As the employment market explodes, the candidates of today are blessed with ample choices to make and engage with employers that complement their skills, availability, and even lifestyle. Subsequently, the role of the recruiters becomes more than imperative to select the right candidate; someone who resonates with the organization’s philosophy and vision. Post profile screenings and initial invitation calls, personal interviews must do the heavy lifting so that the best resources are brought on board. While choking schedules may not allow you to prepare well, unplanned interviews often discourage deserving candidates to consider joining post-selection and that’s the least you had wanted. Please have look at some of the useful Tips to Conduct Interviews
Prepare Well With Technical Questions
You need to have basic knowledge of the role you will be hiring candidates for and the eligibility criteria the candidate must fulfill. You need to have a list of basic questions to ask all the candidates to assess them afterward. You can have some “what if” questions in your mind and their legit responses that may follow. You need to take care if your candidate is too shy to give deep answers and floats in the ocean of generic answers. You need to ask questions appropriate to dive delve. This is one of the great tips to Conduct Successful Interviews.
Ease the atmosphere and keep it stress free
The idea is to unlatch a candidate’s potential to the maximum level while restrained environments kill the process. More than an interview, it has to be a productive conversation where both ends resonate with the needed positivity. A few preemptive steps can control stress levels. It is absolutely fine to schedule the interview as per the candidate’s comfort. Moreover, you must introduce the preferred topics or may even reward the candidate with an initial choice as the process begins. This is also one of the best tips to Conduct Interviews to kick off hard questioning ahead.
Never Lead the Conversation
Talk less and listen more! Don’t end up detailing all about your experience, opinions, and the organization at the cost of time limitations. Let the candidate utilize the opportunity and share more about their professional endeavors. Interfere only if the candidate is deviating from the In addition to listening, pay attention to an observation like dress code, posture, alertness, etc. You can proceed with providing insights about the company, your own management style.
Avoid biasing
Being humans, we can all do them as and when we come across any deal breakers. In this competitive job market, if you become too raucous about things that may not indicate how your candidate will turn out to be, you might be falling into a trap. Maybe you get a resume that may rock but you find a typo. This way, you might miss out on a candidate that could have been perfect for the position.
Have a consideration for “cultural fit” but don’t obsess over it.
People focus way too much at this point these days. They lookout for the ones who will be able to orient themselves with the culture of the organization. But, taking this point too seriously can bring you losses. You need to think about your company’s work environment and the orientation of your candidate. Is your candidate a short-term thinker or a long-term planner? Can he collaborate well in teams or is he an individual worker? And lots more. But, your perception of the disposition of your candidate will not indicate whether or not he/she will adapt to a culture that may be new. People can adapt but the real point you wanna know is, “Can they adjust?”
Ask real questions
You waste your time and breath asking silly questions like, “What are your weaknesses?” which may be equivalent to asking, “Lie to me.” You need to give them real problems and let them walk you through with a solution they perceive can solve the problem. Or, you may tell them some of the processes your company uses and ask them to point out loopholes or inefficiencies in them. For the position of an executive, you may ask questions like, “Have you ever been in a position where you needed to influence other people who were not your direct reports for doing something, to persuade them? How did they do it?”
Take notes
Keeping all the things in mind about a candidate can be a tough task. You can always take notes about how you feel about the candidate and various responses to various tests you put up for him/her. Taking good notes can help you review any candidate later on. If you are bad at this, you can always consider having a person in the room responsible for just the same.
Be clear about your restrictions
There needs to be a clear understanding of the questions you just cannot ask a candidate. You just need to ask questions that relate to the job profile he/she is interviewing for and at the periphery of their personal life. Don’t get too personal for you may end up with a discrimination lawsuit for steering down the road with questions centered around age, race, country of origin, color, religion, marital status, etc.
Conduct behavioral interviews
Analyzing behavioral patterns can help you. Looking at some of the past behavioral patterns of the candidate can help you, being an indicator of how your candidate might behave in the future. There’s no guaranteed and exhaustive list of steps that if performed, you will get that perfect candidate. Questions that instigate the candidate to draw their states of mind from events that have occurred before will be better than those which ask the candidate, “What would you do if…” Behavioral interviews can demand some preparation and practice but the investment’s worth it.
