?? Unlocking Interview Success: Insights and Strategies for Hiring Excellence ??

Welcome back the The Roadmap to Hiring Success Newsletter.

The hot topic for this edition is: Interviewing!

Interviewing is an art. It takes a good interviewer to make a good interviewee. It's not just about asking the right questions, a good interviewer will pick up on the little things that a candidate says and know how to explore it further.

The more interviewing you do, the more confident and capable you'll become.

Today's newsletter will cover off 3 key areas that will help you interview like a boss.

Interviewing techniques for successful hiring decisions

There are many different techniques you can use to effectively assess your applicants. But which is right for you, your company and the role?

The techniques you use will be determined on the skills and behaviours you are looking to assess. The methods you use will also likely change for each role you recruit for as each is different in it's own right.

The interview techniques you choose will also depend on your own interview style and process.

I personally think having a blend of different techniques within the interview process not only adds variety to the interview, but is ensures you are assessing your applicants in different ways.

Here is an overview of different techniques you can use:

1. Structured Interviews: By following a predetermined format with standardised questions, structured interviews allow for objective assessment and fair comparisons between candidates.
2. Behavioural Interviews: This approach assesses past behaviour as an indicator of future performance. Candidates are encouraged to provide specific examples of their previous experience and how they handled challenges and situations.
3. Situational Interviews: In this technique, candidates are presented with a hypothetical scenario or challenge related to the job and asked to respond with how they would approach the situation.
4. Case Study Interviews: Candidates are presented with a real or hypothetical business problem and asked to analyse and provide recommendations. This technique assesses a candidate's ability to think critically and communicate effectively.
5. Panel Interviews: In this approach, multiple interviewers simultaneously assess a candidate. Panel interviews bring diverse perspectives and insights to the recruitment process, allowing candidates to engage effectively with each panel member and showcase their skills and qualifications.
6. Technical Interviews: These interviews play a vital role in assessing a candidate's technical knowledge and skills through practical exercises, coding challenges, or tests. Technical interviews ensure that candidates possess the necessary expertise to excel in their positions.
7. Cultural Fit Interviews: To determine whether a candidate's values and behaviours align with an organisation's culture.

What questions should you ask in the interview?

Before delving into specific interview questions, it's essential to understand the purpose of an interview. At the end of any interview, you should be able to confidently answer three questions:

1. Can they do the job?
2. Do you want them to do the job?
3. Do you think they want the job?

To answer these questions, it's crucial to evaluate the candidate's skills, values, organisational fit, and motivations.

When crafting interview questions, it's important to avoid vague questions, which can lead to vague answers. Instead, focus on questions that will provide valuable information about the candidate's skills, attributes, and behaviours. To do this, I always recommend reverse engineering the process:

1. Identify the key skills and attributes required for the role.
2. Determine the behaviours necessary for success in the position.
3. Establish your top three non-negotiables, whether they're attitude, behaviour, or skills-driven.

Once you have this information, work backward to create specific, non-leading questions that will give you the information you need to make an informed decision about the candidate.

For example, instead of asking a vague question like, "Give me an example of a time you've had to work under pressure," rephrase the question to be more specific: "Give me an example of a time when you had to work with limited information to complete a task that had a tight deadline." This will provide you with more valuable information about the candidate and their ability to handle pressure in a relevant context.

By mastering the art of skillful interviewing and crafting the perfect interview questions, you'll be well on your way to revolutionising your hiring process and selecting the ideal candidates for your organisation.

The interview feedback drama triangle

After every interview comes....interview feedback.

The never ending battle of getting feedback right now begins.

Candidates shame companies on a daily basis for not providing constructive feedback, yet when they get feedback they disagree with it. The Manager/HR gets stuck in the middle then refrains from providing feedback again as it causes people to get defensive and it can often appear 'more hassle then its worth'

This is why I call this scenario the "interview feedback drama triangle"

Be prepared that providing feedback can feel icky.

Keep the feedback constructive, factual and helpful. What could they have done better? What advice can you give them to improve their interview technique?

The key to avoiding the drama triangle is to ask permission to provide the feedback. If they say yes, you have their attention and they are open to receiving it. You'll be surprised that some applicants say 'no thank you'.

One you have advised the applicant they have not been successful, let them know you have some constructive feedback to hand and are they open to receiving it?

This is the secret sauce to avoiding the defensive backlash that often happens.

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