How to interview for new employees
A lot of companies hire workers almost every couple of months. This maybe because they are a large company or because the workers they previously hired just weren’t whom they expected. Businesses can refrain from suffering from the latter by having a structured method in assessing their candidates. One of the most important steps in hiring an employee is the interview. A prepared method of interviewing will make it easier to evaluate all the possible candidates. Here are a few tips on how you should go about selecting your new employees:
Review and Assess
Before you start inviting applicants for an interview, be sure to review and assess their resumes. Some applicants just tend to apply to any available job even if they are not qualified. Reviewing the resumes will help you remove applicants who are not fit for the job based on their experience. Always remember to ask your applicants to submit legal documents. You can also conduct a written examination for job positions that require a special skill set.
E-mail Notification & Voice Interview
Most applicants give their resumes to numerous companies. Some of these companies may answer faster than you do, thus, making the applicant unavailable. Do not be pressured to hire as quickly as possible, you should take your time because these future employees will greatly affect your business. With e-mail notifications and voice interviews, you can ask them if they are still willing and available for an actual interview. This will save you a great deal of time and effort when scheduling your interviews.
Actual Interview
Contrary to popular belief, actual interviews should not focus on skill, rather, it should focus on an applicants cultural side and personality. An applicant’s skill set can easily be seen through their resumes. The actual interview is when you should determine if his/her character is fit for your company and the job that you are offering. To ease the tension, first ask the applicant to tell something about himself. Let him tell you about his education and experience. Use this small talk to get him relaxed before giving him/her the behavioral interview.
Behavioral interviews are the best tool you have to identify candidates who have the behavioral traits and characteristics that you have selected as necessary for success in a particular job. Additionally, behavioral interviews ask the candidate to pinpoint specific instances in which a particular behavior was exhibited in the past. In the best behaviorally based interviews, the candidate is unaware of the behavior the interviewer is verifying.
Re-assessment
Although some companies tend to hire employees right after the interview, it does not mean that it is a required practice. It will not be held against you if you re-assess all your applicants in order to choose the best employee. Please keep in mind that it is best that you assess these applicants with another colleague or a Human Resource Manager if your company has one. Some companies may even require multiple interviews to further help them assess each applicant. You may or may not opt to do this based on what you see fit.
Conclusion
Hiring employees is one of the most important and crucial factors of a business. The kind of employees that a company have can make or break a business. Remember, there are no sure fire steps in being able to hire the perfect employee, but having a structured approach in your company’s hiring process will definitely help you to select the best candidate.
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Scott Burton, Manager at Abbertons Human Resources
Great article Phil. It's refreshing to read your advice on assessing for cultural fit rather than just skills and abilities. It's all the other 'stuff' that comes with a human being that is more difficult to predict. It's also extremely important to be thinking about what you want this person to deliver in terms of outcomes and as you say, use behavioural style interviews (and reference checking) to establish previous accomplishments that are similar. Of course it's when you don't have any applicants with similar demonstrated results that it becomes more difficult.
Alasdair Spinner, Owner at Telescope Consulting
Often overlooked is the importance of understanding what your own recruitment brand is, how it is conveyed by individuals in your business and how it is conceived in the labour market. Understanding this and developing a recruitment/employer brand within the recruitment process is critical to your business securing the best available talent.