Principles of effective personal interviews

What is a personal interview

A personal interview is a prerequisite for choosing a new employee or a new member in most companies, and in order to get the right employee, you must first filter a large number of resumes, then choose a specific group to move to the next stage, which is the personal interview.

Even if the candidate has a good resume, it may be difficult for you to know if this candidate is a good one or not without conducting an effective personal interview that will help you reach your desired goal.

Principles of an effective personal interview

John Sullivan, human resources expert, professor of management at San Francisco State University and author of 1,000 Ways to Hire Top Talent, says your job is not only to evaluate candidates, but also to convince the best ones to stay.

• Prepare your questions well and set the mood for the interview

Before you meet a candidate face-to-face, you first need to know exactly what you're looking for in a new employee so you'll ask the right questions during the interview. Begin this process by "compiling a list of required attributes" for the job, suggests Fernandez-Aráoz. For inspiration and guidance, Sullivan recommends looking at the top performers in your company right now, and identify what they have in common that makes them special. What have they accomplished before working in your organization? What roles did they fill? These answers will help you establish criteria and enable you to create relevant questions to use when conducting interviews.

• Relieve stress

Candidates for the interview find this very stressful and worrying for them because of many questions going through their heads before entering the interview, like, what kind of questions will I be asked? What will I wear during the interview? And many other questions that can affect the performance of the candidate during the interview.

Therefore, Sullivan recommends that if you are not aiming for a pressure interview, try to reduce stress for the candidates by taking some proactive steps before the interview, such as explaining the dress code that the candidate can wear during the interview, or setting a date that you think will be appropriate for most candidates, and you can also set some Key points or an outline of topics that can be discussed during the interview.

All of these points make the interview a type of motivational interview, which uses a goal-oriented collaborative communication method with special attention to the language of change. These interviews are designed to strengthen the candidate's personal motivation and commitment to a specific goal by eliciting the candidate's reasons for change and exploring them in an atmosphere of acceptance and compassion. .

• Involve others (a few)

When making any important decision, it is important to seek advice from others, so you can invite some trusted colleagues to help you in conducting the interview. Exclusivity when choosing the right employee may not be helpful to ensure that the right person is hired, but on the other hand, extreme democracy It is also ineffective, in the sense that taking the opinion of a large number of people will involve you in a long-term process of opinion and other opinion, and this may make you feel more confused and unable to choose the right person in the end.

Sullivan recommends making a team to interview the candidate consisting of three people: “The employee’s immediate boss, his boss, and the chief human resources of the company. Interviews in this way may be more effective because it will give these people a sense of responsibility when choosing the required employee themselves, and they will have reasons to help This person is determined to succeed until they prove that their choice is successful.

• Evaluate current and future capabilities

You should allocate two hours for the first interview because this is enough time to assess the candidate's capabilities, not only the current but also the future, because this person may become a manager one day, so you must ask yourself whether this person is suitable to fill this position in the future or not.

So you must ask the candidate about his ideas, the direction of his industry in the future, how he learns, and of course, no one can predict the future, but you want someone who thinks about the future every day.

• Ask for future solutions

Don't waste your time and the candidate's time on silly questions like what are your weaknesses, try to ask the candidate real situations related to the job, and see how he would deal with them on the ground.

As Sullivan says, if you want to hire a chef, let him cook, quite simply.

Consider cultural fit but don't make it your everything.

• cultural fit

Much has been said about the importance of cultural fit in effective personal interviews, where you should look for guidelines that indicate that this candidate - even if he has great potential in his work - will be comfortable in your company, because the work environment in your company may be contrary to the candidate's directions and ideas .

Try to find out if this candidate has a culture different from the culture of the company, and more importantly, is he able to adapt or adapt to any new culture or not?

• Job market for the right employee

If the interview goes well and you discover that this candidate is what you need to add to your company, spend the second part of the interview trying to market your company. Keeping in mind that the interview is a cross-screening process, tell the candidate why you think they are a good fit for the job.

Types of personal interviews

In order to create the atmosphere of the personal interview and define your goals from the interview, you must familiarize yourself with the types of personal interviews, as there are many types of interviews that serve different scenarios, and determining the type of interview depends on the nature of the goal you want to achieve, and the types of interviews include:

• Media interview

The goal of this interview is to seek advice and learn more about a particular employer, sector or job. Meeting experts in their field is another way to add to your employment knowledge base.

• Screening interview or telephone interview

Telephone interviews are one of the types of interviews that have proven to be a more cost-effective way to screen candidates. Although visual contact with candidates is important, the compensation for this communication in telephone interviews is getting decisive answers to your questions. In that interview, you should prepare Your prepared questions and answers, and have the job description and CV of the candidate with you after reviewing them, because that interview should not take long.

• The individual interview

Referred to as a personal interview, it is the most common type, as it is held face-to-face with the candidate in the office, and lasts from 30 to 90 minutes.

• Committee interview

These types of interviews mean meeting a panel of decision-makers at one time, and this type is usually intimidating for candidates, so try to prepare the atmosphere for that interview well.

• The second interview

The second interview means that the candidate is successful the first time and the manager wants to know more, and this interview takes longer and may take a whole day at work until you discover the candidate's skills on site, so it is also called site interview.

• behavior interview

This interview is based on the theory known as critical behavioral interviewing (CBI), which suggests that past performance in a similar situation is the best predictor of future performance.

• task-based interview (test interview)

These types of interviews are structured in a way that allows the candidate to demonstrate his/her creative, analytical, and problem-solving capabilities by performing various tasks or exercises.

• pressure interview

This type of interview is rare, and it aims to put the candidate under pressure to show their weaknesses and reactions when working under pressure, and this interview includes several strategies such as spending long periods of silence, asking provocative questions, or others.