[MUSIC] So again, in our last video we looked at what are structured interviews and this video we'll look at actually how to conduct the interview effectively. Here we are part two conducting the interview. I did not include this information in being an Effective Recruiter and the reason why is because not every recruiter interviews. So it makes more sense to have this as a stand alone video to really focus on how to actually conduct the interview. Okay, here's a little quiz question for you. What is the number one ability needed for interviewing? What do you think it would be? Well, if you said listening, you'd be correct. The ability to listen is critical. Too often interviewers, at least a lot of the interviewers I have spent a lot of time with, and I conducted hundreds of interviews, spend way too much time talking and not listening. It is really critical to take time and listen to the candidate. And not use the whole opportunity as a time for recruiting. Because if you really want that candidate, they're already there in front of you, you must have done some good job recruiting but you can also see it to them later. Now is the time in the interview to listen to what they say and very closely listen to what people say because sometimes you might discover gaps in information or things that are missing or incomplete. And if we spend a lot of time talking, we're not going to be able to get to that information. So, what else besides listening, which is number one, let's take a look. I've see a lot of managers who just kind pop into an interview, a few minutes late. And they're not ready, they don't have structured interview questions ready to go, they haven't read the resume. So, this is just a number one, be professional, be prepared. Be on-time. Don't make people wait. Now, I have to say in full disclosure, in my career I did make people wait sometimes. So I look back and think, that was not very good. I really should have been much more on time because now I hear a lot of students talk about where they have to wait an hour and things like that for interviews and it's very frustrating to them. So when you really look at it from the candidate side, it''s not only unprofessional, it's just really inconvenient. Maybe it goes without saying, but a warm greeting goes a long way. Good eye contact, a nice, firm handshake, not too firm, and asking the person, would you like a glass of water? These kinds of things to really ease the tension for that candidate. Because a lot of times people are really, really nervous. Also, make sure here, I know this sounds maybe a little bit over but I'm careful on the greeting, not to ask any personal questions, like, what did you do this weekend? Or do you have any kids? That goes without saying, right? Because we've just talked about that in the last video. But sometimes we want to kill this awkward time with a candidate with personal conversation. It's better to stay away from it. I find that asking about the weather is pretty safe. So maybe somebody out there disagrees with me, but that's what I find to be very safe. I just say, it's really a nice day. I just love that we have some sun, something like that. Someone gave me this advice a long time ago, and I like this advice, ask to take notes. Ask the candidate, is it okay if I take notes while we're talking so I remember the details of the interview? And 99.9% of the time I don't think I've ever had one person say, no, you can,t. But I think that it's just courtesy, it's just a nice touch. On the other hand, some people say well, I'd rather use a laptop, and type notes about the candidate. But honestly, just from my own opinion, this is just Amy's opinion here, I don't like it. because, I really think that it takes away from eye contact, you're sitting there, clicking on the keyboard. And personally I would rather have a more personal interview where I'm able to write it out. But that's just personal preference. And be professional. I've mentioned that a ew times before. But make sure as an interviewer you are putting your company in the best light and you're asking questions that are tied to the job. And all these other things if you're prepared, on time. You do the greeting, ask to take notes. You listen. The structured interview. All these things together will result in you being professional, and that's what we want. Okay, so let's take a look at some last closing ideas here on how to really have an effective interview. This one, number one. Document the interview. Write down the answers. Now I just told you that I'm not a fan of people typing but my picture shows that here so whoops! But if you have to, I suppose, you could use your laptop, but I definitely prefer this here, writing it down on paper. But that's not the most critical part of this, anyway. Documenting is just a good practice because you want to ensure that if there's any sort of issue later on, that you have some legal protection. That you have documented what the candidate has actually said. That you didn't make a decision because of their protected status. It was because they didn't meet the job criteria. They weren't able to answer questions related to competencies, these kinds of things. Another reason to document is just to remember. How do you remember an interview if you, two hours later, you're trying to recall that conversation? Sometimes I would have eight to nine interviews to ten interviews a day. And it just becomes sort of this sea of faces and you don't remember any more. So that's another reason to document. Okay, number 2. Gotta get my pen here. Number 2, ask the same questions of all candidates, and this helps ensure reliability of interviews. It also makes it easier for you to evaluate from candidate to candidate because they've all answered the same questions and It just makes it easier for you as an interviewer. On my computer at work, I would have all of these structured interviews ready to go. So, if I was interviewing for instance that day for an administrative assistant, I'd go on my computer, take my administrative assistant structured interview, and I'm done. I'm ready to go. And so it just makes it much more efficient as well. Using multiple raters can be really helpful because one person's opinion maybe somewhat skewed by bias and other kind of heuristics that we've talked about before. And so using multiple raters helps with that because have not just one person's opinion but several. So maybe we can rule out some of those outlier opinions and really get to, what is the majority think?. What are the main things that everybody is seeing about this candidate. And I just said it. Remember biases. We need to avoid biases. And not only because it's bad decision making. Right? We're using a short cut and not fully evaluating a candidate based on the things we should. But also, remember it can give us lots of legal woes. So, no biases. Okay now that we talked about some of the best practices. This is an important point, candidate evaluation. Candidate evaluation is really wrapping it all together because it's only one part to do the interview. This is maybe even more critical isn't it? Thinking about how we're going to actually take all that information evaluated to ensure we have the best candidate for the job. So this is what I recommend, after each interview you complete an evaluation and here I have this little example here. I don't know that it's the best example but I did find this off the Internet. But it's something like this. You can use a tool like this. And so complete an evaluation after each interview. So if you do it an hour, two hours after and you've already met with other candidates, it's not going to be fresh and you're going to forget. So I like that the comments are here. You can fill in. You can put a rating based on you comments, and also you are thinking about those competencies that are related to the job. So we have weights and ratings related to the overall judgement of suitability. And here's the thing to think about if you are doing team interviews. Don't discuss candidates between interviews it can contaminate the opinion of other people. So maybe I walk away from an interview and I think wow that was a really solid candidate and I'd really like to hire him or her for this position or whatever. And then someone else comes up and says wasn't that candidate terrible and so then that's skewing my opinion. So, it's better to not discuss candidates between interviews, fill out your forms and then come back together to have a final discussion about who is the most suitable candidate. All right, that's it. So, good luck to you interviewing in the future.
