How To Conduct A Successful Interview

Poor Communication And Body Language

However valuable or insightful your answers are during an interview, poor communication or body language can discredit you.

Focus on being a polite and clear communicator during your interview. Don’t interrupt, no matter how eager you may be to answer the question. If you accidentally talk before the interviewer has finished, apologize quickly and let them continue speaking.

Speak clearly when it is your turn mumbling comes across as inconsiderate, and it diminishes your confidence.

Be aware of your body language. Nervous behaviors like fidgeting or tapping your knee are common in stressful situations, but in an interview setting, you run the risk of appearing rude or impatient. Sit up straight and avoid fidgeting as much as possible, and maintain appropriate eye contact.

The goal is to be engaged and interactive. Looking someone in the eye when they speak to you and while you’re responding indicates respect for the person and that you are present in the moment. Frequently looking away or over your shoulder while talking to them conveys disinterest.

Study The Candidates Resume Or Cv

Look over the candidates resume. Using a blind resume might offer an opportunity to limit the influence of unconscious bias. You can familiarize yourself with their work history and background. Reviewing the CV in depth ahead of time ensures that you maximize the time you have in the interview. Why?

Many general questions are often easily answered with just a quick scan of someones CV. When you start with this knowledge already in hand, you can take advantage of the interview to really dig deep into the candidates skills and abilities.

You can also take the time to highlight any areas in their resume that may seem vague or unclear, or perhaps that contains something that may be unknown to you, such as a unique hobby. Allow the interviewee the opportunity to expand on those areas as it may reveal possible behaviors or personality traits that will have an impact on effective job performance.

Review The Candidates Pre

At this point, its tempting to put the blinders on and consider only the candidates interview. However, theres just as much information available in their pre-employment assessmentif not moreto help you evaluate the candidate. Use all the information at your disposal to make an educated decision.

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Prepare Answers To Common Questions

Here are some common questions you may hear in an interview:

• Can you tell me about yourself?

• How did you hear about this job?

• Why do you want this job?

• Why should we hire you?

• What are your strengths?

• What do you know about the company?

• Where do you see yourself in five years?

• What is your work ethic?

• What kind of environment do you prefer to work in?

• How do you handle work-related disagreements with your colleagues?

• How would your current employer and colleagues describe you?

• How do you handle pressure?

• Do you have any questions for me?

In addition to preparing answers to these common interview questions, make sure you’ve also prepared some questions for the interviewer in return. This will show your investment in both the position and the organization.

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Tips on responding to “Tell me about yourselfâ:

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Prepare And Develop Questions

Preparing for an interview lets you best evaluate a candidates abilities. Start by reviewing their cover letter and curriculum vitae to assess if the education, background, and skills of the candidate align with the role or what areas of their professional career you want to learn more about during the upcoming conversation. You can also connect with leaders and colleagues who collaborate with the person in this role to ask if there are specific questions they want to be presented in the interview.

Screen All Candidates With Pre

The easiest way to have great job interviews is to have great candidates sitting in front of you. But its tough to identify the best candidates from their resumes alone. And you’ll spend a lot of time reviewing resumes if you don’t take a more efficient approach.

Especially if you have a high volume of job applications, which makes it hard to give each resume the attention it deserves. An eye-tracking study showed recruiters spend only 7 seconds on average skimming a resume. But thats not a winning strategy for identifying the best candidates.

Even if you did have all the time in the world to read every resume from front to back, a resume doesnt tell the full story. People can embellish their skills or even outright lie on a resume. Pre-employment assessments help solve that problem, giving you a more efficient alternative to resume evaluation.

A pre-employment assessment is a collection of tests given to a candidate as part of the application. You can test candidates on:

• Programming skills
• Software skills

By delivering these assessments to each candidate, you will reduce bias in your hiring process by giving you a view of each candidate that doesnt depend on a recruiter scanning thousands of resumes. That’s because resumes include identifying information that can trigger unconscious bias.

