Three Secrets of Conducting Great Employment Interviews

If you have ever been fooled by a new employee who seemed to have
all the right qualifications and yet still did not work out on the
job, the problem may have been in how you conducted the job
interview. While conducting job interviews may be something you do
only rarely, it pays to do it well every time.

The secrets to doing effective employment interviews lie in having
a plan and executing the plan. The question is: what should go into
your interview plan? Two factors are most important. First, you
need to have the right overall structure to your interviews and the
best way to do that is to build that structure into your plan. The
second factor is to be precise in the information you seek.

EFFECTIVE INTERVIEW STRUCTURE

Every employment interview should include certain activities. These
are:

1. Application (this may be done earlier). Do you have a standard
   application for employment? Does it give you all the information
   you need?
2. Welcome the candidate. Take a few minutes to make sure you're
   both comfortable.
3. Explain the interview process.
4. Describe the job and your business. Just be sure you don't try
   to "sell" the job by making it sound better than it really is.
5. Ask your questions. Here is where you put the factor of
   precision to work.
6. Close the interview. Make sure the candidate knows how he will
   hear of your decision.
   

PRECISION

If you've read my newsletter for any length of time, you know that
I have written many times about the importance of hiring for
personality rather than specific experience. While it's important
that a candidate have the right aptitude and abilities, most of the
things that get done on the job can be learned through training.
You just can't train someone to be creative in how he approaches
problems. You have to hire people who have the right traits to do
great work in the jobs you have available.

The first step is to identify the personal traits you want in every
employee. You probably want to insist on honesty, punctuality,
sincerity, and maybe a good sense of humor. Perhaps you can think
of one or two more.

Next, think hard about each position. What traits or talents make
someone very, very good at that job? Write these down and then look
for them in your candidates.

The precision in your interviewing comes from making sure you ask
questions that will always bring out a candidate's personality and
show you if he or she has the traits and talents you need in your
employees.

The trouble that most managers get into when they conduct
employment interviews is that they don't have a plan and they don't
know how to look for the information they need. Worse, many don't
even know what information to look for. Now you do.

EXECUTE THE PLAN

Once you have your interview plan down and you have questions that
you're confident will bring out the information you need, what
matters is conducting each interview the same way. Why do this?
Because when you're done with the interviews you want to be able to
evaluate all your candidates as well as possible. This means having
the same information about each one.

Here are a few suggestions to give you the best chance of executing
your interview plan consistently:

• Write your plan down. Include your questions exactly as you want
  to phrase them.
• Practice your interview structure, and especially the questions,
  on a current employee to make sure your plan works and that the
  questions work well.
• Make a list of all your candidates and schedule the least
  qualified persons first. Give yourself a chance to get into the
  groove before you see the best candidates.
• Take a few minutes after each interview to jot down any thoughts
  you have about how you did at following your plan and how to
  improve if you strayed from the plan.

Having a plan and executing it. It sounds like common sense - and
it is - but the difference is all in what's in the plan.

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