Last week, we participated in a webinar with The Recruiters Network focused on how to make great hiring decisions. The one topic nearly every participant talked about was the importance of interviewing well.
If you’re not being strategic with the questions you’re asking and why you’re asking them, it’s hard to tell if a candidate is the right fit for your organization. Plus, many interview questions have become stale and candidates know to expect them (hello “tell me about your greatest strengths and weaknesses”).
Below are the top tips from expert interviewers on how to make better hiring decisions:
Conduct interview training.
Recruiters are trained on how to interview. Hiring managers and peers oftentimes are not. Hiring managers know the qualities they want in a candidate, so it’s important they are trained on interviewing techniques that help them uncover a candidate’s qualifications. Whether it’s a combined training with all of the hiring managers in your organization or it’s a one-on-one training with HR or an internal recruiter, make sure staff are trained on effective interviewing. Even if it’s not a direct manager, but your organization involves peers in the interview process, they should be coached on interviewing, as well.
Don’t accept a candidate’s first answer.
One of the most important parts of interviewing isn’t the initial question, it’s the follow-up questions that get a candidate to explain their reasoning behind an answer. Examples of good follow-up questions are, “how did you get to that point” or “who did you work with to figure that out,” or it can be as easy as saying, “tell me more.”
References are crucial.
This key component of the hiring process provides a better overall picture of a candidate because you’re able to either validate what a candidate said in an interview or spot red flags. Pro tip: Have the hiring managers conduct the reference calls since they will be directly working with the candidate and can ask questions important to them and their team. For instance, if a hiring manager had specific problems with an employee in the past, they can ask about that during their reference call to make sure this potential new employee won’t have those same issues.
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