Most entrepreneurs, executives and managers find interviewing hard. Either they don’t like it or they are just not very good at it. There are a number of reasons, some of which apply to just about everyone faced with the job of interviewing a potential candidate:
- Lack of comfort. Some people are not comfortable with the whole process of interviewing. Either they feel inadequately trained or they find it hard to make the hiring decision that will have a huge impact of the company and the candidate.
- Conflicting goals. Should I be selling the person on the job? Should I be checking them out? Should I be doing both and, if so, how?
- No plan. Very few interviewers go into the meeting armed with a planned list of interview questions that will tell them very specifically if this candidate is right or wrong for this job.
- No training. The whole subject of how to hire great people is remarkably absent from business training curricula and most of the books on the subject deal with interviewing tricks and (supposedly) clever questions to ask candidates.
There are, of course, other reasons why people find interviewing so hard but I believe that the above four are the big ones. Let’s examine each of them.
Getting comfortable.
Nobody feels comfortable doing something that they have not been trained for and that will also require them to make an important decision. There are however some things that you can do to increase your comfort level:
List the things you want the candidate to be able to do (Performance Goals) and be specific. For example:
- I want this salesperson to sell $200,000 of XYZ product per quarter;
- I want this programmer to be able to write a Java program to update a database with sales transactions and finish the program within 2 weeks;
- I want this manager to organize the accounting so that we can have financial statements complete by the fifth working day of the month.
List as many Performance Goals as you can (at least 10) and make sure that they are specific, time related, quantified and achievable.
Focus on the candidate’s performance. You need to know how she or he has performed in previous jobs. Get specifics, for example:
- What was your sales quota? What amount did you actually sell? How was your performance compared to other sales people in the company?
- How many Java programs have you written that update databases with 50 or more tables? How long did the most complex one take? What difficulties did you encounter and how did you deal with them?
The best way to get comfortable with the interview process is to learn how to do it in the context of a complete hiring system, but more on that later.
Resolving the conflicting goals.
In many ways, interviewing (in fact the whole hiring process) is a bit like dating. On the one hand, you want to make a really good impression and on the other hand you want to check out the other person completely.
You need to plan the interview in such a way that the candidate is talking 65-70% of the time. The meeting should take 1 to 1¼ hours and be structured as follows:
- Introduction to the company and the job. 10 minutes (maximum)
- Your questions to the candidate. 40 minutes+
- The candidate’s questions to you. 10 minutes+
- The wrap up. 5 minutes
During Stage 1 you sell the candidate on the company and the job.
During Stage 2 you check out in detail whether the candidate is right for the job.
During Stages 3 and 4, if you think the candidate may be right for the position, you take every opportunity to sell the candidate on the job.
Having a plan.
Having a plan for an interview entails:
- Having a good environment for the interview: a clean and tidy office; having water, juice, coffee or tea available; being dressed appropriately;
- Having a written list of very specific questions about those elements of the candidate’s performance in previous jobs that relate to how you want him or her to perform in this job;
- Having a place on the list of questions to jot notes about the candidate’s answers;
- Having good clear answers to questions that you think the candidate may ask about the job, the company and the salary or compensation package.
Training.
Our system How to Hire Great Employees – First Time, Every Time has a wealth of information on:
- How to get comfortable with the interviewing process;
- How to analyze the job in order to find out how you want the successful candidate to perform;
- How to analyze the candidates’ résumés so that you will know the right questions to ask;
- How to structure the interview;
- How to develop a list of questions that relate each candidate’s performance;
- A questioning pattern that will let you get the truth about the candidates’ performance without appearing aggressive or overbearing.
Most importantly, it takes you through a step by step process to define the job you want done, find a source of well qualified candidates, prepare a package that will impress the candidates with the job and the company, select, interview, check out, test and hire the very best people. To find out how to turn yourself into a world class hiring manager, click here.
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