[ Volume Twenty Seven ]

Article Overview: When was the last time your managers conducted interviews? If they don't interview often, or if it's been a while, you'll need to refresh their skills to ensure they interview effectively and attract the best candidates.

A study conducted by the "International Personnel Management Association" in 1999 analysed how well job interviews accurately predict success on the job.[2] What they found was quite disturbing: the typical recruitment interview increases the likelihood of choosing the best candidate by less than 2%. In other words, if you just tossed a coin to pick a candidate, you would be correct 50% of the time, and if you added an interview you would be right only 52% of the time.

If we accept the premise that a well conducted interview can certainly add significant value to the recruitment process, then given our historically poor interviewing results there is obviously a significant skills gap on the part of those doing the interviewing. In short, it appears that there is a dearth of "interview ready" managers.

What is Interview Readiness?

Very few people are ever taught how to interview effectively. For most managers, interviewing is forced upon them as they move into management roles. While there is a vast amount of information accessible to candidates on how to perform well in interviews, there is significantly less advice available for those on the other side of the table on how to be a great interviewer.

Interview readiness means that a recruiter has all the necessary tools, knowledge and practical skills to follow a disciplined but flexible process that will ensure a higher percentage of quality hires.

Lack of interview preparedness on the part of the recruiter or hiring manager often results in:

1. A poorly structured interview;
   
2. Failure to short-list the strongest candidates. Interviewees are typically more skilled at selling themselves than the recruiter is at screening them;
   
3. A hire decision which relies on personal chemistry and knowledge of the team/business, rather than empirical evidence.[3]

So how do you move managers from operating on gut instinct to significantly increasing the percentage of successful of new hires?

Step 1 - Build an Interview Team

Effective interviewing requires specific types of people, and World class employers work hard to identify and groom them. Look for the following attitudes, skills and backgrounds in your interviewing team:[4]

1. Passion for and belief in your brand - able to share its uniqueness and core messages through words and actions.
   
2. Commitment to finding and nurturing new talent - and a genuine love for it.
   
3. Commitment to ongoing personal improvement.
   
4. Interesting life experiences.
   
5. Initiative and accountability - disciplined in following through.

These days, candidates (especially the emerging Gen Y) are more savvy, cynical and demanding than ever before. An enthusiastic, caring and well-rounded interview team who lives and breathes your culture and values can make you stand out from the pack in the recruitment process.

It is simply not possible for one person to be expert at every type of interview. This means that bench strength in your recruitment team is crucial. While multi-skilling can give you more options, if you can have several people capable of both conducting and participating in each kind of interview it will give you capacity to cover almost any recruitment situation you might face.

Step 2 - Embed the Interview Structure

Regardless of type, a typical face-to-face interview (i.e. not online tests) follows the same basic five step format:

a. Meet and Greet
b. Questioning by the Interviewer
c. Clarifying incomplete or problem areas
d. Candidate questions
e. Closing and outlining the next steps

Any interviewer should be able to instinctively follow this process, even in the most free-flowing of interviews.

Step 3 - Select Your Interview Types

Each type of interview is designed to assess different facets of a candidates' suitability by exposing them to a variety of situations and interpersonal dynamics.

Your recruitment team needs to determine which options are the best to follow in each hiring scenario.

For example, an executive search will be entirely different in structure and format to a call-centre intake. However, both recruits can still be underpinned by the same guiding corporate policies, principles and processes.

There are typically two categories of interview: screening and hiring.

Screening interviews qualify candidates that are potentially a good match. In the interest of speed and efficiency, they are usually a one way process controlled by the hiring manager or HR staff. Typical screening interviews are conducted by telephone, videoconference or computer (e.g. multiple -choice questions or resume submission).

Hiring interviews are more of a dialogue, where the candidate also assesses the employer's job opportunity. These can take many different formats; panel, serial, sequential, group, situation, audition, stress, informational, structured, tag team, meandering, mealtime, follow-up and behavioural are just a sample.[5]

With such a range of options, it's helpful to remember that every interview should aim to reveal more information about a candidate in three key areas:[6]

1. Does a candidate have the skills to do the job?
2. How do they function under pressure?
3. How well will they fit into their potential team?

