When you are hiring a new employee you naturally want the best person for the role. In a candidate poor job market you need to realize that while you are interviewing the candidate, they are also interviewing you to see if they really want to work for you. You need to be on your game - to make sure you leave candidates with a great impression of your company.
So, let’s start with the basics. Interviews are not an exact science. They are not meant to be. The best you can do is to try and remove as much of the emotion of the process as possible and balance it with logic.
Interviews should be about helping candidates show their best side, it is not about tricking them, putting them under added stress and seeing how they “perform”. They are not seals; they are human beings complete with human feelings. Interviews are of themselves inherently stressful - so even in the most relaxed interview you are getting a person operating under stress.
Here are some tips to help you with your job interviews
Before the interview:
1) Make time in your diary for the interview. You need to show candidates the courtesy of being fully “present” at the interview. If you need to, hire additional staff to cover for you or close the shop for an hour.
2) Make sure there will be no interruptions. If you allow yourself to be interrupted during the interview you are giving candidates the message that when they work for you they are unimportant and will always be second best. Is that the message you really want to give?
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