By David Freeman
Even though I work for an
applicant tracking software provider, it's no secret that in
order to hire top performers, you need to be savvy in your
interview strategy. No matter what recruiting software
you use to source your candidates, your recruiting success
depends on interviewing. The question is how. In my experience,
there are a number or things you can do to help your organization
interview better and more effectively, but there are three keys to
interview success that I believe will give you the most bang for
your buck.
Preparation
Like anything else, good interviewing begins with preparation.
Interview prep begins with analyzing the position to be filled.
Assess what a candidate will need in order to be successful in the
position. What skills, knowledge and type of experience are needed?
What core competencies are important to their success, such as
customer responsiveness, decision- making and problem solving. What
does their attitude need to reflect? You'll want to decide what
types of interpersonal skills are important, and how they will fit
into the culture of the company.
Once you've analyzed the position, it's time to review the job.
What would you observe a person in this position doing each day?
Review the qualities of others presently performing the job, and
review the performance evaluations of top performers in this role.
Think about the dynamics of your team. What personality types make
up the team, and are you missing a key personality that could
benefit the team. Get input from existing team members, and find
out what they believe it would take for this person to be
successful. Sit down with them one and one and ask them to provide
feedback.
Identify any additional job related information required to select
the best candidate. What will you need to capture in addition to
core competencies, and what do you need to ask a candidate to bring
or require during an interview, such as proof of certifications,
records of education and list of references. Ask for a list of
names of people the candidate interacted with in prior positions
they held, this way you'll have references that will be able to
provide helpful feedback, and not a list of neighbors and
friends.
Now it's time to build an interview team. Determine whom to
include, what role do they play in the company, and what role will
they play on the interview team. Examples of who to put on the team
would include the hiring manager and a recruiter and/or HR
representative. You'll want members of the team who will have
regular interaction with the new hire. These team members can also
provide valuable insight and can help sell the organization to the
prospective employee. Define a role for each person involved in the
hiring process. Think outside the box; include a technical advisor,
a team member involved in the cultural fit of your company, and
another who is keyed in on customer responsiveness. Set an
interview schedule well in advance so all players are able to
participate.
The next step is to construct a well thought out interview guide,
preferably one that is specific to the role you are hiring for.
While this task may seem daunting, it is no longer good enough to
have the same guide for every position you hire for. A customized,
focused guide, lined up specifically for each position results in
finding a better person for the position, increased retention and
better productivity. An interview guide will help keep less
experienced members of the interview team from asking illegal
questions. It allows the team to provide feedback in a structured
format, and will enhance the applicant experience, so the candidate
doesn't have to answer the same questions over and over. Lastly, it
will help you identify interpersonal skills and cultural fit. The
guide should have traditional and situational questions such as
greatest strengths, and why the candidate feels they would be a
good fit. You should have cultural fit questions such as what
motivates you, and what made you pursue this type of career.
Conducting the Interview
The second key to your interview success is conducting an
effective interview. And to be effective, you should utilize
behavioral and competency based interview questions, because past
behavior and performance are still the best indicator of future
behavior and performance. There are three parts to a good
behaviorally based interview question; the lead phrase, which is
often neglected by the interviewer, but one of the most important
parts of the question because it lets the candidate know what will
be expected of them in this role. The behaviorally based
interviewer asks the candidate to provide specific information
about a real situation vs. a hypothetical scenario and includes an
expression of desired behavior within the question. A properly
structured behaviorally based interview question would look
something like, "In the customer service department we often
receive calls from customers who are unhappy with their dining
experience. Tell me about a time when you had to deal with an
unhappy customer a work." Then you can add follow-ups, which
further guides the candidate to provide the types of responses you
are looking for, like "What was the specific situation? How did you
handle it? What was the outcome?" The response you are looking for
from the candidate involves specific situations, based on real life
experience, outlining specific actions, resulting in a desired
outcome that aligns with the skill/knowledge/core competency that
you have identified.
This is sometimes a little difficult for candidates to understand
and many will try to give you answers in a hypothetical way. It is
important to redirect the candidate and explain that you are asking
them to provide real life examples. Sometimes it may take a few
redirections for a candidate to give you what you want. Often, they
may have difficulty coming up with specific situations. The key to
good interviewing is patience. Give them the time they need and
don't let long pauses make you uncomfortable. With persistence and
patience, most candidates can come up with the examples you need to
properly evaluate them, and if they can't, then they clearly don't
have the experience you have defined as key to the job.
Post Interview Review Meeting
The last key, vital to a successful interview is the post
interview summary/review meeting. This establishes a formal process
for finalizing the interview process and gives each interviewer the
opportunity to share feedback and make a recommendation, and brings
the interview process to a close. It also allows quick
communication with the candidate, which leads to a satisfactory
candidate experience whether hired or not. Post interview meetings
should be scheduled prior to interviews being conducted, either on
the same day or day after. Each interviewer should be asked to
prepare an interview report prior to the meeting. The format of the
interviewer's report should include yes or no on hiring the
candidate, a report on interpersonal skills, cultural fit, and what
was learned from competency based questions and technical
knowledge. Each report should take no longer than 5 minutes, and no
open discussion should take place during reports. The primary
decision maker/hiring manager should give the last report. I think
it's best to leave an open discussion about the applicant until
after all reports have been given.
So, the secret's out. If you give yourself the time to effectively
prepare for the interview process, your odds of hiring a top
performer dramatically increase. Put the three keys together and it
becomes a win-win situation. By assessing the position to be filled
and developing a picture of what you expect from a candidate you
get the ball rolling. From there, assembling a strong team to
conduct the interview and providing them with a well thought out
interview guide sets the play in motion. You're ready for a
productive interview, for both your team and the candidate. By
taking time to establish effective behavioral and competency based
questions that help you identify how closely a candidate matches
the position to be filled sets up the perfect play. Once you
conclude your post interview meeting, it should be clear to you and
your team which candidate is the best fit for your
organization.
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