The interview is another important part of the hiring process. It is not the only thing you will rely on to make your hiring decision, but it is valuable because it gives you a chance meet and interact with the potential employee. It allows both of you to “check out” each other and assess whether you might be able to work well together. Here are three steps you can take to get the best results from your interview with potential job candidates

1. For Best Interview Results Take Control of the Interview.

Many companies use a panel of employees to carry out the interview. All panelists may not be aware of certain HR best practices as it relates to interviews. It is ideal to provide the panel with an overview of how you want to interview to play out. Think of how you can standardize the process so that each member of the panel can be on the same page. One way I have managed this is by creating a pool of questions ahead of time. Brief the panelists before the interview and you may want to decide who will ask which question. When you create a question bank ahead of time, you ensure that all the interviewees are asked similar questions and you also prevent panelists from introducing questions that may be inappropriate and off putting.

2. For Best Interview Results Use a Combination of Question Type

To increase your chances of getting the best information from candidates, use a combination of question type.

Behavioral  Questions – These are open ended questions that allow the interviewees to describe how they have responded in prior work-related situations. These are very helpful because they allow you to project how a potential employee may behave based on how they handled a situation in the past. However, keep in mind that no system of interview question is fool proof.

Situational Questions – In this type of question you ask the interview to describe a situation that could happen in a job role and how he or she would react in that situation. This is somewhat different from the behavioral questions because you are not asking them to describe an experience but instead to respond to a hypothetical situation. This requires analysis and the ability to make good judgement.

Structured Questions – You will ask specific questions based on job-related requirements. Here you are trying to get enough information to substantiate the skills and professional preparation and experience the applicant has with the type of position you are trying to fill. An example may be “what accounting software are you proficient at using? Another example relating to language proficiency could be “How would you rate your level of proficiency in written communication in Spanish?

3. For Best Interview Results Create a Rating Scale

Create a rating scale to use to grade the performance of the interviewees. All the panelists will use this rating scale to assign scores to each candidate. Again, this is one of the things that you will discuss with the panelist as you prep them before the interview as mentioned in point # 1 ‘take control of the interview’. Using a rating scale helps to create more validity to the interview results. Interviewees will not be left to randomly make judgements based on their bias and gut feeling, but will use the scale to give structure to how they appraise the candidate.

Conclusion

Interviews can be very subjective, and we do not rely on them alone to make hiring decisions. An interview does not automatically reveal all you need to know about the candidate. It does provide information that cannot be picked up from just reading a resume or application form. But if you want to get the best results from this time-tested method of assessing a job candidate take the three steps outlined above and watch your hiring decisions improve. You can download our Hiring Checklist and sign up for the Hiring Sequence for more help to improve your hiring results.  See another blog post on hiring .. HIGH IMPACT HIRING NEEDS A PROCESS

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