06/ 22/ 2006
by Charles R. McConnell
It has often been said that the personal interview is not an especially effective means of finding the right kinds of people to fill an employer's personnel needs. As inadequate as the interview can be at times, though, there's still no better to identify individuals who might be appropriate hires. More than a few managers aren't especially fond of interviewing, but interviewing, like many other management tasks, becomes easier with practice, especially for the manager who follows a few commonsense guidelines.
Someone in human resources will probably screen applicants to determine whom to schedule for a selection interview, but the actual interview should be conducted by the person to whom the new employee will report. This may seem elementary, but in some places, it might still be a practice for a single person to do all of a company's hiring. The hiring manager and the supervising manager, however, should always be the same person.
Much of the manager's involvement in an interview should occur before the applicant reports to the interview site. Before an interview begins, the interviewer should:
- Become familiar with the job description and be able to confidently discuss the position and its qualifications without referring to the document. Also, it's necessary to ensure that the job description is current.
- Review the job candidate's application or resume to ensure that the individual possesses at least the minimum qualifications of the position.
- Prepare a list of questions as reminders of essential points to explore during the interview.
- Know the most positive and negative features of the position; these will likely be of concern to the applicant.
- Be familiar with the salary and benefits associated with the position, but be ready to advise the applicant that human resources will officially address these matters.
- Plan a tour of the facility, perhaps including key individuals for the applicant to meet (and actually conduct the tour for an applicant who is shaping up as a likely prospect).
- Schedule a time and place for the interview and ensure privacy and freedom from interruptions.
Before conducting an interview, familiarize yourself with the legalities of interview questioning. There are far too many prohibited kinds of questions to enumerate here, but all questions should relate to the job in question and the individual's qualifications and ability to do that job. All questioning should relate entirely to what the applicant knows or can do and not to what the applicant is. Asking for personal information not relevant to potential job performance is prohibited.
In approaching the actual interview, begin at the scheduled time or as close to it as possible. An unwarranted delay can send a wrong message to a potentially desirable applicant. In conducting the interview itself:
- Initially encourage some friendly social conversation to put the individual at ease and possibly instill some confidence. Avoid making judgments during the first few minutes when the applicant is likely to be nervous or generally ill at ease.
- Avoid short-answer questions. Little or nothing is learned from just "yes" or "no" or other one-or-two-word responses. Questions must be broad enough to require at least two or three sentences in response.
- Avoid leading questions, those that obviously lead the person toward a set response and essentially tell the person what the interviewer wants to hear.
- Ask one clear question at a time and allow the person to respond comfortably before moving on to additional questions.
- Use language appropriate to the apparent level of education, knowledge and understanding of the applicant.
- Do more listening than talking. It's here that the heart of effective interviewing resides, in the ability to listen—truly listen—to the applicant's responses. One of the biggest mistakes—perhaps the single biggest mistake—an interviewer can make is to talk too much. Be interested and attentive, but never be impatient or critical and avoid talking excessively about yourself or the company. It's fine to entertain the applicant's questions and even ask the applicant for questions before completing the process, but the interviewer should never dominate the interview.
- Promise follow-up to come, and make certain it occurs. Even the applicant who doesn't receive an offer of employment deserves timely follow-up to close the loop on the process. Nonexistent follow-up leaves a poor impression of the company with someone who will probably share it with others.
Throughout the interview process, be conscious of what can be asked and what should not be asked, remembering that questions probing for any or all forms of personal information are most likely illegal.
