The Art of the Interview

Great interviewing is an art form which, unfortunately, many people don’t master before sitting down with an applicant. Like any art form, it takes practice, attention to detail and careful execution. That’s because the interview process is fraught with variables that can lead to a bad hire.

Common mistakes include winging it (going into the interview unprepared), using the same questions across all jobs (where do you see yourself in five years?) and putting too much of yourself into the interview.

The solution for ensuring you won’t make these types of mistakes? Develop a set of structured, behavioral interview questions for each position you need to staff.

The “structured” part of this equation means you ask the same questions of each candidate for each particular job, allowing you to compare, score and weigh candidates’ responses against an ideal. This provides a standardization which you can use to justify your hiring decisions.

The “behavioral” component means the questions are designed to uncover details of past behavior on the job. That’s key. Typically, interviewers ask a candidate what he or she would do in certain situations. Instead, they should be asking what the candidate did do, because past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior.

How do you begin? It’s a two-step process.

1. Define Competencies.
The first step in developing structured behavioral interview questions is defining the competencies necessary for success in a specific job —the skills, behaviors and experiences that the ideal candidate needs to possess to do that job like a pro.

2. Create structured behavioral questions.
Based on the job competencies you’ve already defined, create a set of questions that will garner qualitative, legitimate, job-specific information about a candidate and their past behavior on the job.

Here are some examples of behavioral interview questions:

• Tell about a time when you were faced with an upset customer. What happened and what did you do?

• Please describe a situation in which you encountered a problem at work. What steps did you take to overcome it? What was the outcome?

• Have you ever worked with someone who was difficult? What was the difficulty and how did you handle it?

All of these questions ask candidates to describe past behavior on the job. Knowing what a candidate has done previously on the job is the best way to predict what he or she will do for you.

Armed with this information, it’s easier to see who will and won’t measure up on the job.

Bottom line: Walking into an interview unprepared is the recipe for hiring the wrong person. Using structured interview questions with established ideal responses against which you can score a candidate’s answers takes the guesswork out of hiring and helps you put the most qualified candidates on the payroll.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you tried structured, behavioral interviewing? How has it worked for you?

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Welcome to HR Forum, a brand new blog designed for human resources professionals, managers, business owners and others involved in the selection, hiring, managing, retaining and developing of employees. The purpose of this blog is to facilitate a rich discussion about these and other HR issues. My goal is to create a community of professionals who share best practices, tips and tricks, questions and problems, insider knowledge and tactics.

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