Let them interview you first

Finding the best candidates that tick all the boxes is an ideal scenario but that looks to be almost impossible. With globalization and remote work, there is tough competition as more organizations can easily tap into a local market with decent compensation and snatch the best of the market’s talents. With this, organizations are required to relook at the way they source, engage, and interview candidates.

Interview as two-way communication

According to Indeed Editorial Team (2023), interviews are an important part of the recruitment process as they help hiring teams meet a variety of candidates in order to identify the right candidate meeting their organization’s needs. They can help you find potential employees who align with your organization’s culture and goals… So, they try to find out what is in for them and the company when interviewing the candidates.

This is a great definition, among others; it outlines the purpose of the interview from the hiring team or company perspective. While the company is interviewing candidates, candidates are also interviewing the company through the interviewers to discover what is in for them.

Since each party is trying to find out what is in for each of them, this conversation should be an interactive two-way communication that will allow each party to have necessary insights for their decision-making throughout the process. Rakoff (n.d) said questions have the power to short-circuit and ignite a deeper understanding. Today’s interviews are more of one-way communication where one person (Interviewer) is asking questions and the other (Candidate) is responding to questions; and this leaves candidates with less knowledge about the organizations, its products and services, its culture, its achievement and challenges, and most importantly the problem to be resolved by the vacant position. It becomes so difficult for candidates to quickly sift from answering questions and ask questions with only two or three minutes left as most of the interviewers allow them to ask questions at last. A two-way communication interview will save you time and will make the interview experience enjoyable for both parties; it also increases motivation, decreases stress, and sends a message portraying the organization as a productive, efficient, creative, and innovative organization.

Let the candidate interview before you interview them

Instead of asking the candidate to tell you about themselves, have you tried first to tell them who you are, your role in the company, the structure of the team you are leading, the products or solutions, the briefing of the role, opportunities and challenges linked to the role? Doing so and allowing the candidate to ask you questions based on this briefing will first break the ice and make the interview much interactive two-way communication where both you and the candidate open up and go deeper in the conversation allowing you to spot any red flags. Since the candidate is getting it from the source, they will be very confident to engage and reveal any weaknesses and strengths, and their desire and ability to learn.

?In a very competitive market, the best candidates can be lost only by the way interviews are conducted as one-way communication. Establishing a two-way interactive communication by allowing candidates to ask more questions first (to interview you first) can be beneficial to both interviewers and candidates as each part will have the answer to this question, “What is in for me” and with this, you will hardly hear statements such “ this job was over or undersold to me”.

?References

Indeed Editorial Team. (2023, March 110) Why Interviews Are an Important Part of the Recruitment Process. Indeed. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/why-are-interviews-important-part-of-recruitment

Rakoff, T. (n.d). Asking questions that probe for deeper understanding. Harvard?Graduate School of Education. https://instructionalmoves.gse.harvard.edu/asking-questions-probe-deeper-understanding