Guide to conducting an interview

Preparation

Before the interview, you should have prepared a list of questions focusing on the selection criteria for the job. These should include questions about the specific candidate – such as any relevant work experience or qualifications in their CV. You should also have decided on a place for the interview, and informed the candidate of this location. You could conduct the interview at your business premise, but meeting in a café can make the candidate feel comfortable. Either way, make sure you are somewhere where you will be free of interruptions.

Questioning

* Start with an easy question such as “what attracted you to our company?” to help make the candidate feel at ease. Launching into a tough question straight away could throw them off for the entire interview

* Ask open ended questions instead of questions with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers, as this will encourage the candidate to reveal more about him or herself. Get the candidate to expand on answers about his or her specific skills, and to talk about how they relate to the specific job requirements.

* Ask situational or hypothetical questions to see how candidates would react in certain scenarios. Present them with a problematic situation that is likely to arise in their work, and get them to propose a solution. You could also ask them to give you specific examples of how they’ve handled different situations in the past.

Some typical interview questions

·        What do you know about this company?

·        Describe your relevant work experience

·        Describe your major responsibilities in your current job

·        In which areas do you feel you’ve done particularly well?

·        What are the problem areas of your current job?

·        Which frustrations in your current job would you like to avoid at the next one?

·        What do you consider important in a job and why?

·        How was your work performance regarded by your last employer?

·        What kind of people do you find the most difficult to work with?

·        Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?

·        What are your hobbies/sporting interests?

Questions to avoid

It is illegal to discriminate on various grounds, such as sex, age, religion, disability, marital status, family responsibilities, pregnancy, political opinion, social origin, and sexual preference. For this reason, it is pertinent that any questions you ask are directly relevant to the position. Avoid questions that could be considered unlawful – such as whether the candidate is planning to start a family, whether they are married, or whether they have any religious affiliations.

Let them ask you

At the end of the interview, you should allow your employee to ask questions about the company and specific role. This is also a good way of finding out how interested the candidate really is. If they have done their background research and ask lots of relevant questions about the company, then you can assume they are serious about getting the position.

At the end of the interview

After you have both finished your questioning, you should thank the candidate for coming and explain to them what the next likely steps (such as a follow-up interview) are, and when they should expect to hear from you. After the interview is over, you should take down any extra notes to make sure you have all the information written down. Relying on memory is a bad idea – especially if you are interviewing several candidates.

Follow-up interview

Once you have narrowed your list of potential candidates down to 2 or 3, then you should arrange for them to come back for follow-up interviews. Ideally these would be conducted by someone else in the company, so that they can give a second-opinion.

Making an offer

Once you have decided which candidate you would like to hire, you should let them know as soon as possible, as they may have other interviews lined up. This is the time to discuss salary, including any other benefits that come with the job. If the candidate accepts, then you should follow this up with a formal letter confirming the job offer and start date. You should write to unsuccessful candidates as soon as the position has been filled, but not before. If your first choice declines the offer you then may choose to hire one of the other candidates.

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