How To Conduct A Job Interview As An Employer

Gauging The Candidates Level Of Self

As you try to determine a candidates awareness of themselves and how they fit into organizations, consider opening your interview with a question like:

• Walk me through your progression in your career leading me up to your current role.

This is a good way to get a candidates job history as well as their view of their progression. Once you have their answer, follow up with questions such as:

• How have you had to reinvent your job in light of your organizations changing needs?
• What makes you stand out among your peers?
• What would your most respected critic say of your strengths, areas for development, and future potential in your field?

In addition to probing an individuals assessment of themselves, you also want to ask questions about how they assess their organizations, with questions like:

• How many employees does your company have?
• Whats your organizations annual revenue base?
• How is your department structured in terms of reporting relationships?
• How exactly does your company make money, and what are its two biggest expenses?

Depending on the level of the candidate youre interviewing, their responses can provide excellent insights into their level of business acumen and self-awareness.

Take The Right Amount Of Notes

Writing down useful notes makes it easy to remember each candidate and the experience you had with them. Instead of writing down what they say word for word, use keywords to remember important points of the interview. For example, if the candidate details their day-to-day work at their last job, you can write down one or two words for each responsibility. You can also highlight or circle certain parts of their resume and make notes in the margins.

Prepare For The Interview

Taking into account the checklist that you have put together of all the qualities you are looking for, prepare a list of questions that will help to assess the candidates suitability in relation to these factors. Though some of the questions will be more generic or related to the specific role, try to tailor some questions towards the individual and their background. Do your homework beforehand, by thoroughly reading the candidates CV to familiarise yourself with their work history. You can also learn a little more about a candidate by checking them out on social media, so that you can ask them about some of their interests or hobbies.

Also Check: Top 10 Behavioral Questions

Selecting The Right Participants

The most common setup for an interview is a one-on-one in-person interview. This allows for a more personal interview where you can connect with a candidate. Another option is a panel interview, which includes representatives from several roles within the company. However, it is important to carefully determine the people involved to avoid unnecessary information or an overload of information.

Also, consider whether you want to interview one candidate at a time or conduct a group interview with multiple candidates. During the initial hiring phase, a group interview can help assess numerous candidates quickly, but an individual interview creates a more personal environment.

Related:Types of Interview Formats and Styles

Design Your Game Plan

You and the rest of the hiring team are probably clear on what technical skills your new employee should have, but have you thought about what personality traitssuch as the ability to communicate directly, be quiet and analytical, or build relationshipswork best for the role? Is your job description merely a list of tasks, or does it tell the interviewee how the role is linked to the companys mission?

Once youve answered those questions, create a blueprint for the interview, with interview questions to ask at each phase that will help bring out the specific information youre looking for. You also want to be prepared for questions the candidate might ask youincluding inquiries about compensation.

Having a plan is useful, but think of it more like a set of guideposts than a strict road map. You want to come into any interview with a healthy dose of curiosity about the candidate, and if youre too worried about sticking to a rigid plan, you might miss the opportunity for spontaneous conversations that will help you learn more about the person youre considering for your team.

You May Like: System Design Interview Prep

Request Feedback About The Job Description

Its tempting to explain the role, going over each point in the job description and fleshing it out, but I dont recommend it, especially since it tends to make an anxious prospects eyes glaze over.

So instead of telling them about the role and rehashing whats listed on the posting they applied to, ask if the job description was clear. What questions do they have about it? This should spark a conversation rather than a monologue. It also shows you how thoughtful, prepared, and curious they are.

Based on your candidates questions, you can spend a few minutes clearing up any confusion and digging into the aspects of the job theyre most interested in. Plus, this conversation will tee you up to enter the next phase.

Select A Candidate And Follow Up With All Applicants

This is an important step, even though it comes last. Once you decide which candidate to hire, notify the chosen candidate to inform them. Also, thank the other applicants interviewed and let them know the outcome. Getting back to candidates even when they didnt get the job can help establish or grow an organizations reputation. Consider using multiple contact methods, like email and phone, to make sure all candidates receive notice.

Also Check: Questions To Ask A Cfo During An Interview

Consider The Style And Number Of Interviewers

Interviews can happen via video, over the phone, or in person, so consider what style of interview is best and plan accordingly. You can also determine how many people you need to hold an interview, like a panel of colleagues for a prominent role or multiple rounds of interviews for a high-level position. Involving other relevant leaders in the interview process can also be useful to get different perspectives on the candidates experience and abilities.

