Job interviews can become airless affairs, where both the person conducting the interview and the person being interviewed can lose track of what the goal is and, at worst, stop treating each other like human beings. Since the actual job – should the potential hire land it – will not resemble a police interrogation in a small office most days, it’s important to try to relate to the hopeful talent sitting across from you with warmth, humanity, understanding, and genuine interest. In that spirit, here are 8 ways to make an interview a most spontaneous affair where you can get a real picture of the potential new hire’s personality, strengths, and trouble areas.
1) Decide on the right set of questions– Each role you hire for should come with its own set of interview questions. There’s no point in bringing someone in, asking them a tired set of theoretically “all encompassing” questions, and then shuffling them back out again. You don’t want to waste their time or yours, so cater the set of questions to the role you’re looking to fill very specifically. This may involve talking to some existing members of the department the potential new hire is gunning for, to get a sense of the realities of the job.
2) Let the interviewee know what to expect– There’s enough meaning and tension in the air for your potential hire just related to the fact that they want the job in question. There’s no need to make the interview itself a Hitchcockian suspense scene. You want your potential hire to be themselves (that’s key) and relaxed, so let them know what kind of questions and interview experience to expect. Let them know if they should dress up a bit, and who they’ll be speaking to, and how long the interview may take. Anything you can do to pare away unnecessary elements of uncertainty related to the actual interview process.
Survey: More than One-Third of Current Employees Landed their Initial Job Interview Online
3) Make sure you have open mind– You may have an image in your head of what the perfect candidate for the role might look like, or a perfect idea of how they sound, how old they are, what their gender is, and what they’ve done previously during their working lives. But all of these are limiters, and can cause you to miss the forest for the trees. Remember, if you knew exactly who you were looking for to fill this role, the hiring process would be a lot easier. You never know how your new hire salvation will arrive, so be sure to consider all comers.
4) Do your homework– Don’t just give the interviewee’s resume a once-over, but do a real deep dive into who they are. Speak to their given contacts, but also spend some time looking at their LinkedIn connections – those contacts may paint you a more realistic picture of the interviewee than you might get from the three names they gave you. You’re not trying to figure out the ways in which the potential new hire is trying to paint an untrue picture of themselves so much as trying to paint yourself a better portrait of who you’re going to be talking to.
5) Skip asking them about their weaknesses– It’s a common interview question, but asking the person sitting across from you what they believe their greatest weaknesses are is – despite the implied edginess – a softball question and largely a waste of time. Yes, it’s nice to know someone can be self-deprecating, or can isolate their trouble areas, but an interview is a time to focus on what’s good about this potential new hire. It’s easy enough to get them to be candid with questions about how they handled a particular issue at work, or what their method for cooling down after a conflict is.
6) Remember that its possible to adapt to a culture – While much is rightly made about the importance of a strong work culture, the HR departments of the world may have started pushing too hard in the direction of hiring for obvious culture fit. Humans are remarkably adaptive creatures, and you never know if someone is coming directly from a strict, humorless workplace into your Ping-Pong table laden palace of fun. If they seem like a perfect fit in terms of skills, give them a chance to adapt to the culture: remember, almost anyone can learn to play Ping-Pong, given time.
7) Aim for conversation, not the third degree – Try to remember that you as the interviewer are in the power position, so it’s going to be your responsibility to steer the interview away from interrogation and towards something resembling light conversation, if possible. You want the conversation to be humane and friendly, regardless of whether the interviewee is destined to land the job or not.
8) Tell them what to expect next from the process – It may have been some time since the last time your had to be interviewed for a job, but its important to remember that you don’t want to leave the interviewee hanging at the end of it. Let them know what to expect one way or another in terms of follow-up, and make sure that you do let them know if the job ends up going to someone else. This person took a lot of time and effort to try and impress you, so the least you can do is let them know that the position has been filled but that you’ll keep them in mind for future opportunities.
