Tips for interviewer, note the er!

I'm due to interview someone for an FC role tomorrow. Funny thing is, while I'd say I'm good at being the interviewee, I think my skills as an interviewer leave a lot to be desired.

By that I mean that my experience with the people I've recruited has been hit and miss. Some have turned out well, others not.


Anyone have tips on how to get the best out of interview when you're sitting on the other side of the table? Any feedback from interviews you attended where you felt the person handled themselves really well.

thanks in advance.

Learn by mistakes! If you've hired both successfully and unsuccessfully in the past look at the key qualities of both and base your questions around this.

- Have a list of questions to hand
- Depending on the position ask specific job related / technical questions (eg if position is as a programmer - show some code and ask what's wrong with it or how it could be improved) so you can test actual skills
- Take notes or ideally record interview so you can analyse later

I'm sure there's lots of other useful tips out there!

Apologies if this seems obvious but
Stick to relevant questions:
In a recent job search, I was asked a couple of times what points I had in my leaving cert. I have a college degree and working several years, so I felt this was totally irrelevant.

There was a recent long thread about innappropriate questions in interviews, from the interviewee perspective. Would be worth a look for you.

streamer said:

By that I mean that my experience with the people I've recruited has been hit and miss. Some have turned out well, others not.

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You may be being too hard on yourself. AFAIK, interviewing is generally accepted as being a hugely unreliable process.

Try involving some other people you trust, so you get the judgement of 2-3 other people, not just yourself. And make it a 2-way process - make sure you give candidates enough information about your organisation and the role.

If you have their CV, review it before the interview!!

At the start of the interview, introduce yourself (& any other interviewers)& what you do in the company, explain approx how long the interview will be, and let the candidate know you will be taking some notes during the course of the interview (if that's what you intend to do!).

Ask the candidate what they know about your organisation - this can reveal a lot about the candidate. Ask open ended questions (how, where, when, what...) to get more detail. Try not to answer questions for the candidate. And don't rush to fill the air if the candidate is slow in responding, iykwim.

At the end of the interview, thank the candidate for coming & let them know what will happen next (eg 'we will contact you by X date with our decision'...).

In my org, we have a template that we fill in & rate the candidates based on the interview - its really useful if you are interviewing a number of candidates for the same role, maybe see if HR have something similar.

And good luck with the interviews today.

Why not do a bit of research on the web about interview body language, you might be able to tell a bit about candidates by small little things....

It's really pretty simple...

Start w. your job description, list 5-7 key attributes (education, experience, characteristics, behaviours etc.,) your ideal candidate should have.

Draft up questions that will allow your candidate demonstrate they have that characteristic; they should be open questions...closed questions are fine if you just want to establish facts, if you want your candidate to talk, you need to ensure your questions are open.

You should never interview on your own; at least two people should be present at the interview. Split the questions between you so one person is asking questions, the other taking notes (let your candidate know you will be taking notes).

Immediately after the interview, rate the candiates answers to each question on a 1-5 (or 1-10) scale. Everyone on the interview panel should agree to the rating - or you can allow each person a rating and add them up at the end.

When you have finished interviewing for the day - add up the ratings and you should be able to list your candidates in order of preference.

Finally - get yourself some training on behavioural interviewing; a good course should also cover the legal aspects, how to avoid unintentional (and sometimes intentional!) discrimination etc.,

purpeller said:

In a recent job search, I was asked a couple of times what points I had in my leaving cert. I have a college degree and working several years, so I felt this was totally irrelevant.

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Sometimes "silly" irrelevant questions like this are asked to see how you react to such a ridiculously irrelevant question rather than to actually find out how many points you have. I remember going for an office administrator interview and being asked what my position was on Theology (I was working in the Theology Dept of a local Religious Organisation) which I thought was a ridiculous question to ask given that I was applying for a Secretarial job. I gave the answer that I was not trained or qualified in Theology and really was not able to answer the question. However I added that that I could make an extremely attractive powerpoint presentation of somebody's theology presentation no problem. I was told afterwards that I got the job based on my honesty and response to that question.

The Public appointment service www.publicjobs.ie have a DVD out that outlines tips for both interviewers & interviewees.
also have a look on their site, its a recruitment & selection toolkit for interviewers.

Thanks so much for all the advice, its been very helpful. Based on some of the suggestions given, I searched the web and found this site:




It has some excellent sample questions. It even divides them into types, how to assess how flexible a candidate is, how to establish their ability to make decisions, how to see what motivates them etc. Hopefully it'll prove useful if someone does a search on this thread in the future.

Thanks again.

Streamer.

purpeller said:

In a recent job search, I was asked a couple of times what points I had in my leaving cert. I have a college degree and working several years, so I felt this was totally irrelevant.

Click to expand...

I got asked that two years ago for a job that required me to have both experience and the ability to learn on the job. It was in a field that no learving cert subject covered and I thought it very odd. The interviewer seemed to think my academic life prior to college was exteremly important and I'm almost sure they held the fact I had a low result against me. I did get the job but I don't think that question did me any favours.

Some great advice above.

I would also add that in a lot of cases people who are not used to conducting interviews can tend to do too much talking.

It's the candidate that should be talking roughly 80% of the time. Try to make sure you are not asking closed questions or leading the candidate. This can happen if the interview gets a bit akward or the candidate has not given enough information. The inexperienced interviewer will often try and fill any gaps or silences.

Avoid things like this

'I see from your CV you've done some secretarial work, so you are probably well used to working with microsoft word'

Instead

' I see from your CV you have done some secretarial work. Can you tell me about the types of packages you've used and give me some examples of your use of them'

Don't be afraid to drill down to get he answer you want.

If someone tells you they were responsible for managing a large project don't just take their word for it. Ask them to explain it fully

Who was responsible for the managment of the project?
Who did you report into on the project?
What was your role in the project?
When did the project take place, how long did it last?

You may find that if you only asked him one question he'd tell you he ran the entire project but when you drill down and ask about specifics it may turn out he managed a small section of the project and reported into a project manager.

Most interviews take the form of behavioural based questions.
If the competency you are trying to test is team work then a question might be
'Can you give me an example of when you have worked as part of a team'
Or
'Can you tell me about a difficult team you were a member of. How did you manage this'

Hope that helps.
Best of luck !