You need to remember that during the interview process, candidates themselves decide whether they want to work for you or not.  Just as you are trying to decide whether or not to hire them.  You have very little time to make a good impression on the candidate and get the vital information needed about their skills, experience, and personality.

As an interviewer, you have to interview candidates for an important position.  If you do not have enough resources for guidance, you can take the help of job agencies.  Here are some tips for interviewing someone and conducting a job interview.  With that in mind, here are 10 tips to help you prepare for the interview.  But how should the first interviewer begin the interview?  Get to know a little about it:

How Should an Interviewer Begin Interviewing?

Conduct interview

When you are well prepared, you are in a position to conduct a productive interview.  If unsure of your interviewing skills, contact a local Chamber of Commerce to take courses at the community college level.  Apart from this, you can get the help of job agencies.

Introduce yourself.

Greeting your candidates politely shows their respect and helps to comfort them.  You can tell them something about you and the company.  It’s the first impression the candidate makes of you, so you can present a clean office and, most importantly, turn off your cell phone.

Preparing for the stage

You can set the tone by telling the applicant what to do for the next half hour.  It is important to remember that you are also being monitored.  Your behavior sets the tone for the interview, and if you come across as too casual, an applicant will take the interview less seriously.  Also being too serious is likely to make the candidate more nervous.  How you treat yourself when interviewing should also reflect the image and values of your business.

Job review

Be sure to explain in more detail than is mentioned in the job posting what the position covers, so candidates can be sure of whether the job is right for them.  Tell them what the main duties and responsibilities will be, and any working conditions that affect them.  Also, state whether the post is permanent or temporary, or on contract.

Start with generalized questions and review the applicant’s resume.

Some may ask questions about the candidate’s background and interest in the position.  You can also ask the candidates how they see themselves about the job and what they can contribute.

You can ask candidates about specific positions on their resumes that relate to the position you are recruiting for. Get to know from them about the job description, responsibilities, what they have achieved so far, and the pressures they faced.  Also, ask about any discrepancy or gap in employment or education, it gives a simple explanation.  Ask some relevant questions about the reasons for leaving a previous or current job.

You should use a specific set of questions for all the applicants, this will help in comparing the candidates.  Thus do the skills and abilities of the candidate you are looking for match the most.

You can modify your questions

Asking questions on skills, which are specifically related to the duties and responsibilities of the position, can help you uncover the candidates’ strengths and weaknesses in doing so.  Keep in mind that open-ended questions are best when interviewing, e.g. “What was the toughest challenge at your last job?”

Providing an opportunity to the candidates to ask questions

Along with listing the benefits of working for a business by confidently answering any questions you may be asked, knowing all aspects of the position, and being able to articulate your expectations.  Applicants should also have the opportunity to answer your questions and put forward questions of their own.  This will help them to see if the job and company are right for them.  The questions asked by them can help you decide whether the candidates are adequately prepared for the interview and are genuinely interested.

Provide a timeline

An estimate of the period till the final selection should always be provided at the time of the interview.  Be sure to indicate when candidates would like feedback from you regarding end-time results or the next stage of the recruitment process.

10 important things to do during the interview for interviewers

1 First understand what to look for

When you’re about to start a job interview, it’s important to know what you’re looking for in a candidate.  You may need more than a well-written job description for this. You need to think about how your ideal employee would behave in the role.  

The interviewer needs to ask questions in the interview which test your interviewer against your expectations. Writing a checklist of these expectations will help you compare interviewers and make it easier for you to decide who to hire.

2 Get to know your candidate

This is very easy to do, but it is also important to make your candidate feel comfortable.  And for that, well, don’t make a fool of yourself.  You can check your candidate’s LinkedIn profile and peruse any information that wasn’t present on their initial application, if necessary, and to see if it’s updated regularly.  A candidate’s social accounts can help you get a good idea about him.  But remember that many people consider Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to be personal social media websites.  Apart from this, it is important to mentally take care of anything worth bringing to the interview.

3 Watching Their Body Language

Doing is more effective than saying.  So examining a candidate’s body language can tell you a lot.  If eye contact is lacking it means the person is not overly confident and is not ideal if the position on offer is a managerial role.  If the candidate makes eye contact at the right time, speaks face-to-face and a generally ‘open’ posture shows that your candidate has a genuine interest in you and what you are saying to him or her.

Some other positive things to keep in mind in the interview are:

 1.Tilting the head forward, indicating consent, interest or at least that they are paying attention,

2.Reflecting body language, such as crossing your hands when you cross your legs,

3.Repeating similar phrases as in positive verbal responses.

