How To Start An Interview With A Candidate

Determining The Interview Questions

Bear in mind the two main types of interview questions:

• Closed-ended or direct questions that focus on facts
• Open-ended questions, which generally fall into one of the following categories:
• Hypotheticalthat is, what if questions about a situation that has not happened
• Behaviouralthat is, questions that ask the candidate to describe past behaviour when they handled a real situation

Open-ended questions will be the most relevant as they allow you to assess the candidates ability to communicate in a non-structured way. This can create opportunities for you to probe into many important aspects of the persons experience and skills.

Following Up After Each Step In The Interview Process

Even though it may seem like a lot of work, especially when you have gone through multiple interviews, it’s important to follow up after each step in the interview process. In fact, the most important thing you can do is to follow up and reiterate your interest in the position and to thank the interviewer for taking the time to meet with you.

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.

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Introduce Prospective Employees To Key Members Of Your Organization

You wont be able to do this in the office, so devise a way to do it remotely. Consider putting together a digital multimedia package that includes things like recent articles about your companys successes, a list of the hiring managers expectations for the position and how it fits into the goals of the team and business, employee profiles of relevant team members, and short videos from potential colleagues.

Test Your Technology Then Test It Again

Your time is valuable. Your candidates time is valuable. You need to use your time as efficiently as possible. Wasting 10 minutes figuring out how to log on or get the video or audio signal to work is not the way you want to begin an interview.

So test all of this ahead of time and make sure everything works on your end. You should also have a sense of the technical issues your candidate might face and have solutions to offer them if they do. All of this will help keep you on schedule and avoid starting the discussion on an annoying note.

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Answer The Phone Professionally

You want to be right near your phone at the time of your phone interview conversation so that you dont miss the call. If you are using a cell phone, make sure its charged and that you get good reception where you are. When the phone rings, pick it up in a timely manner. You dont need to jump to answer on the first ring, but dont let it almost go to voicemail. When you answer, state your name clearly and pleasantly to let the interviewer know that she’s reached the correct person.

Examples:

Hi, this is John Jones.

Hi, this is Rebecca Andrews. Is this Mr. Roy?

How To Invite A Candidate To Interview

Inviting candidates to interviews over email can be a tricky game. While you may want to send as many invitations out to qualified candidates as possible, that lends to sounding like an impersonal robot. Too much personalization, though, and were talking hours and hours spent on just inviting candidates to interview over email. This doesnt even include the time it takes to actually schedule that interview.The best interview invitation emails have an element of templating and personalization to make candidates feel unique and wanted at your organization.This is the ultimate guide on inviting candidates to interview over email using templates.

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Make Natural Transitions Between Questions

Having a list of interview questions to ask is good practice, but it has an inherent difficulty: it might make the interview seem more robotic and inflexible.

For example, imagine youre listening to a candidates answer. When they finish talking, you may suddenly feel awkward, so you nod and say something akin to OK, interesting and then you move on to the next question. This isnt how a natural conversation would flow, and it might make the experience less pleasant for the candidate .

How To Write Interview Feedback With Example And Tips

Working in HR or a managerial role requires individuals to create job posts, assess candidates and eventually make the best hiring decisions for their company or department. A vital part of the process is giving feedback for interviews to other company personnel to aid in hiring decisions. By taking the time to learn more about how to write useful feedback from interviews, you can provide valuable insights to your colleagues about a candidate’s interpersonal and technical skills.

In this article, we explain what interview feedback is, explore why it’s crucial, review how to write it and furnish examples of what to include in feedback for an interview.

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A Cliche Interview Questions

You might have noticed that many of the common questions to ask in an interview are missing. These are questions were all familiar with such as Whats your greatest weakness? or Why should we hire you? The biggest problem with these questions is that theyre some of the most asked interview questions and candidates likely have prepared their answers ahead of time. There is plenty of content online for candidates instructing them how to answer these questions, meaning you may not get a truthful answer at all.

Plus, you cant be sure what exactly the answers to these questions indicate. Granted, if someone says I dont have any weaknesses or offers the covert brag of Im too hard-working, youll know they may not have the attitude youre looking for. But, most candidates will likely take the middle road naming a weakness thats small and unimportant. So, how do you compare answers of different candidates? You probably cant at least not confidently.

So, every time youre thinking of asking a well-worn, cliched question, consider a refreshing alternative not to catch the candidate off-guard, but to get a more genuine answer from them. Here are some examples:

Old question: Why should we hire you?

Better alternative: If you were hired, how do you think you could help with this project?

Old question: What is your greatest weakness?

Better alternative: Describe a time when you failed in your previous job.

Old question: Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Introduce Yourself And Set The Scene

First impressions are everything. Introduce yourself and welcome the candidate respectfully.

By greeting the candidate in a polite manner, you will help ease much of the tension that he or she may be feeling. Tell them a little bit about who you are and then ask them how their day is going or if they have any weekend plans. This will help break the ice.

Youll also want to make sure the interview space is clear of any kind of distractions so that you can both focus on the conversation. If the interview is virtual, make sure you have a clean background and space to chat.

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Read Candidate Cvs Carefully

Its important to have studied the CVs of all your candidates beforehand. This lets you know about their details in advance, although you will benefit from having a copy of the resume during the interview for reference. Having studied it before will give you adequate time to dig deeper into the candidates skills, qualifications and experience.

Now Consider These Factors To Help You Evaluate Candidates:

Now that you have a complete overview of the best interview questions to ask, theres one last thing to do: be prepared to answer common questions from candidates. Theyre interviewing you too, after all. That way, candidates can also get useful insight on whether your company is a good fit for their skillset and motivations and hopefully, youll get to convince the best among them to join your team. Happy interviewing!