Share Next Steps In The Interview Process

Near the end of the interview, consider outlining the next steps for the candidate to help set expectations. For example, share your intended timeline of making a hiring decision, when they can expect to hear from the company, or if another round of interviews is likely. Allowing the candidate to ask clarifying questions can also help establish an understanding of the next steps and expectations, too.

Don’t Miss: Cfo Interview

Wasting Time During An Interview Can Cost You More Money Than You Might Think Use This Guide To Improve Your Interviewing Technique And Avoid Making Hiring Mistakes

At first blush, the job interview can seem like a simple enough meeting to conduct: shake hands, make small talk, ask questions, and compare the candidates. But how do you keep from hiring someone whose best skill is coming off well in a job interview?

“There’s actually a lot of preparation that goes into a good professional interview,” says Janis Whitaker, the author of Interviewing by Example. “Most people can’t wing it off of the top of their heads.”

The cost of a bad hire is steep, and it’s not just the wasted salary that’s expensive. Severance payments, training time, potential customer problems, and recruiting a replacement are all items that you’d prefer to leave out of your budget. Many experts estimate that the cost of a bad hire exceeds the annual salary of a position.

To prevent your company from making an expensive hiring mistake, it’s important to have an intentional process for conducting interviews. Here’s how to formulate questions and develop a process that will give you the most information for selecting a new employee.

“It is important that everyone on the team is on the same page with what the objective is and what the job entails,” says Jim Sullivan, the president of an executive recruiting firm called Galaxy Management Group. ” a candidate will come in to interview with one person and then be asked completely different questions by the second person because the second person thinks the job is about something else completely.”

Prepare The Candidate For The Job Interview

Weve said it before and well say it again: Job interviews are a scary process for a lot of candidates. When your candidate is at ease, youll get a better and more accurate impression of them as a potential team member. The best way to do this is to give your candidate a wonderful experience during your hiring process.Follow these steps after you’ve selected the candidates for the first round of interviews.

10. Share place & time

Make sure the candidate knows when and where the job interview will take place and what they can expect from the job interview. Explain the process and cover how many interview stages there will be, right from the get-go. Giving candidates all the information they need ahead of the interview will help put them at ease, allowing them to be their best on the day of the job interview.Heres what information we suggest sharing with candidates before their interview:

• Who theyll be having the interview with
• What topics youll be covering during the interview so they can prepare in advance
• How long the interview will last

11. Give some homework

Also Check: What Should Females Wear To A Job Interview

Start With The Basics And Work Up To More Detailed Answers

Start on a light note to set the candidate at ease. Chances are the person youâre interviewing is nervous. Theyâre excited about the job and want to put their best foot forward. Instead of playing into their nerves by jumping right into the hard-hitting interview questions, start on a lighter note. Let the interviewee get comfortable and hit their stride, so when you do ask those tough interview questions, theyâre in the best position to give you a revealing answer.

Create An Interview Scorecard Using A Rating Scale

Create a simple rating scale and use it to rate your candidates answers during the interview.

Record or take a few notes about candidates answers to justify the ratings you give.

Using a rating scale ensures you can use candidates overall scores to compare them with each other instead of relying on gut instinct and first impressions.

An example of an interview scorecard

Remember: our gut instincts can be very unreliable especially when it comes to candidates who are often masters at selling themselves. Use the data to hire instead.

Also Check: What To Wear For An Interview Women

Focus On The Candidate’s Presentation

Even though the candidate’s responses are one of the most important parts of the interview, the way they present themselves can also express their personality and basic qualities. Pay attention to their posture, facial expressions and attire. A candidate who sits up straight and makes eye contact is typically confident, while neat attire shows they care about the interview and position.

Why Are Interviews Important

A job interview is important for a number of reasons, as it can benefit both the hiring manager and the company as well as the potential candidate being interviewed. Interviewing candidates ensures you are hiring only the most qualified individuals for the open position. Without an effective interview process, you may end up hiring a person who is not the right fit for the company, the position or both.

Additional benefits of the job interview process include:

• It allows both parties to learn more about each other and determine the suitability of the job for the candidate.

• It enables the hiring manager to ask the interviewee important questions pertaining to their qualifications, skills and experience levels.

• It gives the interviewer a chance to ask more in-depth questions that the candidate’s application did not answer.

• It can prevent a company from wasting time and money on a candidate who is not the right fit for a position.

