How To Be An Effective Job Interviewer: A Recruiter’s Advice
Let me guess: It is going to be your first time going into a job interview as the interviewer, or, you have already interviewed a few job applicants but feel like you could do better? In either case, this article will help you learn the basics of becoming an effective job interviewer.
Different recruiters and hiring managers will have different opinions of what truly makes an effective job interviewer. However, at the very least:
Being an effective job interviewer comes down to having a plan of questions to ask, knowing what competencies the job interview questions are testing for, and being able to objectively and accurately assess the interviewee in terms of how much of a competency the interviewee possesses.
Whether you are a new hiring manager or recruiter, if you want to know how to get better in these fundamental aspects of being an effective job interviewer, keep reading.
Before We Begin: Notes on Job Interviews
Note that in this article, we are referring to structured interviews as opposed to unstructured interviews. The former means interviewing each job applicant in the same planned way, while the latter is more of a question-heavy conversation to learn more about each job applicant.
Also, throughout this article, the most important thing to keep in mind regarding job interviews is to treat a structured job interview as a psychological test. What this means is that, like any written exam you might have taken as a child, you want to apply the same objective test in the same way for all your job applicants. If you can frame job interviews in your mind this way, a lot of the job interview best practices start to make a lot of sense.
Have A Plan
Effective Interviewers have a plan.
This plan starts with competencies the ideal job candidate should have and the interview questions to measure these competencies. This plan is the roadmap that the interviewer will follow while carrying out the interview process.
Before arranging the interviews, or even before starting the recruitment process for that matter, you should know what your ideal candidate should look like. Hiring a job candidate closest to your ideal is the goal.
If you can describe your ideal candidate in terms of the competencies of personality traits they have, then you can easily create a list of interview questions that can test the candidates on these competencies and traits. (If you need help thinking of interview questions, why not have a look at our interview question bank?)
The next step then would be to carry out the plan by asking all the candidates the same interview questions in the same order. Remember that the interview is a psychological test, and the candidates all need to be tested in the same way to prevent biased results. This is also the best way to make comparisons between candidates.
The opposite of all this is to not have a plan. This will mean winging it at the interview: not knowing what interview questions to ask or just asking whatever questions come to mind. This can also lead to just choosing the preferred candidate based on a ‘gut feel’. Which option sounds like a better test to you?
Be Objective
Effective Interviewers are objective in their application of the job interview questions and assessments of job candidates.
When interpreting a candidate’s answers to interview questions, you are looking at how the answer relates to their competencies. The problem is that along with their answers come a lot of ‘noise’.
Here is a chart from Huffcutt, A I (2011) of the factors that can influence an interviewer’s rating of a candidate:
The items under the Job-Related Interview Content section are the main things that you as an interviewer are looking out for. These factors, including work experience, specific skills, and personality, are what will lead to job performance and job satisfaction. In the long run, these are the real things that matter.
Practically speaking, in the interview itself, the candidate might speak directly about their experiences and skills or imply something about their job-related characteristics in their answer. These are what you should be objectively focusing on and evaluating.
On the other hand, Personal Demographic Characteristics like the physical attractiveness of the candidate, and Interviewee Performance factors like self-confidence are the ‘noise’. These ‘noises’ can subtly influence your evaluation of the candidate, but ultimately, these ‘noise factors’ are not linked to how well the candidate can perform on the job. Therefore, these ‘noise factors’ should be avoided.
Practically speaking, these ‘noise factors’ will present themselves in both overt and subtle ways. Some might even influence you in subconscious ways. Your task is to look past the ‘noise factors’ and stay objective by focusing on only the facts that matter in the candidate’s answers. Remember, the job interview is a test, and you are the test administrator.
Having an interviewee rating system or interview scorecard as part of the plan (see above) can help you stay objective. Find out more about interview scorecards and how they work here.
Improve Your Ability To Judge Job Candidates
Effective Interviewers are a good judge of character.
The more accurately you can judge each candidate’s level of competency in each of the important competencies identified in your plan, the better mental picture you will have of whether each candidate is ideal for the job.
Even if you strip away the noise factors (see above) in a candidate’s interview question answer, there is still the matter of judging the candidate based on what they have said. This is a subjective soft skill that is hard to teach but can be learned through experience.
