Interviewing Matters

It is true that the weakest part of any recruitment process is the interview, Well I tend to think so - why; you may ask? Well because it is the make or break first face to face contact between you and the candidate and if things aren’t thought through carefully and unless a structured, appropriate, non-discriminatory and effective interview and assessment process is put in place then it is likely that one of three things will happen.

First you will employ the wrong person, second that you will let the right person slip through your fingers and third that you will have found the right person only for them to decide that because of the interview 'experience' that you are not right for them!

Of course you may also have a fourth unfortunate outcome; that the candidate takes action against you for unfair or discriminatory treatment. Yes candidates can do that too! They can also ask to see all interview notes, telephone screening records and test results under the Data Protection Act (for a small fee) - it's called a Subject Access Review.

So you have a short-list of excellent candidates; you are under business pressure to fill the vacancy quickly and you need results. How do you ensure that the hard work that has been put in so far with advertising, agency sourcing and candidate screening is not wasted? Well, the simple answer is that you need to design a process that will do exactly what you want it to do, that is help you to recognise the right candidate to fill your vacancy and stay.

In terms of designing the process that of course depends on many variable factors but that is something we could talk about if you need help in identifying the knowledge, skills and attributes that you need the candidate to have and how to make sure they have them; interviewing, testing, exercises or even assessment centres might offer the right solution for you.

What you must guard against is allowing any of your managers or even yourself to become involved in the process if you could jeopardise a successful outcome. By that I mean that interviews and the subsequent recruitment decisions should not be about ‘gut instinct’, the strength of a handshake or just the views of an untrained individual.

Of course body language is important, the candidates’ ability to communicate and engage is crucial and the interviewers’ personal opinion on the success of the interview must carry weight but interviewing is a complex skill that needs to be trained, practiced and understood to be effective.

We can offer a range of training courses to help you and your recruiting managers to interview effectively and legally with sessions focusing on; discrimination law, candidate sourcing and screening, interview techniques, the decision making process and how to make a job offer, all coming together as a package that will help you to ensure that you can find, impress and select the right candidates to help your business to move forwards.

Finding candidates with the right skills, experience, qualifications and salary expectations is tough, as you know. So you need to be able to not only attract the right candidates but make sure that you employ the best of them through putting in place a robust search, selection and interview process coupled with appropriate assessments that will help you to make the right decision and offer the job to the right candidate. 

At Consortio we can help you to make this happen.