Top Interview Tips For First Time Hiring Managers
Successful interviews hinge on rapport building, candidate engagement, and trust. Interviewers, however, are at the helm, driving the conversation into exciting, interesting spaces to get under the skin of the candidate.
Interviews should be a mix of objective fact-finding and more subjective analysis of the person, role, business culture fit, interview process, and ongoing conversation. While it’s important you create as inclusive an environment as possible, you need to make sure you’re spending your time as effectively as possible, drilling into the real detail behind what drives your candidate, why they are there, what they plan to do, and why they want to work with your company.
As flawed as some interviews can be (and in the very worst cases they can be truly brand-destroying), they are still one of, if not the, most effective way of sorting the professional wheat from the unfortunate chaff.
What you have to do, as the interviewer, is give your interviewee the chance to shine in a controlled setting.
Our 6 part first-time interviewer guideline is below, but first, we want to help you set the scene in your mind about what you, the interviewer, want to get from hosting an interview.
Setting the scene
Everyone remembers their first interview, and more than likely you probably remember your worst, too. So your first thought should be to remember every interview you’ve had and reflect on your own examples of best and worst practices.
No interview or interviewer is the same, after all, but there is value to be had in reminiscing about your own experiences. Use this to frame your approach. Remember what sort of attitudes and behaviors you have had in your career. If it helps, try and remember the interview you had at your current company, and what positive conversations you had to draw you into the brand and closer to the people inside it.
Then, where appropriate, consider the following:
In our candidate-led market, interviewee’s are interviewing you too
To highlight that our post-pandemic workplace present has gone through a fair few changes would be a crass understatement, but it’s worth reiterating that the recruitment market is skewed heavily in favor of the candidate.
There are shortages of talent across the board in almost every employment sector; there were record amounts of people exiting jobs and starting new ones in the months leading up to the end of 2021; the Great Resignation hamstrung countless businesses from securing talent; as of November 2021 approximately 11 million jobs were being advertised across the USA; inflationary pressures are pushing wages up in key industries and your candidates know it.
With candidate power comes a flip in interviewer culture - the interviewees are interviewing you too. Bear that in mind.
Feed that into everything you do: you’re on the charm offensive and have to prove you are a worthy employee for this person’s talent.
Let this knowledge be the foundation of your approach. Rather than let the above statistics cow you into interviewer submission, use them to build a more empathetic, honest and human interview process. We’ve all been through the wringer the last 2 years, so meet your interviewee in the middle and let them know you’re on their side. It’ll build trust, and rapport, immediately.
Get the basics right - have the resume to hand, don’t be late, respect the process
Following neatly on from macro-industry trends: don’t forget the small details! Get the basics right and you’ll show your interviewee you mean business.
We cannot urge you enough to put time into respecting this. It’s not a huge mental leap to understand how disaffected your candidate would be if you were late to your own hosted interview. No doubt, they’d feel as underappreciated as you would if the candidate was late.
Respect the interviewee’s time
Again, referring to talent shortages, make a point of highlighting that you respect their time and that their talent and specific skills are worthy of yours, too. They don’t need to be there, so pay it forward.
Focus on specifics and don’t be vague
Vagaries are the “poor body language” of interviewer answers to interviewee questions - they speak more about your lack of preparation or fundamental un-grasp of job specifics than anything else, and indicate a lack of diligence in your interview prep.
Specifics mean confidently and succinctly communicating your needs, the role, the workplace, the business, the culture, the future, and your businesses’ reaction to the pandemic and the ongoing issue around talent shortages.
Be honest about COVID
Candidates are only going to respect the journey you’ve been on to pivot your business and hiring needs in the face of the pandemic.
If you downsized, say so. If you didn’t, say why. And, similar to a candidate expanding on their previous jobs, describe your journey, reactions, and improvements in detail to better explain your current workforce status.
It also means you can meet your candidate on a level and you can co-empathize with the journey you’ve both been on.
Ask questions and encourage your interviewee to ask questions
Allowances for questions within interviews are par for the course, but be encouraging - be more than encouraging. Use certain parts of the interview to depressurize the interview, and ask your candidate for their thoughts.
You’ll find your candidate may inquire about certain aspects of the company or role you hadn’t thought about, which only improves your interviewing technique and future interviews.
Follow Up and be quick about it!
One of the chief complaints of candidates in the modern recruitment market is that feedback takes too long (or doesn’t happen at all), and hiring manager/recruiter decision-making is slow and impersonal.
We urge you to do these three things when your interviewee leaves the interview:
Send an immediate thank you email - thanking them for their time and input.
Commit to a date for feedback - even if you don’t have an answer for them, or you are still interviewing other candidates, give them a structure to your feedback and commit to it. This will also give you another opportunity to follow up with more questions if required.
Encourage them to contact you - leave your door open, if possible, to follow up with you directly and ask any more questions if they wish.
And finally, if in doubt about holding your own interview, sit in on others as a witness to more experienced interviewers within your company and take some notes.
