In today’s competitive job market, it’s crucial to maximise your interviews to ensure you’re able to attract and retain the top talent that’s available. In this blog post, we’ll be discussing a strategy for your HR leads to make the most out of their interviews and secure the best talent with the best fit for your organisation.
Prepare Thoroughly
One of the keys to a successful interview process is thorough preparation. Aside from the standard practices of reviewing the candidate’s resume, cover letter and other relevant documents before the interview, the best interviews come from an easy exchange of information – it’s an interview not an interrogation after all!
Familiarise yourself with the candidate’s skills, experience, and qualifications so you can ask targeted questions during the interview without having to quiz them on the spot. When you prepare a list of questions that assess the candidate’s technical skills, cultural fit, and overall suitability for the role based on what you already know from their application, you will come out the other side of the interview with more information, not just a rehash of their resume.
Set the Right Tone
The interview process is not only an opportunity for you to evaluate the candidate but also for the candidate to assess your organisation – not to mention their experience with you may well get talked about with their industry peers!
Everyone knows the adage of ‘someone who has a positive experience may tell two or three people, but someone who has a negative experience will tell everyone they meet’ – well the same applies to companies. Even when a candidate isn’t suitable for a role with your organisation a professional, friendly, and respectful interaction will always pay dividends over dismissive and awkward.
Begin with an introduction to your organisation, its values, and culture. Be friendly, professional and attentive throughout the interview to create a positive impression and build rapport with the candidate.
Bonus Tip: Provide a Positive Candidate Experience
A positive candidate experience can go a long way in attracting and retaining the best talent. Make sure the interview process is smooth, organised and respectful. Communicate clearly about the interview process, provide feedback to candidates, and keep them updated on the status of their application.
Even if a candidate is not the right fit for the current role, they may be suitable for future opportunities or refer other top talent to your organisation.
Use Behaviourally-Based Questions
Behavioural-based questions are a great way to assess a candidate’s past performance and how they might perform in the future – but it can also give you an insight into how working with them will affect the team socially or mentally.
Ask candidates to provide specific examples of situations they have faced in the past and how they handled them. For example, you could ask, “Tell me about a time when you had to handle a challenging situation at work and how you resolved the conflict.” This allows the candidate to demonstrate their problem-solving skills, decision-making abilities, and communication style. A question like this also provides you with an opportunity to assess how seriously they take important aspects of building a welcoming and productive environment – if they’re dismissive, sarcastic, or condescending towards the concepts of workplace culture and team dynamics they’re unlikely to be a positive addition to your workforce.
Assess Cultural Fit
Cultural fit is essential for long-term employee retention. During the interview you can assess a candidate’s alignment with your organisation’s values, mission, and culture through questions that probe into the candidate’s own values, work style, and preferred work environment.
For example, if you were to ask, “how would you handle working in a fast-paced and high-stakes environment with an unexpected deadline change?”.
A response is something like “work overtime, burn the midnight oil and sleep at the office until it’s done”
Versus
An answer more along the lines of “utilise my time and project management skills, assess the efficiency of the team, potentially look at a rearrangement of team delegations, and work within acceptable overtime budgets.”
While long hours and tight deadlines vary from industry to industry, one of these responses contributes to burnout and role turnover, while the other supports a sustainable workforce and individual development.
Questions like this will help you assess whether the candidate’s values and work style align with your organisation’s culture – and whether they’ll be a net positive force in your team.
Evaluate Interpersonal Skills
Interpersonal skills, such as communication, teamwork and leadership, are critical for success in most roles. Evaluating the candidate’s interpersonal skills during the interview process is a great way to get a handle on them as a person.
Ask open-ended questions that require the candidate to elaborate on their experiences and provide examples of their interpersonal skills in action and how well they understand the
importance of them.
For instance, you could ask them to talk about a time when they worked within their team to achieve a common goal, or to give an example of when communication was a deciding factor in the success of a project.
This type of information about the candidate will help you gauge their ability to work well with your existing tem and get a better idea of their potential to be a valuable team member.
Interviews – The Best Assessment Tool
Maximising the insights gained in candidate interviews is essential for your leads to make sure you’re bringing on the right person for your team.
Thorough preparation, setting the right tone, using behavioural-based questions, assessing cultural fit and interpersonal skills, and providing a positive candidate experience are key strategies to make the most out of your interviews.
