How to interview (part one)

You have your short list of candidates, now you need to interview them.

Below are some hopefully helpful insights into the interview process:

1. Make sure you act quickly. Good candidates are likely to be in more than one process. If you don’t book them in quickly, they may be off the market or too far involved in another process to want to start a new one.
2. Be flexible. Candidates may not be able to fit into your ideal slot. Many will have jobs so can’t drop everything to arrive at 3pm tomorrow. Try and offer some early morning or late afternoon slots if you can.
3. Remember 1^st interviews are as much about selling the opportunity to the candidate as they are about assessing their suitability. You need to make a good impression on them as well.
4. Be punctual. Treat this as you would any other business meeting and allow plenty of time either side. If you decide you like the candidate you kept waiting for 10 mins without explanation you might just discover the feeling isn’t mutual!
5. Prepare for the interview. Make sure you have read the CV and know which areas you want to probe. This will also allow you to be concise. 45 min interviews are a win for both parties.
6. Have at least a few standard benchmarking questions so that you can no only assess the candidates against your criteria, but also against each other.
7. Help the candidates through your process. The best candidates aren’t always the best interviewees.  Try and make the questions engaging and don’t deliberately set out to trip them up. This will waste everyone’s time and lead to your brand being badmouthed.
8. Follow up with all candidates and give constructive feedback. If even you rejected candidates “enjoyed” the experience then your brand will benefit in the long run.

Interviewing is both a science and an art form.  The best interviewers extract all the information they need whilst leaving the candidate wanting to work for the business they represent.

These are some general hints and tips. in our next post we’ll talk more about the mechanics of the interview and share the question that can shave hours off the process.