[MUSIC] That picture make me a bit uneasy, kind of like how I feel about unstructured interviews, like you're not on solid ground. I've been part of hundreds of interviews during my time in human resources and certainly have interviewed with some managers who come in, kind of pop in to an interview, they're not prepared and they ask questions off the top of their head. And then the next candidate they ask different questions. And so there's really no reliability to judge that person's qualifications because each candidate gets a new set of questions. And sometimes the questions can even be problematic, not linked to the job. Certainly you've had a few situations where a manager asks a candidate are you married? Do you have any kids? All these different things that as you can imagine they're not linked to the job whatsoever. So you want to avoid those. In this first video, we look at what are structured interviews. And in the second video, the one following this one. We will talk about actually how to conduct the interview. Let's get started. >> So what are structured interviews? Structured interviews are an assessment tool designed to measure job related competencies of applicants by systematically inquiring about their behavior n either past experiences or the proposed behavior and hypothetical situations and situational questions. Structured interviews ensure candidates have equal opportunities to provide information and are accessed accurately and consistently. Other benefits include the fact that all candidates are asked the same pre-determined questions in the same order. They're evaluated using the same ratings scale. The questions are well designed and considered in advance based on the job analysis, the job description, and core competencies. So not only does the research support this, support these kinds of interviews in terms of validity and reliability, they're just more professional and organized. As we move along I'll give you several tips on how to create the best type of interview. The structured interview. When done well, structured interviews can be valid predictors of job performance. They're stronger in terms of validity than unstructured interviews. Remember, an unstructured interview is one where the interviewer has not prepared in advance necessarily, doesn't ask each candidate the same questions, and again, the questions may not even be related to the job. So where are we in terms of the hiring process? Well, let's take a look. So remember at the beginning we need to conduct a job analysis, identify the knowledge, skills, abilities, other characteristics, and the job description. Next is determine the selection methods to use. And here's where we decide what kind of interviews we're going to do. And were kind of made of your questions. Okay, so, interviewing falls here, where we actually conduct our methods, our testing methods, whatever types of a selection methods we're going to use, like interviewing. And then after we do our interviewing. I will talk in a later video about how we actually evaluate candidates. So all of these are included in the steps to a good hire. So gotta go all the way up the stairs to make sure we get a good hire. Now it's time to create some questions. We know that we want to conduct a structured interview, so what questions should we ask? Here's a list of the types questions that I used quite a bit when I worked in human resources. They're really my go to list. Let's break them down one by one. Situational question is thinking about what would you do if and remember we want to tie this back to the job. So if it's a customer service position I would want to ask the question what would you do if you had an unhappy customer. I want to gage the person problem solving ability. Next, tell me about a time. I want the person to look back and describe for me how they actually handled the situation, not what would they do if, but what did they actually do? Now I will say that between these two types of questions, which one do you think that I actually prefer the most? Situational or behavioral? Well, it's actually situational and here's why. Behavioral questions are great questions. But the behavioral question is something that someone can go on the Internet. And they can practice and become very good at answering those questions. Situational questions on the other hand, the candidate doesn't know what you're going to ask, and they don't even know necessarily what you think is a good answer. So the situational question to me gets to more of their core raw thinking skills. What would they actually do in these situations? So behavioral, tell me about a time. So, tell me about a time that you needed to deal with conflict in the work place. Tell me about a time that you were on a team and not everybody held up their responsibilities. What did you do? Tell me about a time you worked on a project that was really successful. What was your role? These are all kinds of questions that we can directly relate to the job. The next type of question is a knowledge question, and this is where you may just want to know, what does that person know? So for instance, if I was hiring somebody to work in a restaurant, I may ask the person, how do you create, how would you make a margarita? If I was hiring someone in human resources, I would want to ask them questions about different human resource laws to make sure that even though they put on their resume that they are really knowledgeable of all these different laws like Americans with Disabilities Act and Title VII. There's a lot of different employment laws. Do you really know them? So I would probably quiz the person a bit to see do you actually know these things. I might also add in that bucket the experience of the individual. So I would want the person, for instance, if they were in sales, I would say what kind of customers have you worked with in the past? Are you able to bring any business with you to this new position? Barring the fact that they have a non-compete agreement, of course. But you want to look to what sort of experience that person is bringing with. Now I will say one thing. Years of experience is not a valid predictor of job success. I shouldn't say it's not, it's just not lower. It's not as high as structured interviews and cognitive ability, and also job work samples, things like that. So just kind of note that just because someone has a lot of years of experience in particular area doesn't mean that they're necessarily effective. In this other bucket, I'm just going to put a little bucket here, because this is really a bunch of questions that I put in here. So, things like warm up questions. A great warm up question is what sort of research have you done about your company? Why are you interested in this position? What do you know about us? And that demonstrates, to me, that the person's taking time to understand the company, the position. One