Job interviews are so crucial for a company that even the recruiters themselves must prepare well in order to achieve a higher success rate in hiring.
Yes, even the pros have to prepare.
It is never easy to go out there and put the company at a disadvantage by just allowing the hiring process to proceed without proper structure. The recruitment process of any company is one of the most important business processes that require the expertise of those who will handle it. And in most cases, the recruiters are the ones who need to make the necessary preparations.
On average, a corporate job offer can attract up to 250 resumes. Out of those candidates, about 4 to 6 people will get called for an interview, but only one will actually get the job. Now, imagine how costly it is every time a company sets out to hire for key positions only to end up with the wrong hire because of the inability of the recruiter to adequately prepare.
But what are the things recruiters should organize and prepare for in an interview? This is what we are going to discuss in this article.
Define Your Candidate Persona
It all starts with your candidate persona. Have you made one for your company? Chances are if you have not defined your candidate persona yet, that is because you lack an understanding of what constitutes a persona.
According to Built In, a candidate persona is basically a fictional profile of an ideal candidate for a specific role—it could be both detailed and data-driven. What does this mean?
This means that every time you look for someone to fill a position, list down first the characteristics of your ideal candidate in terms of the following qualifications:
- Culture fit
- Professional goals
- Work experience
- Education and training
- Geographical location
- Specific technical skills
- Soft skills
Other traits may come secondary to culture fit since you would like to work with someone who fits your company attitude-wise. Skills can be trained anyway.
Study Your Employer Brand
Study the reputation of the company you are working for in the talent marketplace.
How your company positions online and offline can have a huge impact on the perception of your job candidates towards your offering. If you want to ensure that you represent your company well during the interview, assess how your company ranks among ideal candidates.
Perhaps, you can check Glassdoor and Indeed. Or, you may simply run surveys among your people if you have not had one yet. It is a good starting point for those who want to get to know more about how they can improve the company’s reputation.
Review the Company’s Compensation Offerings
Studying your company’s reputation also comes with reviewing the offerings you have. Are you offering the right compensation package? Or, are you going overboard by offering benefits that could be unnecessary?
Normally, a compensation package includes the following elements:
- Monthly Salary
- Bonuses and commissions
- Leave credits
- Medical and dental insurance
- Savings plan
If you want to level up your offer to make it more appealing to the right applicant, you can boost your offer with flexible working hours, additional allowance, sponsorships for training or professional education, and equipment support for remote work.
Again, you can start evaluating your compensation offerings through the eyes of your existing people. Gather some feedback which you can also use to improve their work experience with your company.
Write Your Follow-up Questions in Advance
Most of the interview questions fail to dig deeper unless you have follow-up questions that can assess the behavior of your applicants.
Writing your follow-up questions in advance can keep you from getting distracted when you have to listen to the answers of your applicant but also need to think of what more you should be asking. Also, these follow-up questions can prepare you for the different directions the interview may take.
You should also leave a great impression among your applicants and not knowing how to lead an interview is not going to help. For example, after asking “Why Should We Hire You?”, cross-check the assertions of your applicant by validating through behavioral and situational questions whether this applicant has only told the truth.
Not only that, you want to uncover more answers that you would otherwise miss if you only take the candidates’ responses as they are without even challenging them.
Create Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Aside from preparing your follow-up questions, you must also create a set of Frequently Asked Questions or FAQs in case your job applicant has something to ask about your company, procedures, and the job itself.
Of course, you need to welcome these questions because it could be an opportunity to know how your applicant thinks or what his concerns are when it comes to working. You want to be able to address these questions expertly and erase any doubt your applicant has about working for you.
Also, the FAQs are going to serve as your brief or guide for the interview. If you lack knowledge about a particular aspect of the work, then the best time to know about that is during the preparation stage.
Improve Your Interviewing Skills
There are various interviewing skills that you must improve upon on a continuous basis. Here are some skills you can develop:
- Research skills
- Communication skills
- Listening skills
- Non-verbal communication skills
- Note-taking skills
- Conversational skills
- Planning skills
In no particular order, the skills listed above are certainly important for interviewers who want to land a successful deal and be able to score a great candidate for the company.
The best way to improve your skills is through experience. Through experience, you can practice these skills and apply new learnings after another. But in order to minimize the risks, you can always do roleplaying with your fellow recruitment team and assess one another with regard to interview handling.
In other words, make the effort to work together to lift one another up and prepare together as a team. After all, successful recruitment is always a team effort.
