I have worked with employers and recruitment consultants. I have seen HR professionals in action too and the general opnion is that there is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to interviewing candidates.
The easy thing would be to say that everyone is good at interviewing but that’s simply not true.In fact just about everyone sucks at it.
Truth is almost no one has had any training on how to interview candidates. This includes people who do it for a living.
The problems you face
However not everyone is bad at it in the same way. It depends upon personality and training.
- People from the NE of the personality map scare the wits out of half the candidates they see.
- And interviewers from the SE, barely let their candidates get a word in.
- And the South West interviewer finds it difficult to remain objective
- The North West interviewer finds most candidates from the East extremely annoying.
You can see how difficult it is to remain objective in an interview. Could you hire someone you didn’t like?
With the PeopleMAps Recruitment Application you are provided with personality centric questions to ask that will help you get to know your candidate extremely quickly. It’s not designed to try and trick them or catch them out. Those sort of games help no one. What you need to know is “who are you?” and you need to have more information to make better informed hiring decisions.
Gut feel does exist but it’s an unreliable technique. A personality profile is much more reliable and will help ensure your gut feel is accurate more often.
How to interview someone for a job
THere is no simple answer to this question, it depends upon the personality of the interviewer and the personality of the candidate. If you want to hire the right person first time every time and you want to know how to interview someone, then you need to discover your own personality type and that of your candidate.
From understanding your own personality type you will understand where you are strong in interviews and where you are weak. By understanding the candidate’s personality you will know what environment to create during the interview so that you get the best from the experience.
Remember this isn’t a test on how well they interview. It’s to help you discover if they can do the job and fit in with your environment.
As regards environment
An environment is mostly created by the behaviour of people. It is determined by line managers in the way they deal with their staff. It has little to do with the hardware or surroundings.
As an interviewer, you create the environment. You decide who sits where. You decide who speaks when.
Your objective is to create an environment that provides you with the most information that enables you to make the best hiring decision.
