How to Conduct an Interview, Part 1

 

In a previous post, I’ve discussed that the goal of the phone interview is to make a go/no-go decision on your candidate.  It’s not to decide whether or not to hire them, no matter how tempting that approach may be.  Here we’ll discuss the next step in the process – the face-to-face interview.

 

The goal of a face-to-face interview is to determine the likelihood that the candidate will be considered successful in your open position, 12 months from now.  The process for making this crucial determination begins with the writing of an accurate job profile, as that process ensures that you know exactly what skills and experiences that you’ll be evaluating before you launch into the interview stage.  You’ll want to think like a risk manager when you get to the face-to-face interview stage, with the mindset of someone trying to determine the percentage likelihood that the person you’re considering for a job will be successful in the role that you have defined.

 

Assuming you’ve completed an accurate job profile, and that you’ve used a telephone screen to arrive at the pool of candidates still in the running for your position, then you’re ready to bring these folks in for round one of face-to-face interviews.  Here are some guidelines for preparing yourself to conduct predictive, repeatable, and accurate face-to-face interviews with your candidate pool:

 

1.  Use a scripted interview.  The best interviewers use the same canned interview script each and every time.  Using the same script ensures that all candidates are asked the same questions in the same order, and makes your job as final decision-maker a whole lot easier.  When you’re not fumbling around for the next question to ask, you can focus on listening to what your candidate has to say.  It’s amazing what you’ll learn!

 

 I’ve developed a comprehensive competency-based interview guide that I’ve used to successfully assess talent over the course of more than 2500 interviews, and it’s now available for your use.  Our In-Depth Behavioral Interview Guide will dramatically improve your hiring results and pay for itself the first time you use it.  Click here for more information.

 

2.  Use the buddy system.  They teach this stuff to kids for a reason – the buddy system works.  More than just a recipe for preventing disaster at summer camp, the buddy system translates beautifully into the world of professional interviewing.  The system is simple:  you, as the hiring manager, ask the questions and listen intently.  Perhaps you jot a few notes while doing so.  Your interview buddy sits in the room with you, diligently transcribing everything that comes out of the candidate’s mouth.  Four ears are better than two!  Managers who use interview buddies often see dramatic improvements in their ability to choose the right candidate for the job simply because they give themselves the ability to listen.

 

3.  “Tell me more” x 3 = hiring success!  Accept no candidate response at face value.  Users of the Ionix Hiring System know not to give candidates a pass on their first answers to questions (because I beat it into their heads).  It’s the follow-up questions that yield the real substance in the interview, and the approach that I teach is simple yet effective:  Simply say, “tell me a bit more about that” after their initial response, and watch what happens.  Then ask it again.  And then again.  That’s right, you ask it three times.  Every time.  Here’s a typical exchange:

 

     You:  What’s the greatest asset that you’ll bring to our company?

 

     Candidate:  My biggest asset is my ability to build new relationships with prospects.  I will be able to break new accounts for you, and bring in a ton of new revenue.

 

    You:  Tell me more about that.

 

    Candidate:  Well, I’m really good at making cold calls.  In my last company, I didn’t have any lead generation support, and had to rely on myself to make things happen.

 

    You:  That’s great.  Tell me more about that.

 

    Candidate:  Well, the company didn’t really have a marketing department, and the President of the company told me to do whatever I needed to do in order to generate sales.  I relied on an approach that worked really well for me in the past – cold calling.  I made around 100 cold calls each and every day. 

 

    You:  Tell me more about that…what this approach successful?

 

    Candidate:  It was incredibly successful.  As you can see from my resume, I was able to meet quota every quarter for nine consecutive quarters, using nothing but cold calling.  Now, it’s not my favorite approach to sales, but if it’s what’s necessary, I’m willing to do it to be successful.

 

What a difference the “tell me more” approach makes!  Instead of moving on to the next question having learned nothing substantive about your candidate, you now know that this person can crank out cold calls in an environment without any marketing support.  Now, what if you found out that this candidate had a ton of lead generation support, and was successful because of it….but your position will require 100 cold calls a day?  Will this person be successful in your role?  Maybe.  But maybe not.  We now know the likelihood of “maybe not” has increased substantially.

 

4.  Conduct five interviews over the course of a week.  This approach requires planning and a commitment to spending the requisite amount of time to conduct thorough interviews.  In order to minimize candidates opting out of the process due to interview scheduling issues, block out five 2-hour chunks of time (might I suggest one each day?) in order to get through your top five candidates in one week.  By concentrating your interviews, you’ll keep yourself “in the zone” and make it a lot easier to manage the process.  If you take a more piecemeal approach, by the time you get to the 5th candidate in week 4, the first two candidates who interviewed in week 1 might not be around anymore.  Avoid this scenario by planning ahead.

 

5.  NO MAYBES.  This advice will save you time and money.  Time, in that you won’t have to over-analyze the situation.  Money, in that you’ll never waste salary and opportunity cost on someone that never should have be hired in the first place.  The person is either a yes, or they’re out.  No maybes.  NONE.

 

In the next post, we’ll dive deeper into conducting face-to-face interviews, and talk about the difference between conducting an interview and simply having a conversation.

Editor’s Note:  This post is part of a series entitled, “Conducting In-Person Candidate Interviews.”  To view part two of this series, click here.  To view part three, click here.

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