Interviewing Potential Employees

"The Right Way"

Interviewing employees can be the difference between success and failure for your company. If good employees are your most precious resource than the ability to choose them needs to be your most precious skill.

A good selection process has a number of steps but the most critical is the face to face interview. Unfortunately, most business owners and managers have never been taught how to successfully choose prospective employees.

In addition, there is a terrible problem lurking just below the surface. Most of us believe we are good at reading people and this allows us to choose the winners from the losers.

If only it were so simple!

The truth is most of us are NOT very good at reading people. This combined with our lack of training leads to all kind of hiring mistakes. Interview training is not something many managers have been through in their career.

Although I can't help you with reading people, I can help with a solid selection process you can use to develop your skill.

Interview Process

1. Have a detailed profile

It is impossible to hire good people if you don't know what you are looking for. "I'll know it when I see it" does not work. Instead, have a detailed profile that includes both what the person needs to accomplish along with the critical skills and behaviors necessary for success.

2. Prepare Your Questions In Advance

You need your questions prepared in advance if you are going to be effective. Trying to manufacture questions on the fly is too hard and leads to missed information. Build your list of questions (see the article on creating questions for a complete discussion) in correct chronological order. Work from the beginning of the person's career to the present.

Make certain you have questions for each of your critical job requirements and get multiple examples for each.

3. Ask Your Questions In Order And Be Sure To Probe

To make a quality decision it is necessary to get as much quality data as possible. View your list of questions as the starting point. Each question should generate many probing questions. The purpose of your probing questions is to get more and better information.

Use your probes to eliminate ambiguity. When in doubt ask more questions.

4. Put The Person At Ease

The more at ease the person, the better quality data you get. Don't do anything that creates stress or anxiety during the process. View the meeting as a productive conversation where you exchange information.

5. Control The Meeting

You need to maintain control throughout. Controlling the situation simply means getting the information you need in the time allotted. The best way to maintain control is to to ask effective questions. See the article best questions for a complete discussion of effective questions.

6. End On A Friendly Note

This meeting with a candidate is an opportunity to show off the quality of your company. The process needs to be professional. And, treat ever person with absolute respect. Make every person you come in contact with want to be part of your team.

See the interviewing techniques article for a full discussion.

The behavioral interview is something you hear a lot about. This is a critical technique covered in great depth the behavioral approach article. Briefly, a behavioral approach simply means you will explore how the person behaved in situations that are the same or similar to those they will face on your job.

It is a great data gathering technique and you should check out the the full article. (Link to Behavioral Article) The group approach is a subject that causes quite a bit of confusion. These should be used sparingly if at all. The group approach article has a full discussion of the subject.

In conclusion, interviewing is critical to your success in choosing top employees. Being unprepared leads to costly mistakes. follow the process outlined in this article and the related articles and you are on your way to hiring the best.

Related Articles