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Acting Overconfident Or Entitled

Valerie Streif, marketing manager at GetMyBoat, warns job candidates to pay attention to their tone.

“Something that hurts a lot of job seekers is being overconfident and unaware of how they sound in an interview,” she said.

While being confident of your skills and excited about the value you can add to a company will benefit you, there is a fine line between poised and arrogant. Acting as if you are entitled to a position will instantly seem rude, no matter how qualified you are. Remember that you were invited to interview, and stay quietly confident and humble.

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Immediately Take Any Additional Notes

Before you do anything else, jot down notes on anything you didnt have time to write down during the interview. You should also reflect on the totality of the interview, taking notes on your overall impression of the candidate. Youll value these notes later once youve interviewed half-a-dozen other candidates.

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Preparing Your Own Questions

You should also prepare a few questions of your own to ask during the interview. Not only does it give you the opportunity to gain deeper insights into the company, role, and culture, but it shows the hiring manager that you’re truly interested in the organization.

“During the interview, you should take the time to assess whether the employer is the right fit for you, not just try to prove to the employer that you’re right for the job,” Zahka said.

While the standard “What’s a typical day like here?” and “How would you describe your company culture?” are fine to ask, you can stand out from other job seekers by asking unique, insightful questions that ultimately reinforce why you’re an ideal fit for the role.

Travis Furlow, vice president of enterprise accounts at TrueBlue Inc., shared seven questions to ask during your next interview.

Explain The Companys Position

Consider starting the interview with a brief introduction of yourself, the role, and some of the organizations goals and objectives. This often provides candidates with a better understanding of job expectations and can give them topics to ask about later in the interview. If you need more information about the specific responsibilities of a role, you might ask the direct manager in advance.

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Why Are Effective Interviews Important

Effective interviews are important because they help you choose the most qualified person for the job. Interviews are a great way to get to know your candidates and learn about their experience, skills and talents.

During an effective interview, you inform candidates about job responsibilities, expectations and the work culture. An effective interview gives the candidate plenty of time to give thoughtful answers and ask questions about the company and team. This approach allows both you and the interviewee the chance to learn about each other.

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Tip #: Reduce Unconscious Bias

Be aware of any unconscious bias that might exist in you or the other interviewers. There are different types of biases that can skew your objective judgement, and examples include: gender, race, mom-bias, age, authority, affinity and appearance to name a few. Do some research to find out how you can avoid this kind of bias in how you conduct a successful interview.

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Explain The Interview Process And Next Steps

After the interview, let candidates know what they can expect. Explain your companys hiring process, especially if its complex and involves multiple rounds or conversations with other interviewers. Be clear about what next steps will be. Should they expect a phone call or email? How long will it take for you to make a decision? When are you hoping to fill the position?

Determine How Many Interviews And Interviewers Are Needed And The Most Efficient Way To Schedule Them

The first step to adding structure to your interview process is deciding how many interviews and interviewers should be involved along the way. Deciding this from the outset can help you avoid a lot of scheduling frustration down the line and improve the candidate experience.

To determine how many interviews you need, take a look at your metrics surrounding quality of hire and compare them to interviewers feedback. If your interviewers are consistently recommending candidates who turn out to be not quite right for the job, this could indicate that you need more time to evaluate them. From a candidate perspective, .

It may take some experimentation to pin down the optimal numbers. after looking at their interview data and discovering that having more than four interviews and interviewers produced diminishing returns.

Think carefully about the number of team members involved in each interview too. Panel interviews are a useful way to streamline the interview process and reduce bias, since all interviewers hear the same evidence at the same time. But having too large a panel can result in a scheduling nightmare, or be intimidating for candidates. Dig into your companys data again and see if interviews with larger or smaller panels have been more successful at predicting quality of hire, base your decision off those insights, and make adjustments as you gather more data.

