11/ 21/ 2006
Common hiring practices aren't what they used to be. The business environment is more complex today, and the job market is more competitive. A quick in-person interview doesn't cut it anymore--especially if you're a small-business owner hiring someone to wear many hats. Increasingly popular are group interviews, which prove effective in helping employers pinpoint the right person for the job.
When you think about a group interview, you might picture one candidate in front of a panel of employees, often referred to as a panel interview, or a job candidate meeting with different members of your staff at subsequent intervals. You'd also be right if you thought of a group of job candidates in a room with one facilitator. You could even have one job candidate meet with several members of your staff at subsequent intervals.
No matter how you do it, a group interview can give you the chance to screen candidates in a way that one-on-one interviews don't allow--by looking at what kind of impression they make on your current staff, and how they interact with other job candidates.
Keep reading to learn how to use group interviews to your advantage and how to make them successful.
Panel interviews
Whether you have one interview in which several staff members are asking questions or a series of one-on-one interviews, panel interviews can give you several different reads on the candidate as staff members in different roles size up the candidate's personality, skill level and values as it relates to their potential new relationship with the candidate. It can also emphasize to the candidate--and reemphasize to your staff--the teamwork nature of the job. And if that candidate gets the job, he or she will already have a handful of familiar faces the first day as a new employee.
How to prepare:
- Decide if you want a traditional panel interview, which offers efficiency or a series of one-on-one interviews between the candidate and your staff, which may be less daunting.
- If you decide to conduct a traditional panel interview, make sure each staff member knows his or her role. Have a set of predetermined questions and divvy up the questions to your employees to spread the focus equally across all of them. Even if staff members will conduct subsequent one-on-one interviews, still have a predetermined set of questions and set time limits.
- Ask staff members for their notes after the interview is over and review the notes, looking for any standout positives or negatives about the candidate.
- Use this information to help you make a decision. When you have come to a decision, call together the staff members who participated in the interview, go over your decision and take any questions. You made them part of the decisionmaking process, so make sure you follow through completely.
Multi-candidate interviews
This type of interview--in which you have several job candidates participating in a single interview--can help you pick a star candidate out of a pool of several qualified ones. They way they interact with each other can tell a lot about their communication style, level of enthusiasm, knowledge, problem-solving skills ability to interact with others and a lot more. This type of interview is especially helpful if teamwork is an essential part of the job for which the candidates are applying.
How to prepare:
- Make sure you have conducted one-on-one interviews with each of the candidates before getting them all together. This will ensure a level playing field for the candidates. If one candidate has been to lunch and has already had two interviews with you, he or she would likely appear more comfortable in a multi-candidate interview setting than those who haven't interacted with your company as much.
- Prepare a presentation or a series of questions to help you lead the group interview. Requiring candidates to participate in a problem-solving task is an effective way to gauge certain qualities of your candidates.
- Keep in mind that some candidates may appear less participative. Whether it's a case of shyness, or you happen to have an especially outgoing person in your group, try not to judge a candidate on this unless the job requires an outgoing personality. Remember that job interviews--especially group interviews--and new experiences can be daunting, and that oftentimes an employee whom you remember as shy in an interview doesn't stay that way for long.