Most job positions require at least one interview, while some companies will ask candidates to go through multiple interviews before a selection is made. Regardless of the position, nearly all organizations can benefit from conducting interviews to fill open jobs.

Recommended Reading: Best System Design Interview Prep

Describe The Next Steps

When ending the interview, it is good to explain to the candidate what they can expect in terms of the next steps. We should also let them know when they should expect to hear back from us and how the rest of the interview process might look like.

When we know how to conduct a job interview, we can find out a lot more information from the job application and resume, making the interview more effective. We can prepare relevant interview questions beforehand, ensuring that we only select those candidates whose skills, experience, and personality aligns with the job in question. Basic preparation about how to conduct an interview can help us prevent costly hiring mistakes.

Questions Not To Ask In An Interview

Pre-employment interviews have traditionally been instruments for eliminating, at an early stage, unqualified persons from consideration for employment. They have also, unfortunately, often been used in such a way as to restrict or deny employment opportunities for women and members of minority groups.

If you have 15 or more employees, you are likely subject to federal laws prohibiting discrimination in hiring. Many states also have laws that mimic federal discrimination laws and apply them to smaller employers, sometimes even those employers who have one employee. Therefore, you are limited in what types of questions you can ask.

What if you’re not subject to anti-discrimination laws? Even if you are not subject to laws prohibiting certain types of inquiries, we recommend that you stay away from them.

Therefore, in seeking information from a job applicant, you should ask yourself:

• Will the answer to this question, if used in making a selection, have an inequitable effect in screening out minorities or members of one sex?
• Is this information really needed to judge an applicant’s competence or qualifications for the job in question?

Basically, stay away from any question that concerns:

• race
• national origin

Some questions that could be considered discriminatory include:

Also Check: Questions To Ask Cfo In Interview

Understand The Star Interview Format

STAR is an acronym that stands for situation, task, action, and result. It is an interview technique used to gather relevant information about a specific capability for a job. Generally, job candidates use the STAR method to answer behavioral interview questions. For instance, they may tell you about a time when they used a particular skill to overcome a specific challenge at the workplace.

If the interviewee does not use the STAR method to answer the questions, the interviewer can use it to request more information or create follow-up questions. For instance, we can ask the interviewee to be more specific or describe the results of their action.

Why You Should Make Interviews More Difficult

What does the difficulty of a job interview have to do with employee satisfaction? According to a Glassdoor Economic Research study, more difficult job interviews are statistically linked to higher employee satisfaction across six countries examined: U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, and France. In fact, in examining more than 150,000 interview and company reviews submitted to Glassdoor by the same person, for the same company, we found that 10% more difficult job interview process is associated with 2.6% higher employee satisfaction later on and that on a scale of one to five, with five being the most difficult, job candidates prefer an interview that scores a four. In other words, candidates want an interview thats a little tough.

Candidates who go through a rigorous but not too rigorous interview process can perceive that the company places a high value on finding employees who are a good match for both the position and the company culture. By meeting with multiple team members and sharing their skills in a presentation or assignment, candidates get a comprehensive picture of the culture and job, and team members get a sense of the contribution the candidate will make as an employee.

Here are four ways to make your interview process more difficult:

1. Employ creative interviewing

Candidates with a speech-related disabilities

Candidates with a physical disabilities

Recommended Reading: Prepare For System Design Interview

Know What You Want In Your Ideal Job Candidate

If you dont know the skill set required for the open position, chances are you might not ask the right questions, which may confuse the candidate. Make a list of what youre looking for and then ask pointed questions so that when the candidate walks out the door you know whether or not they are a viable choice.

Interview Training For Managers: 3 Steps

It may seem obvious, but it should be stated that the people who will be managing a new employee should also be involved in the hiring process. However, before they take on their role as hiring managers, employees need tools to help them understand how to conduct an interview and make good hiring choices.

Otherwise, you risk having someone who doesnt share your values making hiring decisions on behalf of your company, which can negatively impact your company brand. Margot Dorfman of the U.S. Womens Chamber of Commerce explains the importance of being clear about your expectations for work effort, values, and how you want your customers treated before you let the next level of managers hire employees.

But how exactly does that translate when it comes to interview training for your employees? The following three steps will help get you started.

You May Like: Design Interview Preparation

Preparing To Conduct An Interview

Preparing to interview can be just as important to the interviewer as preparing for the interview is to the candidate. Taking action to prepare prior to conducting the interview will help you feel comfortable during the interview and ensure you address important topics and questions. Here are a few things to do to prepare to conduct an interview: