How to be a good interviewer

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Too often people come out of interviews thinking they didn’t get enough “depth”. This is bad for the candidate, who inevitably has to endure more interviews, and bad for the team who have to make a hiring decision based on incomplete information. There are many reasons why candidates don't give complete answers: They may be inexperienced at interviews, introverted or just used to speaking in generalities. Whatever the reason, good interviewing skills allow you to direct the interview to get the information you need.? Here are some ways to ensure you gather the evidence you need during an interview to make an informed decision.

BE PREPARED

Know what information you are looking to gather. Create an interview rubric so the interview team know what areas to assess the candidates on. This enables interviewers to? prepare questions ahead of the interview that don’t allow the candidate to give vague responses. It’s natural to feel like you have to move on to the next question once the candidate answers it. However, if you go into the interview knowing what information you need to gather it’s easier to dig in until you get the information you need.

HELP THEM HELP YOU

Remember, the goal isn’t to catch out the interviewee. You should help the candidate understand what you information you’re trying to obtain. Learn to reframe your question and be specific.? Some candidates may purposefully try to distract, tell half-truths, or exaggerate their accomplishments or role on a project, but some may just honestly be confused by the question you have asked them. I like to say things like “I’m trying to understand the level of hands-on work you did on this project, can you help me understand what you were responsible for?”? Don’t be afraid to politely stop the interviewee if they are giving you unhelpful information and redirect them to the original question.

CHECK YOUR BIAS

To get a real view of a candidate, you need to make sure you’re not projecting any of your own biases or assumptions onto them. Question yourself, are you comparing this candidate to someone else that looked or sounded similar? Have you made assumptions about this candidate ahead of time? Are your assertions backed up by what they’ve actually said? It’s very important to take notes so you can be sure your opinion is based on evidence you collected during the interview and not on your previous assumptions or biases.

BE RESPECTFUL?

Show the candidate you’re invested in them, and are grateful for the time they’ve taken by actively listening to what they have to say. If there are areas of ambiguity, repeat what they have said back to them and ask if you understood correctly. Or, ask clarifying questions to ensure you’re both on the same page.

AVOID ASKING “WHY”

When interviewing, think of yourself as a journalist as opposed to a police officer. Being interrogated sucks for you AND the candidate. Interrogation causes candidates to get defensive, stressed and clam up, so you’re unlikely to get a true read of who they are and what they can bring. Replace why questions, with “how” or “what” to avoid the candidate feeling attacked.

"What made you choose that method?" sounds a lot less accusatory than “why did you choose that method?”, and the chances of you getting a productive answer are higher.

USE FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS?

Follow-up questions that solicit more information are powerful. They signal to your conversation partner that you are listening, care, and want to know more. People interacting with a partner who asks lots of follow-up questions tend to feel respected and heard and in turn give more honest answers. Good follow-up questions can fill in the gaps in the story and investigate important details. For example:

“You mentioned working as a team to solve that problem. Tell me more about the team situation - how was the team created, how many people were on the team and how did you lead the diverse personalities to achieve that goal?" Some other examples of follow-up questions are:

• What makes you think/say that??
• What sort of impact do you think this will have??
• How did you come to this conclusion??
• What do you think was at the root of the problem??
• What would we do if the opposite were true??
• How do you know this to be true?

OPEN ENDED QUESTIONING

Some types of questions can force candidates into a yes-or-no corner, which robs you of an opportunity to actually learn about the candidate. Open-ended questions can counteract the feeling of being interrogated and thus can be particularly useful in uncovering information. “Closed” questions can introduce bias. Even worse is if you’re asking a question with an expectation of what the one “acceptable” answer is, you are setting the candidate up to fail.

CONSIDER THE SEQUENCE OF YOUR QUESTIONS

A big part of the goal of interviewing is to build relationships. Opening with easier/less sensitive questions and escalating slowly is the most effective way to do this.

CONSIDER YOUR APPROACH

Approach the interview as if the candidate is a peer you warn to learn from. People also tend to be more forthcoming when given an escape hatch or “out” in a conversation. If they are told that they can change their answers at any point, they tend to open up more. This is why in a whiteboard setting, where anything can be erased and judgment is suspended, people are more likely to answer questions openly. It’s also always a good idea to model humility too, to put candidates at ease. Talk about your own failures, or use self-deprecating humor where appropriate.

USE PROBING QUESTIONS EFFECTIVELY

Your job as the interviewer is to focus on specifics. The acronym to remember is S.A.R: ask for a Situation and drill down on the Actions and Results. For example, if “conflict resolution” is a key competency for a position, then a series of questions might be: Describe a situation in which you had to deal with an upset co-worker? How did you do it? Who else was involved? How did you work with them to resolve the situation? What were the results?

?HOW TO WRAP UP

Instead of asking candidates if they have any questions at the end of an interview, ask them if there’s anything you haven’t asked or covered that they feel is important. They will likely answer no, that you covered everything. Ensure you wait to give them time to think, this is often the time during the interview where you can gain the most real insight into what the candidate is thinking. Although it can be uncomfortable to sit in silence, this will often encourage the candidate to reveal more about themselves than a typical question and answer response.

In my experience the worst interviewers are those that consider themselves to be naturally great interviewers, so they don’t feel the need to prepare and are resistant to a structured process. They think they can “wing it”, and rely on their intuition to make decisions. If you don’t prepare for interviews, you can’t get real data. This leads to making biased, uninformed decisions which in turn lead to bad hiring decisions for your team.? As the adage goes “If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail”