03.08.2024 Today’s Insights from Harvard Business Review: How You Can Demonstrate Critical Thinking Skills in an Interview
Dear Students,
Outside of interview coaching sessions, ambitious MCI international students like you may rarely encounter the term “critical thinking.” While it’s something you likely do all the time, it’s also a term that’s challenging to define and put into context. As the 3 co-authors (Christopher Frank, Paul Magnone and Oded Netzer) of the HBR article below describe it, “critical thinking requires the candidate to carefully and logically analyze facts and form a judgment.”
While this piece is intended to help hiring leaders recruit more effectively (as, according to one recent study, 76% of hiring staff say that attracting quality candidates like you is their biggest challenge), it would seem to be equally useful for young professionals, like you and your friends, who are hoping to impress such individuals during interviews! As with most skills, candidates (yes, you!) will learn from the writers (who hail from Google, American Express and Columbia Business School, respectively) that preparation for what these experts call the “flip interview” – essentially those sometimes-awkward situations when the interviewer opens up the discussion for the aspiring professional (which could one day be you!) to lead – is key.
https://hbr.org/2023/09/how-to-evaluate-a-job-candidates-critical-thinking-skills-in-an-interview?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_campaign=dailyalert_actsubs&utm_content=signinnudge&deliveryName=DM295469
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The oldest and still the most powerful tactic for fostering critical thinking is the Socratic method, developed over 2,400 years ago by Socrates, one of the founders of Western philosophy. The Socratic method uses thought-provoking question-and-answer probing to promote learning. It focuses on generating more questions than answers, where the answers are not a stopping point but the beginning of further analysis. Hiring managers can apply this model to create a different dialogue with candidates in a modern-day organization.
hbr.org
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Our coaches are here to help students like you to “use your analytical skills on your own behalf,” by thinking through how you might respond in such scenarios, so as to differentiate yourself. As Frank, Magnone and Netzer point out, doing so will require college students and new grads, like you and your peers, to leverage a critical thinking mindset and a critical thinking philosophy, both of which echo yesterday’s article reflecting the importance of the Western value of curiosity and the power of asking questions.
Which new, insightful questions can you ask yourself, and those around you, this weekend?
Best,
Amy-Louise