The second area is perhaps the most neglected; but the reality is, it's better to know if people can cope with the workload before they're brought fully on board. Over time, companies find a process that works for them and only vary it in unusual circumstances.

Step 4 - Training

Recruitment teams are a vital part of the company sales force, and thus require a similar commitment to ongoing skill development as any sales team to ensure that they can perform at the highest levels in each interview situation. The more interview types and steps in the company recruitment process, the more training is required. Every major recruitment campaign should have a skills refresh as part of the planning. In addition, interviewers need to prepare for each stage to determine their roles in questioning and assessing candidates.[7]

Step 5 - Prepare for Post Interview Pitfalls

As candidates progress through the screening and hiring stages, managers must address a number of challenges to ensure the best result. The more candidates, recruitment team members and interview types, the more likely it is that problems will occur.

The major challenge is how to consolidate all the information gathered from different interviews in a way that enables sound decision making. Factors such as interviewer bias, incomplete or over-emphasised sections, false or distorted impressions and interpretation/analysis of verbal responses can all impact negatively on the process. The result of this is that good candidates can be screened out too early.

Interviewers must be trained to be alert to their own preferences and biases, so that their potential negative impact is minimised. The only way to measurably address this issue is to ensure that as many essential criteria and success factors for the role as possible can be empirically validated and scored independently of an interviewers' personal feedback. This will allow interviewer reflections to be assessed and incorporated into final decision-making with the security of an agreed benchmark. Good procedures leads to consistency between interviewers.[8]

Conclusion

Interviews are a significant investment in time and money for both hiring manager and candidate. Accurately determining a candidates' skills, experience, knowledge and cultural fit takes great skill. It is imperative that companies find interviewing styles and formats that are beneficial to the needs of both the company and its potential employees. With the wide variety of options available, training is mandatory to do them well. Everything possible should be done to ensure that the best available staff are equipped and empowered to recruit the right people for your organisation, with the ultimate result of a well organised hiring process being satisfied candidates and better quality hires.

References:

1. Interviewing Techniques - http://www.refresher.com/!interviewing.html

2. The 9 Most Common Hiring Mistakes and How To Avoid Them - http://www.chally.com/pdf/9HiringMistakes.pdf

3. The 9 Most Common Hiring Mistakes and How To Avoid Them - http://www.chally.com/pdf/9HiringMistakes.pdf

4. Getting Your Managers Interview Ready- http://www.wetfeet.com/employer/articles/article.asp?aid=582&atype=screen

5. Interview Styles: Tips for Interview Approaches http://humanresources.about.com/cs/selectionstaffing/a/interviews.htm
(NB Contains good definitions of all different interview types listed in this article)

6. Job Interview Questions to Ask - http://management.about.com/od/managementskills/a/InterviewQ70204.htm

7. Eight Hiring Mistakes Employers Make - http://humanresources.about.com/cs/selectionstaffing/a/hiring_mistakes.htm

8. Best Practices In Interviewing - http://humanresources.about.com/od/recruitingandstaffing/l/aa_interviewing.htm

Other:
SmartForce Objective Interview Training - http://www.smartforcesolutions.com/objectiveinterviewtraining.html

About Regent Recruitment Regent Recruitment is a consultancy that assists leading Australian employers to attract and retain talented staff on a contract, temporary or permanent basis. Whether we are filling one permanent role or recruiting contract staff for a 400-seat call centre, we deliver the same high level of service. Operating nationally, the company is unique in that it combines the capabilities of a large-scale multinational recruitment firm with exceptional service levels typically only associated with small boutique agencies. How can we assist you? We would welcome the opportunity to have a confidential meeting to discuss your staffing needs in more detail. If you are interested, in the first instance please call Howard Mereine, Group General Manager, on (03) 8646 9150 or e-mail Howard at hmereine@regentrecruitment.com.au. We look forward to speaking with you.

This article was licenced by Regent Recruitment for the Regent Recruitment client newsletter.
Written by Victoria Small and Paul Quinn for Quinntessential Marketing Consulting Pty Ltd.


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The views and opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of Regent Personnel Pty Ltd.