How to Hire Top Talent to Build High Performing STEM Teams

How to Hire Top Talent to Build High Performing STEM Teams

My 6 tips and tricks for how to hire top talent in STEM teams!

Hiring new talent is one of my favorite aspects of being a leader. In science and customer support roles, I often get to interact with new graduates and experienced candidates who love science and enjoy helping customers. As someone deeply passionate about the intersection of customer support, leadership, and the STEM fields, I have also seen firsthand how bias in hiring and inconsistent interviewing techniques can impact the foundation of high-performing teams. I've made mistakes myself; I've asked the wrong questions or allowed my bias to impact my decisions.

My Top 6 Tips to Hire Top Talent and Building High-Performing Teams

After interviewing and hiring over 50 team members over the years, I've collected some of the best practices on hiring for your team. If you are interviewing, these tips will help you understand a bit more about the hiring process so you can adapt your interview accordingly.

Know Yourself, Know Your Bias – Personal biases during the interview process can prevent you from hiring top talent. Don’t let this happen! Study your biases and be aware of them when hiring. One of my biases is that I tend to align with individuals who are more outspoken or extroverted. Because I know this about myself, I make a point to engage with people who may be quieter or more thoughtful in their responses. Interestingly, most of my best hires have been wildly different from me (thankfully!). Additionally, make it a priority to seek out candidates with diverse backgrounds, identities, and experiences.

Include Your Team – Interviewing is a great opportunity to help your team build and mature their leadership skills. I love including team members and coaching them on good interviewing practices. This also allows them to have a say in who they may potentially work with! Ensure you create an interview plan that includes team members with diverse backgrounds and experience. This promotes inclusivity and reduces bias throughout the interview process. It also ensures that your team has a voice at the table and increases the likelihood that your candidate feels included in the process.

Make It a Great Experience for Your Candidate – Interviewing is a two-way street. Your candidates are also interviewing you and your company. Treat all candidates with kindness and respect. Show up to interviews on time, dress appropriately, and provide examples of why they might want to work with your team and organization. I always leave 10 to 15 minutes at the end of an interview for the candidate to ask questions. It’s important to me that they have the opportunity to ask questions so they can make an informed decision about their job selection.

Past Behaviors Indicate Future Success – This is a well-known practice in hiring (and in relationships, haha!). Past behavior is the best indicator of future performance. By asking behavior-based questions and then following up with specific questions, you can uncover how your candidate operates. One of my favorite interview questions for support team members is:

Behavior based questions and follow up questions are the key to identifying and hiring top talent.

This line of questioning should provide a specific example of when they had to solve an unfamiliar problem. You’ll gain insight into how they approached the solution (did they use documentation, training, peers, or their manager?). By asking what they learned from the experience, you can assess whether they have a growth mindset—can they learn, accept feedback, and incorporate it into future success?

Pay Attention to High-Value Skills – Certain skills are hard to coach once you hire someone. Trust me, it is challenging to coach someone who may be defensive when accepting difficult feedback or have a more fixed mindset (as in they resistant to change). Many skills are coachable, and are much easy to coach on when someone is adaptable. I have seen individuals with a growth mindset are more often to receiving coaching and feedback, process this and use it to improve their performance. A person who can accept difficult feedback, incorporate it, and come back with a solution or new idea is a candidate you will want to hire!

Move Fast – I don’t believe in a slow, drawn-out hiring process. Make every effort to streamline your interview process to respect everyone’s time and hire your new team member quickly! I recently revised an interview plan to reduce presentations and focus more on behavior-based questions. It’s not fair to ask candidates to spend 10+ hours crafting multiple presentations, and as a hiring manager, you likely won’t gain more information from them than you would from targeted behavioral or situational questions.

Now Go Out There and Hire (or Interview!) with Confidence!

I hope my tips and tricks inspire you to reflect on how you hire or approach your own interviews. By focusing on these areas, you will grow your skills as a hiring manager and gather more valuable information during interviews. What are your best hiring practices, tips, and tricks? Leave a comment below—I’d love to learn from you!