“The secret of my success is that we have gone to exceptional lengths to hire the best people in the world.”
Steve Jobs
Former CEO of Apple
The recruitment process of your company is not only an important step for your organization to hire the right candidate, but it also sets first impressions about the company among potential candidates.
It adds to the candidate’s experience and gives a hint about the work culture. Since, the interview round is the one that gives a chance for personal interaction, its importance escalates even more.
Poor interview techniques can lead to bad reviews from candidates on online public platforms, pulling them out of the interview process, and taking a long time to fill the job position.
Hence, the interview round is as important for the recruiter as it is for the candidate.
Whether you are an experienced HR professional in a dynamic workplace or a recruiter who has just started off with the hiring process for the first time, these tips are designed to make the interview round interesting and fruitful for both the interviewers and candidates.
Here are 7 Effective Interviewing Tips for Recruiters
1. Customize predictable questions
Candidates are usually well prepared, sometimes even well-rehearsed, for the expected questions. This can lead to inefficiency in understanding the true potential of the candidate for the job position and how they can perform in dynamic situations.
Try to customize the questions based on the specific skills required for the job and what the candidate possess by adding conditions, hypothetical situations, and their possible actions on them to understand the skillset of the candidate.
2. Set the right tone at the beginning of the interview
Being polite, courteous, and enthusiastic goes a long way. The candidate should feel that you are interested in hiring them and have a positive attitude towards the person and the process. It also represents the kind of culture the company has. Having a balance between being professional and courteous helps keep the interview engaging and molds it into engaging conversation, which relieves the candidate from “interview performance stress.”
3. Ask situational and personality based questions
A personality test can help in understanding the different attributes a candidate possesses and how they can be used for the job role you are hiring. This test can be included at any stage of the hiring process. The results help in providing information about other personal attributes like aggression, collectivism, and other psychological and behavioral concepts of the candidate, which helps in understanding whether the candidate is an ideal fit for the company or not.
4. Prepare for expected questions from the candidates
Candidates usually have questions after the completion of the interview. These questions can be related to the next step of the hiring process or any query related to the position you are hiring for.
Some examples are –
What additional skills are you looking for in the candidate?
What will be the next step if I pass this stage?
When can I expect a response from you?
You can think of more such questions and prepare for them based on your experience or understanding.
5. Structure the flow of the interview
This is one of the most important attributes, as it helps the most with clear decision making and a positive candidate experience. Start with introducing yourself and talking a bit about your role, followed by the questions and then the closing note. If there is a panel of recruiters, the questions and the flow can be decided prior based on their personal expertise on the subject.
6. Avoid resume bias
An individual can speak more than their resume. Try not to be biased in any way during the interview process to do a fair analysis of the candidate. In case of doubt, ask the candidate questions based on the resume.
7. Keep the process updated based on the latest trends
Last but not least, keep yourself updated with the latest industry knowledge of the hiring process and how you can improve every stage of it with the contribution of your team.
For example – Introduction of an AI based screening and interview as the first round in hiring process.
Frequently asked questions
Some of the interview questions which recruiters should ask are-
– How do you handle stressful situations at the workplace?
– What are some of your weaknesses and how are you trying to overcome them?
– Hard work or Smart work, what do you prefer?
– What is your understanding of self-confidence?
These effective interviewing tips can help you and your HR team onboard the right candidate. Customize predictable questions, set the right tone at the beginning of the interview, ask situational and personality based questions.
Being polite, courteous, and enthusiastic goes a long way. The candidate should feel that you are interested in hiring them and have a positive attitude towards the person and the process. It also represents the kind of culture the company has.
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