Keep in mind that if a candidate does not interview well, it does not mean that they will be unable to do the job properly.  Because nerves don’t always bring out the best people.

4 Pay attention to your body language too

The rules of body language apply to you just like the candidates.  Keep in mind that non-verbal communication works both ways.  If you are getting distracted and are not able to give your full attention to the candidate, it will all affect the interview.

Spending too much time reading an applicant’s CV or application shows that you have not completed your research and are not highly interested in it.  Doing the interview too fast can make you come off uninterested as if you’re wasting your time. Being overly professional, such as smiling or not reacting to jokes, can make you and the company look cold and unattractive.

5 Silence Can Be Golden

Silence can be a simple tool for you to gain a valuable overview of the candidate’s personality as you ask for important information during the interview.  The rule of thumb is not to be the next person to speak after you ask your question.  While silence can be deaf, you give the interviewer a real chance to answer it, without robbing the question of its power.

The candidate can use this tool next time after answering the question.  Once the candidates have finished answering, pause momentarily for 2 or 3 seconds, with which they may then decide to share some other information again in an attempt to deal with the awkwardness of the silence.  Thus, it is a harmless and risk-free technique that gives an extra edge to your interview style.

6 Use behavior and situation-based questions.

Practical and situation-based questions assess the candidate’s past experiences and behaviors.  So that their possible and future actions can be determined.

Behavior-based questions tell a lot about the way a candidate thinks and behaves to solve a certain problem.  Situational Interview Questions, on the other hand, reflect more about how a candidate has done in a given situation and will act in the future.

7 Try to keep the interview flexible

It is important that the interview you are taking has a structure, but is not structured to the point that it is not flexible.  Flexibility in conversation is part of being a good conversationalist. You can go on with the conversation if it gets off-topic.  It is a natural and organic way of interacting with any human.  

This is one element that you want to make a part of your job interview!  Conversations range from the difficulties of working with JavaScript to a soccer game at the end of the week, so you just get on with it for a bit. It is important to keep in mind that if you go off-topic then you go with the flow, but don’t go too far.

8 Be relevant, appropriate and try to enforce a uniform interview for all candidates

You only have a limited amount of time in your interview to exchange information, so it’s also important not to waste too much time talking off-topic.  If the conversation goes off-topic during the interview, then you can run with it, but also remember to bring it back to the topic as soon as possible.

The consistency of doing the recruitment process gives you a good baseline to compare all the candidates.  Giving the same number of questions to each of your candidates means that you will be able to assess each candidate’s answers to the same question and put everyone on the same playing field.  Doing so makes more efficient use of your time.  You can easily implement this by giving a similar template for each candidate instead of spending time trying to do something different for everyone.

9 Turn It Up A Little

You can try to rephrase the questions differently from time to time.  You can try asking behavior-based questions during the interview, and then repeat that question during your next interview.  E.g. While doing an interview you can ask ‘how you can prioritize or track your work as you organize’.  Then during the next interview for the same position ask a simplified version such as ‘How do you manage or do your workload?’.

It is essentially the same question, but it is spelled differently, and it requires a clear and concise answer to both answers.  One question implies that a detailed answer is needed but the other does not.  Asking this question will help you see if your candidate can take the initiative.

10 Take the time to tell what to do next

You lead a busy working life, this is something you knew when you started your career as an HR recruiter.  And, as a human resources manager, regardless of the size of your company, you need to take care of a lot.

Now you must allow the required time to conduct your interviews.  You can allot a good 10-15 minutes on either side of your interview duration to prepare and digest what you have learned so far.  Don’t rush into your last-minute interview just because you’ve been distracted by emailing the finance department.  Being able to digest information can be an important step towards making the right decisions.

Explain the recruitment process to the candidate at the beginning and end of the interview.  No matter how simple or complex your interview process is, it’s just important that your candidate knows how well your recruitment ecosystem is functioning.  At the end of the interview, let the candidate know when they can hear from you again.  Now, this next step is easy but probably overlooked.

You email the candidate.  Let them know whether you are looking to move them through your recruitment pipeline or they are not a good fit for the position.  Now whether it is in the dating world or professional recruitment, ghosting someone is never a good move hence the is a need to become a professional.

Conclusion

If you are an experienced recruiter or are just starting your job, then these interview tips can make you successful in improving yourself.  So you can never go wrong if you are open, spontaneous, and give your candidate a platform to talk about themselves.

 This may be the right time to assess your interview process and see how you can use these tips to improve.  Also, job consultancy can help you to do an amazing interview, and give necessary information.