8Ee7A/?igsh=MWt6YTcyeW8wOXNuMQ==

P.S. If you are wondering about my hobbies, I’m quirky and eccentric: I love driving — mountain roads are the best! — and I’m a Porsche girl; whiskey connoisseur; cooking and baking; reading; music — Eminem and Chris Stapleton, piano when I have time, and guitar that I am struggling to learn; travel; baseball, hockey, and the Buffalo Bills; needlework and quilting; vintage shopping at thrift stores and estate sales with my sisters. Most of all, I am obsessed with the wonder of life.