Businesses And Recruitment: How To Improve Your Interviewing Skills
Managers are faced with two choices regarding recruitment; conduct the interview exercise within the organization or hire an interview agency to do the job for them. If you want to take the first option, then this article is for you. It will be in your interest to know how to improve your interviewing skills.
You will do well to remember that the people you will interview are spending much time preparing for the interview. Therefore, you must be prepared for what is to come and be ready to spot people that are compatible with the company.
I want to assume you know what an interview is. However, for emphasis, according to Alex Friend, “An interview is a business transaction wherein the objective of the hiring manager is to make a selection among job candidates called in for interviews.”
If you don’t understand the importance of interview skills and techniques or interviewing skills for interviewers, you should probably be doing other things other than interviewing potential employees.
Ordinarily, I should be writing for job seekers on how to handle interviews but today requires that I whip up something for business owners and managers.
The essence is that if you know how to improve your interviewing skills, you will be better off as a company because you will hire the right fits for your organization.
Related: How business owners can raise money for their businesses
Let’s get to it. Here are the ways you can improve your interviewing skills.
Tips On How To Improve Your Interviewing Skills
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Don’t forget your homework
Everybody can conduct an interview and decide who works but not everybody can get the best candidates. For you to know how to improve interview performance, you will need to know the people you are interviewing.
In our dispensation, running background checks on the potential employees won’t hurt. You need to do your assignment and homework so as to know what they can offer other than what they will tell you. It will also set the tone for your interview and enable you to ask the right questions.
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Your candidates should be comfortable. Make it happen
Most times, people are worried about going for interviews. It may interest you to know that even professionals worry about being interviewed. The magnitude of the worry, of course, won’t be same with non-professionals.
So to improve your interviewing skills, you need to know how to make the people being interviewed relax and feel comfortable. Anxiety makes it difficult for them to communicate effectively and you may lose a great talent as a result of that. Be as friendly as you be.
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Rotate the questions
It will be very wrong to have the same set of questions for all your employees. It is necessary to have a general set of questions for everyone but you will need to rotate certain position-specific questions. Remember that they are applying for different positions.
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Sell the job and the company
One of the reasons you need to improve your interviewing skills is that you will be advertising and marketing your company at the same time. Remember, there is a possibility that some of the candidates have applied to rival companies.
In the whole period of the interview, take your time to always talk about the importance of the position they seek and the superiority of your company and the opportunities it offers for professional development.
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Listen more and talk less
Some people just want to be rambling about themselves and the company. You should know that you may need to keep quiet and listen to what the candidates have to say. Master the art of listening more and talking less. You ask the questions and relax while they give you answers.
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You can go off script
One of the interview tips I want to share with you is that you should not be so regimented in your questioning. You can’t strictly follow an outline. It is your place to innovate and improvise according to the needs of the moment.
You can always move from questioning to conversing with the person and then you go back to the questioning mode. It is all about making the person comfortable.
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Know the time to pause
While it is wrong to bring undue silence in the interview room, you can always pause at key moments. You see, this is a skill. When interviewers do this, candidates are likely going to say things that they wouldn’t have said just to fill the void.
These things they say can show you certain things about them especially how they think and go through difficult conversations.
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Explain the next steps thoroughly
Before dismissing the candidates, you should explain what they should expect. Many people will just tell you that they will be in touch. Give details of what it means to be in touch with the candidates so that they don’t waste your time with irrelevant follow-up questions.
