Top Tips for Interviewing Well

Interviewing is an art, a science and a craft. Giving a great candidate experience means listening actively and letting the conversation flow while making sure that the important aspects are covered. A tall order? These interview tips will help you along.

Be early – Be ready

If your interview starts at 11:00, block your time in from 10:45. This is when you make sure that your physical environment is set up.

• Is the room booked?
• Is everything ready?
• Can you offer a drink?
• Have you got pen and paper handy?

Nothing looks worse than the interviewer being late on the day.  A huge part of doing a good interview is giving the right impression.

Meet and greet

Allow ten minutes for meeting and greeting. Use icebreakers to calm and relax your candidate. ‘How was your journey?’ and ‘Did you find us easily?’ are good starter questions.

A relaxed candidate will interview better so look in their CV for opportunities to ice break, so you can make the start of the interview positive and engaging.

Introduce and sell

After meeting and greeting, introduce and sell your company. Whether the candidate is the right one or not, they will talk about their interview with others afterwards. Give your elevator pitch about the business, your department and your role. Then move on to the interview questions.

Open questions

These are absolutely the best interview questions. Remember that the interview should be a conversation, not an interrogation so create opportunities to get people talking.  Use open questions to coax answers out. ‘Tell me more about…’ and ‘Why is that?’ are both great to use.

Off-piste questions

Be confident and go off-piste with your questions. This is where you’ll find the best examples of how someone communicates. Two-pronged open questions such as ‘Why is that?’ followed up with ‘Tell me a bit more about that…’ show you how candidates cope under pressure. Let them wander, coax them and at times ask them to elaborate even more.

Listen actively

No matter how the interview is going, always listen actively. Pay close attention to what the candidate is saying, keep the conversation going and always give the conversation time to breathe. A little bit of silence now and again is fine in an interview.

And finally

Make sure that you leave time to answer the candidate’s questions in detail. At the end of the interview, set realistic expectations about timeframes and what happens next.

Before closing the interview, leave them with a final sell of your business, to create a really positive impression as they leave you.