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Recruitment: filling a vacancy

Helen Kelly

1. Create an Interview Plan

List the job tasks.  Next to each, note the knowledge, skills and capabilities required to do the job.  Rank the tasks.  Split the List:  Need to Have and Nice to Have.  Design a question or an activity that reveals a degree of readiness.  Does the job require tact?  Create a setting in which the best response is a tactful one.  At interview, set the scene and ask, “What would you do in this situation?”  Does the job require Expert Word?  Set a test.  In the invitation to interview letter advise that you will set an exercise.   If you are not experienced, you may wish to read about open and closed questions and behavioural interviewing.

2. Set the Stage for Being at Ease

The optimum setting is a room lit by good natural light.  Bring in a green plant, especially if there is a small or no window.  No matter the size, except for cacti plants sets people at ease.   If the interview is to be in your office clear or tidy your desk.  If possible, sit at a small table.  If your choices are a large meeting table or soft furnishing, sit at the big table and make a bit of a joke about it.  If you don’t have a table, offer the applicant the more comfortable of two seats and keep some water and glasses to hand.  Never interview from behind your desk and don’t ask the candidate to sit on a plush comfy sofa.  One is intimidating; the other is inappropriately informal.  Offer a friendly, professional welcome like “Hello, it is nice to meet you.  Please sit down,” and point to the selected seat.  Then set out the ground rules and the scope of the interview and let the applicant know how much time is available. 

3. Assume the Best

An interview isn’t a performance; it is a joint effort.  You’re both working hard and making substantial investments.  You don’t want to spend any part of an interview coaxing a candidate out of hiding.  If you assume that there is lots of interest to learn, the candidate will sense your optimism and feel welcome.  In that case the candidate is more likely to be engaged by your questions and offer full responses. 

4. Be Objective

Listen for content and watch for style.  When you ask a behavioural question (how to handle a situation or person, how to report a problem, how to coach or mentor, for examples) check the reply against your capabilities list.  Consider whether it will work, not whether it is the way you’d do it.  There are many roads home and no one person knows all of them.

5. Tread lightly with trick or trendy questions. 

Trick and trendy questions backfire except in the hands of trained, experienced experts.  It is fashionable to ask a person what animal he’d be or what room she’d be.  There are psychological profiles available to map the answers but tread lightly unless you are highly trained.   It is fashionable to submit a candidate to tension and stress and watch the response.  Fair enough if the job is a high stress position; but make sure you have had expert coaching before you undertake this exercise.  If the candidate becomes anxious you could lose the person you were hoping to find.

6. Encourage Balance

No one is perfect, neither thee nor me.   In your Plan, include questions that reveal a well rounded picture of experience and capability.  To see your candidate in the three dimensions of thought, feeling and personality – and to encourage candid accurate responses -- make it clear that you aren’t looking for perfection.  Encourage the applicant to present a well rounded picture of experience.   Say that typically success requires the right individual plus enabling conditions.  Point out that challenging traits in one circumstance are benefits in others.   At some point ask what a manager, a colleague and a friend might say are the applicant’s most challenging traits and what they’d say are the most welcome ones.   End on a positive note.

7. Review the CV Last

Once you have navigated the interview plan and created a climate of candid response, say you’d like to ask about some details on the CV.  At that point the candidate is likely to be frank and you can gain a deeper picture of the experience it represents and its reliability.  If you suspect some elements are exaggerated, don’t say that; instead, return to the behavioural approach and probe for behavioural examples. Make a quick note and expand your notes once you close the interview.  If you see that the experience is understated, again return to the behavioural approach and probe for details. 

8. Schedule a Half Hour Between Candidates

Ideally schedule a half hour or forty five minutes after an interview to make notes and relax before seeing the next applicant.  Short term memory fades and after several interviews it is unlikely you will recall the details of responses to behavioural questions and probes; you can be left with little more than impressions.  Furthermore applicants don’t wish to see the next in line and it is appropriate to show that respect.  If you must schedule candidates on a tight time schedule, be sure that the subsequent candidates are not waiting where the current interviewee exits.  

9. If Possible, Take Notes

Pursuant to UK discrimination legislation, potential employees have a statutory right to request copies of interview notes.  So if you are interviewing in the UK, for your own protection take notes.  Whether or not required by law, though, notes capture impressions and important details that could get diluted or lost in the course of interviewing a number of candidates over several days.  At the start of each interview, advise the candidate that you will take notes; likewise let the candidate know that he or she may also take notes.  Have pencil and paper ready for yourself and for the candidate.

10. Make Time for Questions and Information

If you feel that this candidate has potential, invite questions and don’t specify what kind; the nature of the questions an applicant asks is an integral part of the interview.  If you know this isn’t your candidate, then offer to answer questions and set a time limit but don’t be brusque or look impatient.  Be sure to close with information that eliminates uncertainty:  when you will candidates notify applicants, whether there is another round of interviews, when you will take up references and that you will keep any test results entirely confidential.   

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