With the number of vacancies in the technology industry showing no signs of slowing in 2022, more and more hiring managers face the challenge of regularly recruiting and conducting interviews alongside their usual day to day responsibilities.
60% of hiring managers that we have spoken to have had little or no formal interview training and as the risk of making a poor hire can cost a company as much as 30% of a yearly salary it is important to mitigate the risk of hiring the wrong person from the outset.
Given that 90% of candidates that we have spoken to describe the interview process and their general experience through the process as the third most important criteria when it comes to deciding whether they decide to join a new business, we thought we would put together this handy guide to help you conduct better interviews:
WHAT IS THE PLAN:
Decide what steps are involved in your hiring process. How many stages are necessary? Where multiple hiring managers are involved can these interviews be combined or run consecutively to keep the process as efficient as possible.
BE ON TIME:
Make sure that you as an interviewer arrive for any face to face or virtual meetings on time!
AGREE YOUR INTERVIEW STRUCTURE:
If more than one person is interviewing – assign relevant topics + questions to each interviewer prior to starting the interview.
WHAT / WHEN / WHY / HOW?
Decide upon a set of core questions that are relevant for the job you are hiring for. The goal is not necessarily seeing a candidate arrive at an answer so much as gaining an insight into their thought process.
BE PREPARED:
Make sure that as an interviewer you can tell a consistent story about your company and are well informed about the role you are interviewing for – also think about the key drivers that lead you to join the organisation – these can be powerful selling points for the person being interviewed.
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA:
Try to come up with a standardised feedback mechanism, using scorecards / questionnaires to ensure consistent and more scientific decisions – as opposed to replying on ‘gut-feel’.
GIVE TIMELY FEEDBACK:
Schedule post-interview de-briefs and provide feedback to the candidates within 48 hours of any interview. It is important to communicate next steps and let candidates know when they have been eliminated from the process in a timely manner.
BE PREPARED FOR AWKWARD QUESTIONS YOURSELF:
Are you familiar with your own company Glassdoor reviews, are there any areas that might be brought up by the candidate? If the candidate has done their research thoroughly, they will likely have some questions for https://www.linkedin.com/redir/general-malware-page?url=you%E2%80%A6%2eso best to be prepared to cover anything negative that they might have seen.
TEAM INVOLVEMENT:
Try to get the candidate to meet with multiple team members, candidates get a comprehensive picture of the culture and the job itself, and team members get a strong sense of the contribution the candidate will make as an employee.
DON’T DISCRIMINATE:
The purpose of the job interview is to assess whether a candidate has the ability and skills to do the job based on their relevant experience and the law protects employees in the United Kingdom from discrimination based on age, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, colour and race, religion, and disability
