How to Enhance Your Skills as an Effective Interviewer for Job Candidacies
When you are in the position of interviewing a candidate for a job, you don’t just meet the person and start asking questions about him or her according to how you perceive the person and the questions that might pop up in your mind at that time – to get optimum results, you need to give it a lot of thought. A lot of questions have to be answered, a lot of information has to be gained, and there’s only a limited time to do it in. Luckily, we have a guide ready for you. Here’s how to enhance your skills as an effective interviewer for job candidates.
Be prepared
If you’re going to have a potential employee coming in for a job interview – no matter how many candidates there may be – you have the obligation to give him or her his or her due time. Be prepared and make sure you have had the time to look through the records. Certain things will stand out; those are automatically points of interest. Take your time and try to create a profile about the candidate.
Know what you’re looking for
Once you’ve created the profile of the candidate (which is probably inaccurate), list down a number of questions that concern you. By now you should know what kind of person you are looking for, so you should be able to come up with questions that will either confirm or deny your concerns. Base the questions to the candidate on a comparison with what you have on record and what your ideal candidate should be.
Looking for signs
Some of the questions you will ask will be answered with ease. Other questions will be answered with some degree of difficulty. The way the question is satisfied is not necessarily an indication of compatibility – however, if you are not sure, follow the questions with more of the same. Be sure.
Panel interviews
If you’re interviewing a candidate with a panel, take measures to put the candidate at ease; it can be intimidating to be questioned by multiple people. Invite them to take a seat and offer them beverages. Introduce yourself and the panel. Avoid intimidation and make the atmosphere as comfortable as possible.
One more thing – try not to take any notes whilst conducting an interview so you can focus on the candidate and their expressions and body language. What you can do instead is record the interview (of course, ask the permission of the candidate first) and then transcribe important points afterwards – or you can also depend on transcription services to do this for you. UK transcription services such as Alphabet Secretarial can provide you with excellent transcription for all your interview needs.
Author: Lolita Di
Good article on conducting interview and recording. Thanks for the post!