How to get the best out of an interview and avoid bad hires.
Interviews are a two-way street and although it’s you the prospective employer in the driving seat your potential next best hire is also figuring you out too. Make sure your interviewee's experience is a positive one and be it at your peril to not prepare!
Prepare
Know what it is you are recruiting for: This might sound daft, but often it’s not always the final decision maker in the initial meeting, and team members are often brought in to do the first selection. Make sure they have a clear understanding of the role, key responsibilities, and required skills and cultural fit prior to the meeting.
Review the candidate's CV and background: Don’t just turn up for the meeting without taking some time to review your candidate's CV and online profile or your questioning won’t uncover the layers beneath the text on the paper.
Take time to Prepare: Create a mix of open-ended, behavioral, and technical questions and focus on questions that highlight their skills and attitude that are tailored to the role they have applied for.
Mitigate unconscious bias: If you can, get a work colleague involved to help with scripted questions. Your impression might be different from your teammate, bringing the two together can help with objectional thinking and it will give you time to observe when they are making notes.
Create a Relaxed Atmosphere
Break the ice: Make your candidate feel comfortable with some light conversation and then explain how the format of the meeting will run.
Go through the role and the company culture: Convey the company’s history, values and culture, and the importance of the role. This helps position the questions you will be asking and will help quell any fear of nasty surprises.
Encourage two-way communication: Make it clear that the candidate can ask questions at any point. This makes the interview feel less like an interrogation and more like a conversation.
Use the situational questions
Competency-based interviews are where each question is designed to test one or more specific skill. The answer is then matched against pre-decided criteria and marked accordingly. For example, you may want to test the candidate’s ability to deal with pressure by asking first how they generally handle stress and then asking the candidate to provide an example of a situation where they worked under pressure.
A question like “What can you offer our company?” will help to gather general information but it doesn’t convey any specific skill or competency, whilst questions relating to behaviour in specific circumstances that are backed up with concrete examples can be expanded further by asking for specific explanations off the back of their answers.
Some examples of the types of questions can be situational questions with hypothetical scenarios skills-based questions with factual scenarios to culturally based questions that help highlight values.
Assess the soft skills
How well do they communicate? How clearly and confidently does your interviewee express ideas?
Problem-solving: How well do they address challenges, both technical and non-technical.
Adaptability: Ask how they handle changing priorities, new challenges, or failure.
Teamwork: Ask for examples of when they have worked in a group or how they have interacted with teammates and managers.
Body language
Body language can give a lot away indicating their level of confidence, interest, or discomfort. Look for telltale signs like eye contact, facial expressions, closed postures, verbal expressions, and posture.
Make time for Candidate Questions
A powerful tool that can decide the fate of the candidate who has not prepared. It’s probable that most questions would have been covered off during the meeting, but by asking ‘What question do you have for us’? instead of ‘Do you have any questions’ will prompt the candidate to raise a question and swing the interview 180 degrees.
This tactic can be quite powerful because:
1. It shows curiosity: Candidates who have researched the company or position will likely have significant questions that show they’re engaged and interested.
2. It tests critical thinking: The question offers a chance to see how well candidates think on their feet and how they prioritise information.
3. It can reveal cultural fit: The type of questions asked may also give insights into what the candidate values in a job, such as future growth opportunities, or team dynamics.
4. It reverses the interview dynamic: This will help demonstrate their level of confidence and interest beyond just securing the role.
Evaluating Cultural Fit
Consider how well the candidate’s values and working style line up with your company’s culture. While skills can be learned, a misalignment in culture could lead to future dissatisfaction from both sides of the fence.
Cultural fit is one of the most important considerations when selecting new staff. It can be hard to ascertain exactly how a new employee will fit in for the long term, and there are no guarantees that your choices will be right every time, but by aligning interview questions with company values the risk of putting a square peg in a round hole can be mitigated.
Be Consistent and Fair
Use the same evaluation criteria for all candidates to avoid unconscious bias and take notes during the interview to help you remember key points about each candidate. Use a candidate scoring matrix to help you compare fairly and equally.
Follow Up
Provide a timeline: Let the candidate know when they can expect to hear from you and stick to this timeline.
Share feedback: Try and provide constructive feedback to candidates who weren’t selected. It reflects well on the company and will help to improve your brand as an employer.
In conclusion: A well-conducted interview should provide a complete view of the candidate’s skills, personality, and cultural fit. Sticking to a set formula will help eliminate the risk of a bad hire, but setting up an interview framework can be a minefield, especially if you are unsure where to start.
One-to-one Personnel has developed a reliable hiring framework aimed at streamlining the entire recruitment process, from planning to onboarding. Their suite of tools likely includes resources for job analysis, candidate screening, interview techniques, and onboarding strategies, all designed to reduce the risk of bad hires and promote consistency.
From the planning stage right through to the onboarding, make bad hiring a thing of the past!
