Employer advise - Getting talent from Interviews
If you have reached interview stage for the role you are recruiting you will have already drawn up a job specification and looked through candidate CVs. Here we give employees some advice as to how they can maximise their efforts and manage their time at the interview stage.
Research
Though this may be a luxury for some, preparing for your meeting does help. Before the meeting, read through the candidate CV again. Candidates should know their CV inside out to speak with conviction so likewise, you should be in a position to ask them pertinent questions.
Although the hiring power ultimately lies with you, they too will be assessing whether they want to be working for your company; in effect interviewing you. They will have a first impression too.
Shaking their hand and making good eye contact is often said to be the most important part of the interview. Bear in mind, the candidate may be nervous. Try to put them at ease with an ice breaker such as asking how their journey to the meeting was. Nerves are not necessarily a bad thing; it gives you an idea of how they deal with pressure and how they will deal with strangers when potentially starting with you.
The interview
The first thing you should do is set the agenda. Just explain very briefly how the meeting will be structured. This is logical, it also gives you control of the meeting. Introduce yourself and also give a very brief overview of the company, your department and the role on offer.
A basic thing to be aware of is how you phrase your questions. The interview will not progress if you ask closed questions. This is when you limit the candidate’s response to a one word answer. The best suggestion would be to ask questions with an open word such as who, what, where, when, why or how. Another technique would be to give the candidate a statement and then asking them to expand such as ‘You have had a lot of experience in managing teams. Tell me about it’. If using this, just bear in mind the candidate may not give you the information you want to hear so be prepared to prompt them with further questions.
