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Interviewing is tough for all parties involved. As an employer, you need to determine the talent and personality of every applicant that comes through the door. So how do you do it? What kind of questions do you need to ask to make a hiring decision? Before you can start interviewing, you must first “Source." Sourcing is basically finding candidates via your corporate database, LinkedIn, or posting your job description on key websites. The hiring manager must define the three top attributes needed for the recruiter to find the candidate. This should be done before they are brought in for an eye-ball to eye-ball interview. Here are five key questions you need to ask during the first interview. First, it is important to get the candidate to express themselves so you can evaluate their communications skills. You can ask an open ended question like, “Why did you decide to get into our industry.” Just get them talking and you can get an idea of how well they communicate. Second, you want to determine their problem solving capabilities. Ask them to tell you about one of their projects and how they approached it and how they solved those difficult problems that they never anticipated. Third, ask them about the team that they either put together or worked with. Find out if they appear to be a team leader or a good team player, both are essential. You probably do not need a maverick that can only work alone. Teamwork is the key to successful project management and completion. Next, you need to ask questions to determine candidates’ industrial knowledge. Some organizations have the hiring manager do it and others will have their senior individual contributors question the candidate. Either way you need to make sure they have the knowledge to do the job. You can’t afford to be fooled by a slick talking candidate that knows nothing but sounds great. By the time you find out that they are phony, you will have lost months of working time. Plus the time it takes to re-start your search for their replacement! The fifth and final (and most important) point is to make sure that there is good chemistry between the candidate and most of the people that interviewed them. If you are not sure they are a “fit” have the candidate come back for an additional interview. Some people don’t interview that well the first time, but are more relaxed and to the point on the second interview. But be sure to ask all of the interviewing if they felt good chemistry with the candidate. Follow these suggestions and you will be asking the best questions to get the best employees. And that is the way to success! Jim Stedt is a partner at The Business SoftSkills Company (GetSoftSkillsNow.Com) located in Santa Ana, California. They provide job readiness and workforce success videos for education, business, prisons and individual use. Training is available online, on DVD, or through an affiliate program. These products are the most complete and concise soft skills training packages now available for the price of an average college textbook.
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