time I had a candidate tell me that the only reason he was applying, is because it was close to his house. And this was an upper level marketing position. So, I was a little bit put off by that. Thinking, hm, the only reason you want to work here is because of geography? And so, some of these questions can be really helpful. Can I urge you though to make sure, never to ask about, or never to really say this to a candidate, tell me about yourself. I think that is such an old standby that a lot of interviewers use. But I really encourage you. And I'm going to change my color to red. Do not ask this question. It is not a great question for a few reasons. But the biggest being, that a candidate is really at this point open to say anything. So remember, we want structured interview questions that are standardized and are asking from one candidate to the next the same questions. We're really trying to gauge job competencies and things like that. Well tell me about yourself, just opens up a whole can of worms I call it. Candidates can say anything at this point. I've had candidates in the past where I say, tell me about yourself. I did use this early on in my career. And they would say things like well, I'm 50 years old, I'm divorced I had a candidate once say, I have depression, and you feel for these people because obviously I'm not going to make a hiring decision based on whether or not someone has depression, but someone might. Some manager will. And so it's not a great question at all to put out there. That's why I like to start off in a different light. What do you know about our company, I also tell the candidate, walk me through your resume, how does it link to the position, those kinds of things. Much better than 'tell me about yourself'. The last thing I should say, that I kind of put in this bucket are really some favorite go-to questions, and I'm going to talk about that next. But one of those would be, for instance, tell me about your five-year goals, where do you see yourself? Those kinds of things. So, let's take a look at some of my favorite questions. So I put a list together for you, and I call them oldies but goodies. And they're really great interview questions that I think will be beneficial for you in the future. So let's take a look. The first one, I already mentioned this before, but what interests you about working for us? What do you know about what we do? I want to see that the person's taken some time and effort to learn about this organization, to learn about the company. This next one is really a favorite of mine because I think that people seem to be a little bit different about their evaluation of themselves when looking through the eyes of a supervisor or co-worker. I don't know the scientific reason behind that but I will say that if you ask someone what their strengths and weaknesses are, you're going to get a different answer than if you put it in this perspective. What would a supervisor or a past coworker say about your strengths and weaknesses? I'm going to give you even one more little tip that I found made this question even more effective. I would ask the person, if I were to talk to your past supervisor, what's your supervisor's name? Okay it's Joe? So if I ask Joe, what would he or she say that, what would she say that you do well? And for some reason again, because now I have a name, the candidate is even more candid because they are thinking, and I've talked to candidates who say this, they're thinking are you actually going to talk to Joe? And so I better be honest with my evaluation of myself. So I find that works really, really well. Here's another one that I like to sort of conclude the interview with. From what you've learned about this role and our company based on the interview that we've just conducted or the research they've done, how do you feel that you'd make a contribution, what would you bring that would be unique to this company and this job? I really like the person at that point to somewhat sell themselves and Really drive, for me, the reason why we should hire that person. Here's another question I add at the end of interviews. What have a I forgotten to ask? Sometimes we do forget to ask questions. And maybe in our best intentions, we come up with a structured interview that has really great questions. But we may be neglecting something and there's some really critical piece of information that we have not gained from the candidate that's a great point in time to make sure that we're wrapping it up and not leaving anything any stone unturned. And I already mentioned this before. This is another oldie but goodie, where do you see yourself in five years? I do ask this question because I want to know a few things. One is If the person tells me, I've certainly have had it in the past where the person will tell me actually, I'm only going to work here for a couple of months because we're moving. So I don't want to make an investment in an employee whose going to be leaving in a few months. So that then, I want to know their future. And also too, do they plan on growth within the company? I would really like to grow and develop and take training classes, and move into another position or whatever the case may be. And there too, I think that depending on your organizational culture, a lot of companies would like that people are looking for growth and development opportunities. Okay, so again, just to reiterate. No matter what you're asking, be sure to focus on job related competencies. Next, I would be neglectful if I did not add this into the presentation. What should you steer away from? What should you not ask? And so, make sure that you are not asking any questions about any protected status'. Race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, age, and then in certain states there are additional categories. I know in Minnesota there are other protected classes that we should not ask about any of the kinds of things like that, and that's why you want to avoid questions like tell me about yourself, because it just really opens up the opportunity for people to share things that you don't want to evaluate in your final candidate evaluation. You don't want to know those things. Next, you may ask questions that inadvertently get that information. So again, I don't want to ask about age, but is there a question that I could ask that I could inadvertently get that information, by accident? Sure. I could ask, when did you graduate from high school? Essentially, in the United States, if I say when did you graduate from high school most people graduate at 17 or 18 years old. So then I can just do the math and figure out how old is that person. And lastly, remember you're focusing on job related competencies. So, don't ask questions that are not related to job competencies. Okay. So, part two of the effective interviewing is conducting an interview. And we're going to do that next.
