Which interview techniques are right for your business?

The cost of hiring the wrong person can be huge. The time and money spent advertising a role, interviewing candidates and training your new starter, are only the tip of the iceberg. If you hire a new candidate who is incompetent or unreliable, then they could make costly errors or lose you customers. There will also be the added costs of additional training, managing disciplinary procedures and replacing them if they eventually leave.

It is, therefore, worth your while spending time ensuring that you recruit the right people in the first place.

Once you have clarified the role, advertised the position and identified a good selection of candidates, you need to make sure that you get the most from your interviews.

The first thing you need to do is decide what competencies, experience and qualifications are essential and how you can hire candidates with the right values. Once you have established what you are looking for, you can choose the interview techniques that will help you identify which candidates meet the criteria.

Psychometric testing 

Psychometric testing is an excellent recruitment tool. It can be completed during any stage of the recruitment process to give you a clearer idea of behaviours and personality. This can help you ensure that your candidate will fit into the existing team.

Aptitude tests

If the role is technical or requires a certain level of skill in a specific area, then you may wish to include practical elements during the interview process. This could be simply carrying out some basic tasks in Excel or Word, completing a simple maths test or error checking a document or programme.

Role-play/ scenario-based questions

Role-playing or scenario-based questioning are useful tools for roles that involve sales or customer service. Give each candidate the same scenario and then get them to act out or explain how they would deal with the situation.

Group interviews

If you are interviewing for several positions, then group interviews can help narrow down the pool of candidates. You can observe how candidates behave during group tasks and how they interact with other people.

Competency-based questions

Competency-based questions involve asking a candidate to give examples of where they have demonstrated a specific skill, quality or task. The answers should outline the situation, the task they were faced with, the action they took and the result of their action.

Behavioural and personality based questions

Questions such as, ‘tell me about your strengths’, ‘what motivates you’, and ‘what appeals to you most about the role’, can give you an insight into a candidate’s personality. Use open-ended questions; prompt the candidate for more information if needed but keep them on track.

Presentations

As part of the interview, you may decide to ask the candidates to prepare a short presentation. This could be written or oral. Presentations could be around their suitability for the role, what they would do in their first three months in the role or a SWOT analysis of the business area.  A presentation will show you how much research they have done and what their presentation skills are like, as well as providing you with lots of relevant information.  

Need some help?

The cost of recruiting the right people is always less than the cost of recruiting the wrong people.

At Key Appointments, we are passionate about helping our clients find and retain the best talent. We take our time to understand your business and the roles within it so that we can help you secure the most suitable candidates.

If you would like help with any aspect of the recruitment process, get in touch. Our packages are tailored to your requirements so you only pay for the services you need.