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Vary The Question Types

Varying the question types during an interview can help it feel fresh and allow you to see different attributes of the candidate. A well-rounded mix of questions can also let you explore different facets of the job position and assess how well an applicant might perform. For example, consider using a combination of these questions:

• Closed-ended questions: You can use these to gain basic information, like How many years of experience do you have? or You graduated with a degree from Ontario City College?

• Open-ended questions: These let a candidate expand on a topic, like What is a challenging goal youre proud of achieving? or Explain a time you had to change your approach entirely.

• Logic questions: You can gain insight into how an applicant approaches problem-solving with these questions, like How many trees are there in Banff National Park?

• Hypothetical questions: These questions invite a candidate to anticipate how to handle an issue, like How would you react to a colleague who misses a deadline?

How To Conduct An Interview: A Step

If you’ve ever seen a great interviewer in action, you may have the impression that it’s easier than it really is. Don’t let that mistaken assumption leave you unprepared! It can be very difficult to ask the right questions in the right way so that you get the answers you need to evaluate a candidate. If you want to make sure you’re ready, this guide will explain how to conduct an interview.

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Highlight Your Company Culture

Candidates cant experience your company culture firsthand during a video interview, so make it a point to highlight your culture throughout the conversation. Emphasize your core values and company mission, share stories about team outings, and talk about how your office is structured and the intention behind it.

Paint a clear picture of what its like to work at your company. Above all, infuse your culture into the interview by embodying your core values and treating the candidate as you would a colleague.

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.

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How To Conduct An Effective Interview In 10 Steps

Interviews are the best way to learn more about candidates and determine if they could work well with your team. Conducting an effective interview not only helps you in your hiring decision, but it also allows the candidate to decide if the job is a good fit for them. To conduct an effective interview, you should remain organized and communicative throughout the entire process.

In this article, we outline the importance of effective interviews and the specific steps you can take to make the process easier for both you and the candidate.

Prepare A List Of Flexible Open

You should prepare a list of questions that will act as a template for the interviewa guide for the path that you want to take from start to finish.

Not a shopping list that you should stick to 100 percent.

For each question you should come up with two or three possible follow-up questions that might be suitable to ask, depending on the answer.

You probably won’t get to them all, but because they are there it’s a good reminder just in case the perfect opportunity comes up to dig deeper into a topic of interest.

As far as the questions themselves, here are a few basic rules:

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Ask Specific Questions Related To The Job

Before getting started with the interview, it is always useful to have a list of questions ready related to the job. Such questions can give the interviewer an opportunity to see how closely aligned the candidate is with the duties and responsibilities of the position. Going over the job description carefully can help the interviewer understand how to ask the right interview questions. If there are multiple candidates, preparing a list of questions beforehand can also help us compare the answers of different candidates.

Allow The Candidate To Ask Questions

The next step in the interview process is to allow the candidate to ask questions they may have about the position or the company. Typical questions a candidate may ask can include:

• What opportunities exist for career advancement?

• What is the company’s dress code?

• What is the company culture like?

• Does the position require overtime?

• When do you expect to fill the position?

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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.

Ask For A Second Opinion

The hiring process is a risky endeavor for the company. How sure are you, as the hiring manager, that you have selected the right candidate? What criteria did you use to choose the right candidate? Moreover, is there another alternative you could have used to ensure the person you hire is the ideal fit for the role? The answers to these questions are in consulting. Hiring a new employee is a big decision and shouldnt be decided upon alone.

Consider seeking a second opinion from other people in the organization such as your boss, HR representatives, other hiring managers or even supervisors. Remember the goal is to ensure that you hire somebody whose goals align with the plans of the company. Consider asking for advice concerning the following aspects:

• Establishing and implementing your interviewing checklist
• How to build rapport with candidates
• Reviewing the interview questions
• Giving feedback and sending rejection emails to candidates
• Conducting mock interviews to enhance your interviewing skills

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