how to question and listen with as little personal bias as possible.
Even with good interview questions and great listening
skills, there is still a problem. The typical interviewer just doesn't
have any way to know if the job applicant is telling the truth. So most
hiring managers make decisions based on what they know best and what
they can confirm - education, work history and gut instinct.
What other process in business today has such poor
reliability and continues to be the tool of choice to screen and
promote a small business's most valuable asset, its employees? This
reliance on the traditional interview creates two very expensive
problems for employers: the cost of hiring the wrong employee and the
hassles and expense associated with terminating a wrong hire.
The traditional job interview may be nice for social gatherings and public interest stories, but it has almost
no predictive ability in the hiring process.
What's a small business owner to do? What follows
are Five High Motivation Employee Interview Tips that will double your
hiring success (or cut your mistakes in half)!
Interview Tip #1: Don't "wing it" - develop a hiring process.
Every small business needs a plan to hire quickly without spending too
much time, money or effort. Beginning with
Total-APS (Applicant Processing System),
we can help small businesses recruit online, accept resumes, ask
behavioral interview questions online, and even evaluate job applicants
with - all before the owner or manager has to even pick up the phone or
speak with the job candidate. Just think about how much time you'll
save by avoiding the resu-mess and interviewing unqualified candidates.
Interview Tip #2 - Know what you need, not what you want. Understand the job you want to fill.
In 1972 David McClelland, a renowned Harvard
professor and an expert in motivation and achievement, directed
research to explore the ingredients of supberb job performance. He
wrote, "if you want to test who will be a good policeman, go find out
what a policeman does. Follow him around. Make a list of his activities
and sample from that list in screening applicants."
Most human resource job descriptions outline what managers would like
to have. They list all the responsibilities, usually way more than any
one employee is capable of doing well, and rarely describe what the
employee is really supposed to do on a day-to-day basis. Unfortunately
human resource job descriptions have become more legal documents that
are pulled out in case of employee terminations rather than being used
on a regular basis for employee evaluation and employee development.
Interview Tip #3 - Use behavioral interview questions and DOUBLE your hiring success. Don't ask leading questions or closed-ended questions.
An example of a leading question is: "Best Products Company is a great company. What did you like best about it?"
The same question asked without leading the candidate or bias would be: "Tell me how you ended up at Best Products Company."
Closed ended questions are interview questions that can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no".
An example of a closed-ended question: "Did you like working at Best Products Company?"
An example of an open-ended question: "Tell me how
you liked working at Best Products Company?" Studies show that a
structured interview with good open-ended behavioral interview
questions are at least 50% more effective than the typical interview.
Interview Tip #4 - Dig deeper. I consistently find that many
managers not only ask leading questions, but stop digging too quickly.
Remember, while you
are busy trying to keep up with everyone you have to do at work, the
job applicant's job is trying to find a new job. While you're trying to
squeeze in their interview between appointments, phone calls and a
million other things, the job applicant is surfing the Web for the best
interview quesion answers.
So no matter how good you think your interview
question is and how good the applicant's response is, don't start. You
might be surprised what you uncover. And don't switch topics quite yet.
Probe and dig, dig and probe.
My rule of thumb that almost always works - The Rule of 3's;
Ask 3 questions, not one, for every skill you need to evaluate.
For instance, let's say you are evaluating the applicant's ability to
cold call. Don't ask: "Do you like cold calling" or "This job requires
a lot of cold calling. Do you mind doing that"? Instead ask, "If we
hire you, describe how you will bring in new business." Whatever he or
she says, follow with: "How has that worked for you in the past?". But
don't stop now. Then ask tell me about another way you plan to bring in
new business" or "What did you do when your
marketing efforts didn't work?"
The more situation or behavioral questions you
ask, the more reliable your results will be. With between 53 percent
and 75 percent of resumes containing falsified information, it is more
important than ever to make sure the candidate actually can do what
they say did and more importantly, that they can do it again for you.
That leads us to Interview Tip #5 - Put
Job Applicants to the test. Although good behavior interview questions
improve your success of hiring the right person over 50%, the interview
alone still relies on the willingness of the job candidate to tell the
truth and your ability to uncover the lies. That is precisely the
reason why Best Small Business Solutions recommends the use of online
personality tests and why our clients who use behavioral interview
questions and online personality tests enjoy hiring success rates as
high as 90 percent.
Two-for-one Bonus: Many of our online personality tests include
recommended interview questions that are customized to the candidate's
personality test answers and to specific jobs. For each employee
tested, you receive a personality report PLUS recommended interview
questions at no additional charge.
Best Small Business Solutions doesn't just provide
tips, we provide solutions. Check out these interview question products
and teaching interview questions services for small businesses:
