Conducting a Successful Interview
- Details
- Category: Career Resources
- Published on Monday, 04 July 2011 20:13
Before the interview it’s important to identify who within your organisation is best placed to be on the interview selection panel. For technical IT jobs, it’s essential to have the following types of people on the panel:
- The supervisor of the position.
- A subject matter expert in the technology skills that you’re recruiting.
- A representative from your HR department.
It’s advisable to have candidates’ information available to you before the interview, so that if any issues creep up through the reference checking process, you can clarify the matter in the interview.
Make sure you formulate your questions before the interview. Think through the important things you need to discover about the person and make sure your questions address these things. The following guidelines will help you to formulate questions that can give you valuable insight into the person you’re considering taking on as an employee:
- Formulate open questions. Let the candidate tell you about themselves, their skills and experience.
- Ask open questions. Look out for opportunities to go into more specific detail depending on the information provided by the candidate in response.
- Don’t ask leading questions. Leading questions imply an expected answer (for example, “You felt frustrated when your manager did that didn't you?”).
- Make sure your questions clarify their skills sets and competencies in order to determine if they are suitable for the position.
- Ensure you formulate questions that address any concerns that were raised through reference checking.
Some questions to consider asking during the interview include:
- Tell me about yourself: this is a good introductory question. It’s open, and allows you to get to know the applicant a little better.
- What do you know about our organisation? It shows a high level of initiative if a candidate has researched your business and is able to talk meaningfully about how they see themselves fitting into your organisation.
- Why are you the best person for this job? Allows the candidate to highlight their strengths in relation to the position for which they are being considered.
- What are the areas that you will you need to improve in order to carry out this job effectively? This is an opportunity to see if the candidate is self aware regarding their weaknesses. Look for awareness and a logical and systematic plan to address the weakness. Can the candidate still ‘sell’ themselves to you after speaking of a weakness?
During the interview it’s important to establish a relaxed environment. While interviewing, less is more! Encourage the candidate to do the talking.
In order to put the candidate at ease at the interview, begin with an easy question, gradually building up to the more challenging questions.
Make sure you ask only one question at a time. This will assist in focusing the candidate on exactly what you’re seeking rather than trying to guess what is most important to address when faced with a composite question.
Make sure you take notes during the interview and try to record the candidate’s responses to each of your questions. Don’t rely on your memory, especially when you are interviewing a number of candidates. Your notes will serve you well and be highly valuable when you’re comparing interview notes across many interviews.
If a candidate seems to be an ideal fit for your Linux or IT job vacancy, express sincere interest without the promise of a firm offer. If the candidate doesn’t know you’re keen, they may hastily accept another job offer.
Close with thanking the candidate for taking the time to meet with you and explain what the next step will be in the recruitment process, giving them an expectation of when they are likely to hear from you again.