When answering an interview question, some candidates will directly talk about or demonstrate their level of competence in each competency they think is linked to the question. These candidates and their answers are relatively easy to judge as things have been made rather explicit.
However, some candidates might be good in a certain skill or competency, but bad at showing it. Some people just do not like talking about themselves or are very humble or just don’t know how to “sell themselves”. In these cases, you will need to be able to judge them better based on their answer, or know to ask the right probing questions to further tease out any bits of information that can be used as evidence for judgment.
Don’t forget that just because a question doesn’t directly ask about or address a particular competency or personality trait doesn’t mean you can’t still judge a candidate on that competency based on their answer. For example: They might not talk about their experience with competency X when answering the question asking about competency X, but they might just end up talking about competency X in another question about competency Y.
Furthermore, you could also judge the candidates on secondary competencies and personality traits that you didn’t initially plan as necessary or representative of the ideal, but still could be important in the future.
You are looking to judge the candidate as a whole after all the questions have been asked, and you have a more holistic perspective on who they are. Said in another way, give yourself some room to judge the candidate as a whole.
How To Improve Your Judgement
Unfortunately, I cannot provide any shortcuts or secrets to suddenly being able to judge candidates better. Improving this skill will come down to increasing your experience as an interviewer and also your general people skills.
However, as a tip, try asking yourself the following questions after the interview:
- If this candidate is hired, how would they react to scenario X, which is a common scenario here?
- If this candidate is hired, how would they deal with co-worker Y?
- If this candidate is hired, how well would they perform task Z?
- Does it sound like this candidate has sufficient experience in this industry?
- Does it sound like this candidate has proven their skills in X in their previous job?
Try to match these sample questions with the competencies, personality traits, or other factors you are looking for in your ideal candidate.
Another way to help guide your judgment is by using a preset numeric scoring matrix on your interview scoresheets. On your interview score sheets, have the following scoring guide:
- Candidate grossly misses expectations in this area.
- Candidate falls short of expectations in this area.
- Candidate somewhat meets expectations in this area.
- Candidate easily meets expectations in this area.
- Candidate exceeds expectations in this area.
Based on this matrix, judge or score each candidate on each major competency or personality trait. Then total up the scores for each candidate, and start comparing scores.
Using numbers in this way can both keep you objective and focused on judging each of the individual aspects of the candidate that you deem important. I.e. using numbers makes the job interview a better psychological test.
If you are still unsure about your skills in judging candidates, then make sure you get a second or third interviewer to interview with you. By increasing the number of interviewers and taking on a “combined-score” approach, you can tap into the wisdom of crowds (albeit a small crowd) in terms of accurately judging candidates. Multiple interviewers can pick up on things that you might have missed during the interview, argue for or against the interpretation of a candidate’s answer, and be immune to some judgment biases. Overall, multiple interviewers can give you a more accurate judgment of a candidate than a single interviewer can.
Remember To Be Human Too
Being objective and judgemental makes the interviewer’s job sound robotic and almost as if you have to treat people like robots. However, candidates are people too with their own lives and special or personal circumstances.
For example, for candidates who are shy or modest and don’t like talking about themselves, you don’t have to write them off immediately as lacking in the right skills. You could be the first to reach out with follow-up questions to get to know them better.
Don’t forget, job interviews are a stressful time for the candidate. Some of their behaviors or the things they say could be due to this stress and do not necessarily reflect who they are. You could take the time to calm them down before the interview starts.
Also, be aware that a candidate’s personal circumstances might affect their answers too. For example, gaps in their career could be for private and personal reasons that they might not share. But it doesn’t automatically mean they are lazy. In some situations like these, you will need to respect their privacy.
Lastly, there is no reason not to be friendly during the interview. So don’t forget to smile and be warm if the situation calls for it.
In Conclusion
To become an effective job interviewer, have a plan, execute that plan objectively, and learn to better judge your job candidates. Each company and recruitment stream may be different, but these core skills will be able to make you an effective interviewer.
However, even with this knowledge, there are still no shortcuts to improving your effectiveness as an interviewer. The best you can do is to practice what you have learned here and keep gaining real-life experience.
If you have taken my advice, effectively carried out the interview, but are at a loss of what to do next, take a look at this guide on what to do after the job interview (as the interviewer).
