Interviewing is a critical skill to employers and recruiters. Mastering interviewing skills will help you find your qualified candidates without pain from hundreds of average job seekers.
Being considered as an art, interviewing is also a science, requiring process, methods, and consistency to produce the desired results.
Before you conduct an interview, ask yourself if you are well prepared to ask right questions as presented in the examples below:
BEFORE THE INTERVIEW:
Define your objectives first
You should take time to clearly define who you are looking for, what requirements you expect at the candidate. Ask yourself questions such as:
What are the candidate’s duties, knowledge and skills required to do the job?
What performance does the candidate need to achieve?
Icebreakers:
“Icebreakers” are used to build relationship and set candidates at ease before beginning the formal interview, such as:
Did you have any trouble finding our office?
Before we start, would you like a cup of coffee or glass of ice water?
DURING THE INTERVIEW
Ask questions to get the right picture of the candidate
You should not rely on a job description and a candidate's resume to structure the interview. By asking the questions below, you'll get much better information to evaluate whether the candidate has the right skills and behaviors for the job.
Traditional Questions:
These are questions that candidates can expect as they are usually asked at interviews. Though, they can help you gather general information about a candidate, about their skills and experience. Example:
Tell me about yourself.
What are your greatest strengths?
Why do you want to work for us?
Situational Questions:
Ask candidates what they would do in a specific situation relevant to the job. These questions can help you evaluate how effectively a candidate deal with specific situations they may encounter in his/her job later once they are recruited. Examples:
How would you deal with a very angry customer?
How do you deal with stress on the job?
Behavior-Based Questions:
These questions require candidates to share a specific example from their past experience.
This type of question is based on the premise that a person's past behavior is the best predictor of their future performance. Examples:
Give me a specific example about a crisis that you resolved successfully with your team.
Tell me about a critical problem in your previous job that you could solve strategically.
A good team player counts.
It’s really important for employers to find candidates who can fit well with the team environment and their corporate culture. Ask questions to find out if the candidate is going to be a good team member such as:
How did you deliver a project within a tight deadline, supposedly your team has only three members?
What criteria do you value most in working within a team?
Build an interview team.
You should have more than one person with you to interview candidates as this helps you gain a balanced perspective and have a fair hiring process. In addition to the line manager and a Human Resources representative, you should invite some people who will be working with the new recruit later on.
