Interview Tips for Hiring Managers

Plenty is written to assist the job seeker to beat the interview; far less guidance is provided for the unsuspecting hiring manager.

If you are not a trained HR professional or seasoned recruiter, but hire staff for yourself from time to time, the following information may help you avoid some interviewing pitfalls and give you a better chance of hiring the right person.

Write a good job description

Some hiring goes wrong before the job ad is placed. Like everything in life, planning is pivotal.

• Refresh the Job description. Many job descriptions are so old and recycled that they are no longer relevant.
• Focus on attitudes, not skills. The old saying is that we hire on skills but fire on attitude. Generally, skills can be trained. Attitudes are part of who we are and cannot be taught. You can teach someone excel later, but it is liss likely you can teach them to be a team player, or well organised. Its these things that make the difference between a star and an under-performer. 

Read the resume and cover letter thoroughly

This will prevent that awful realisation a few minutes into an interview that there was no ‘fit’ at all- and save you 30 minutes exchanging pleasantries to avoid being rude.

Prepare for the Job Interview

• Compile a set of questions that you use for every interview, to explore the background, skills and competencies of each candidate. Be consistent and you will be better equipped to measure each applicant against the job.
• Compile competency /behavioural questions. (See below. )
• Do highlight things you want to discuss or explore – literally, with a pen. Once an interview has begun, it hard to keep to the paperwork and you may miss important information that could make a difference.
• If you are interviewing with others, either at the same time or in a series of interviews, make sure you all plan to explore different aspects. Three interviews all the same won’t provide you with three times the information. Three interviews each exploring different aspects will provide several dimensions.

The interview

• Keep to an hour. Its good discipline and will keep you both focussed and on point
• Conduct Behavioural Interviews.

Based on the fact that past behaviour is the best indicator of future performance, this is the only valid questioning. Focus only on what the applicant did (or didn’t) do in the past; said (or didn’t say).
 
Don’t ask

1.Hypothetical questions (What would they do) as they are not relevant or reliable.
2. Leading questions – you will only get the answer you want to hear.

Example: The job you are interviewing for requires unpaid overtime.

WRONG:  How would you feel about doing some overtime from time to time- but I wont be able to pay you? (HYPOTHETICAL).

WRONG: You wont mind doing some unpaid overtime from time to time will you? (LEADING).

RIGHT: Tell me about a time when you have been asked to work unpaid, or do overtime for no reward. What was the situation? What was your task? What did you do? What was the result?

Write notes and suspend judgement until all the interviews are complete.

• Then, mark each candidates responses against the competencies you are seeking.
• Finally, pick the candidate with the highest score.

Build in other selection processes

Interviews are only one dimension of the selection process. To build a full picture, you should use a series of tools. These include:

• Skills tests
• Personality/Work preference  Profiles
• References
• Criminal background checks
• Licence and qualification checks
• Medical and Drugs tests
• Assessment Centres