Saturday October 5 2024
Swindon & Wiltshire News
It is not just interviewees that need to prepare for their big day, but interviewers too.
Whether it’s your first time or you are an experienced interviewer; here are our top three tips on how you can conduct efficient and effective interviews:
Plan and Prepare – a planned interview format makes it not only easier, but more time and cost efficient to compare applicants.
Make sure you have a good understanding of the role, that your administration is in order, and make sure you have noted down the questions you are asking each applicant ensuring they are relevant, competency based, comprehensible and above all lawful.
Let them tell their story – remember that the point of the interview is to let the applicant expand on what they’ve already told you in their CV.
Let them sell themselves rather than take over the conversation. As a rough guide talking should be 80/20 in favour of the candidate. Guide them with a few pre planned opening questions to help them relax and make sure you get the information you need to make a comparison.
Open them up rather than close them down – ‘closed’ questions such as “Did you enjoy your last job?”, that only require an answer of “yes” or “no” – are useful for establishing facts, but give little information.
‘Open’ questions allow the applicant to talk and broaden the information; giving the interviewer the evidence of the surrounding the facts – “why did you enjoy your last role?”, or “what do you feel you achieved in your last job?”.
Start with “why”, “what”, “where”, and “how” – an excellent opener is “Tell me about…” and keep them brief. Remember to ask them one question at a time and let them answer fully.
Whether you are an experienced interviewer or preparing to meet your very first candidate, knowing a few fundamentals of employment interviewing will help you immensely.
The job interview remains key to assessing not only an individual’s ability to perform the role but also their cultural fit.
A planned approach enables you to make comparisons between applicants more easily, saving you time and money on your recruitment spend and ensure you remain within the law.
Emma Roberts is support services manager at White Horse Employment in Trowbridge. www.wh-employment.co.uk