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The Right Way To Interview A Job Candidate

I know you are not a fan of job interviews that use scripted questions.

What do you recommend that we ask job candidates?

Thanks Liz,

Dear Beau,

Here is a simple plan for a human, conversational job interview.

A good interview is not strictly an evaluative process. You are selling the candidate as much as you are evaluating him or her. Most candidates will sell and evaluate you right back — and that’s how it should be!

You will have a back-and-forth conversation with each job candidate, but you will not use a script. You won’t need one. You have no questions to ask except to ask for the candidate’s thoughts, observations and questions once you have described the job in some detail .

1. Before the interview, you’ll send each candidate a warm, friendly email message reminding them of the date and time for the interview, the job title they’re interviewing for and the names and titles of the people they will meet at the interview. This email message is a simple, essential courtesy that starts your relationship off on the right note.

2. In the same confirmation email message, you will explain that in the interview, you’d like to answer the candidate’s questions right up front. You’ll ask them to think about the role and prepare questions for you before the interview, and bring them to the meeting.

What is this company all about? What do we do?

Who am I in this company? What is my role?

What does the hiring department do? How do they help the company succeed?

S In The Job Interview Process

It’s not always quick and easy to get hired. The job interview process can be lengthy. Being interviewed once and getting a job offer is typically a thing of the past. Today, many companies have an involved interview process starting with screening interviews, which often take place on the phone, followed by in-person interviews, second interviews, and even third interviews.

In addition to a hiring manager, you may meet with managers, employees, and other staff. How hiring is handled depends on the employer and the systems they have in place for screening and evaluating potential new hires.

Here’s an overview of each step in the interview process, along with advice on the best way to handle each type of interview as you progress up the interview ladder towards a job offer.

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Review The Job Description And Know It Backwards And Forwards

Youve likely already invested time writing a detailed job description tailored to the position for which youre interviewing candidates. Before you begin the interview, its important to review the position and make sure its still up-to-date. If anything related to the role has changed, its essential for you to be prepared to address those discrepancies in the interview.

Once the hiring team confirms the description is current, make sure the people in the room have a thorough understanding of the job description. At minimum, the people conducting the interview should be well versed in the requirements and duties associated with the role.

How To Start An Interview As The Interviewer

Presenting yourself to the applicant, present yourself, instead of starting an interview describing your role in the company, briefly tell the potential employee why you enjoy the work for the organization. Once you start interviewing on a personal note, the candidate can feel more comfortable with his background and career aspirations with tips on how to start an interview as the interviewer example.

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How To Succeed In A Phone Interview

After getting the interview started, you can improve your success by ensuring you follow proper etiquette, including these steps:

Follow Up After Your Phone Interview

Finally, after you end the call with the interviewer, follow up with a thank you message to show your appreciation and to reiterate your enthusiasm for the job. Not only is sending a follow-up message proper interview etiquette, but it can also increase your chances of being invited for an in-person interview.

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Conquer Candidate Decision Fatigue By Establishing Consistent Methods To Receive And Evaluate Talent Feedback

Making side-by-side candidate comparisons can be extremely challenging when interviewers have different feedback styles. To combat the disparity, equip interviewers with this handy candidate evaluation form to standardize feedback, consolidate comments, and make hiring decisions faster.

Pro tip: An interview scorecard can provide a quantitative basis for comparison between interviewers. By correlating your predictions with candidates actual job performance, you can get quantitative feedback on accuracy of assessing different criteria.

Informing Candidate Of Interview Decision With Flowrite

Flowrite is an AI writing tool that turns short instructions into ready-to-send emails and message. No matter the industry, role or stage of the recruitment process, our product can help you to communicate with job candidates faster and better. Take a look at the example below to get an idea how you can supercharge your applicant emails with Flowrite.

Did this blog post help with informing candidates of interview decision? We hope so. The next time you are writing an email to a candidate after the interview, just keep these learnings and examples in mind and you should be good to go. Better yet, give Flowrite a change to write the email for you.

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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.

Optimize Your Interview Process

Whichever employee you end up sending a job offer letter to, you want to optimize the candidate experience for each applicant. Using recruitment software will make it easy to see all the candidates currently in the pipeline for various roles.

It will also provide key recruitment metrics which will provide insight into whether you need to recruit externally or promote internally and whether you have understaffing or overstaffing problems.

Resources for HR professionals

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Dive Into The Tailoring Method

Alright, the STAR Method alone is a pretty strong approach. But, by also learning the Tailoring Method, you have a secret sauce for creating delicious answers to behavioral interview questions.

The Tailoring Method is all about customization. You dont want to give the hiring manager a basic answer to a question you want to make it relevant and enticing, building an exceptional value proposition by showcasing how you can help their company thrive. Thats what the Tailoring Method helps you do.

Its an approach that makes the hiring manager and company the priority, not you. Its about positioning yourself as a solution to the problem the hiring manager is trying to solve . That makes the Tailoring Method a competitive advantage, as not all job seekers are going to go that extra mile.

Empower Candidates By Explaining The Star Method Of Answering Upfront

Another way to streamline your interview process and avoid rambling answers is to outline the STAR method of answering at the start of every interview. Explain that this is a recommended way of answering behavioral questions concisely yet thoroughly, using four simple steps. These are:

• Situation: What were the circumstances? What was the challenge?
• Task: What goal were you working toward?
• Action: What did you do specifically to address the situation?
• Result: What was the outcome? What did you learn?

Equipping candidates with this technique further bolsters their trust in your company and allows you to gather the information you need in a more effective manner. Alternatively, you can send information about this method in your preinterview email or include it on your website. That way if a candidate uses it, youll know theyve done their homework.

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