By Shawn Connelly
Hiring is a necessary part of any business, especially when you’re focused on growth. Hiring well is a key part of business growth, but an ill-prepared hiring team can waste a lot of time on bad interviewing techniques – leading to money lost on bad hires.
Here are some signs that your team may need help:
Candidates don’t fit your requirements. Inaccurate job descriptions may be attracting the wrong talent. Be sure that the right people are involved in creating the job description.
- Interviewers are not asking the right questions. Every interviewer should be trained in what questions to ask and how to ask them. Probing, following up and remaining relevant are essential to good interviewing.
- The wrong people are conducting interviews. Not everyone is a good interviewer. Training can help, but interviewing effectively is not everyone’s strong suit. Also be sure that you have at least one interviewer from the department where the candidate will be working.
- They are skipping the phone screen. Interviewing candidates who don’t fit your requirements or culture can be a big time suck. Encourage your team to start with a well-thought out phone interview to weed out candidates who may have looked good on paper, but are not appropriate for the job.
- They are not documenting their impressions. Everyone thinks they have a good memory. Creating a system to record assessments in the moment or debriefing immediately following the interview can prevent your team from reducing candidates to “you know, the tall guy with the blue tie” when discussing who to hire.
- They talk too much. The interviewer’s primary job is to draw the candidate out. The candidate should do at least half of the talking in any interview. Sure, the interviewer needs to fill the candidate in about the job and the company, but if they don’t stop talking they’ll never find out if the candidate is the one for the job.
- They lead the candidate. Whether it’s someone they know or just someone who gave them a great first impression, it’s only human to want to hire someone you like. Interviewers must be careful not to tip their hand and give away the answers they are looking for from the candidate.
- Not selling the job. While the candidate would not be interviewing if they were not interested in the job, good candidates may get more than one offer. If your hiring team thinks this candidate could be “the one” be sure to make the case for working at your company.
- Expecting perfection. While you can’t settle for a candidate who just doesn’t fit, the right person may be the one who doesn’t have the exact degree that you wanted or who has transferrable, but not exact skills for the job.
- Not asking for help. Sometimes it gets overwhelming when to find just the right candidate.
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