By Ian Ash
What is the most important decision a business can make? Is it deciding on how to provide the best product or service?
Perhaps which are the best systems and processes to implement, or maybe determining the ideal target market? For me, the most important decision a business can make is hiring the right staff.
As Richard Branson said: “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”
So, if you agree with my premise that having the right staff in your company is probably the single greatest determinant of business success, how many businesses do you know actually train their staff in how to interview properly?
I suspect not many, so here are some simple tips to maximise success:
1. Write a position description for the role
Often we think they know what we want but it’s not until these thoughts are actually put into readable form that the true breadth of the role becomes apparent.
Documenting this allows others to review your understanding of what’s required as well so if the position interfaces with many others, getting their perspective is also very valuable.
A good position description will define the responsibilities of the role, the required experience/qualifications and personal attributes.
2. Focus on cultural fit
There is a phrase that states that ‘companies hire on skills and fire on fit’ and there is a very good reason for this.
Unless properly trained, interviewers will tend to ask questions related to the technical areas of the role that they are familiar with.
However, just about any ‘technical skill’ can be learnt with sufficient time and investment, but try training someone in initiative, discretion or commitment!
These are all much harder and typically are part of an individual’s personality or core values, so checking that these align as far as possible with those of the business is key.
3. Identify three core competencies and prepare about three questions for each
At first sight, this may seem inadequate to fully evaluate a candidate, but when forced to focus on just the three absolute must haves for the role, depth increases and you will find that a full discussion surrounding these will typically yield information from related areas as well anyway.
Conversely, going in with a long list of questions is likely to result in a superficial response to each.
4. Listen well
May sound obvious, but many interviewers fall into the trap of lining up the next question without fully listening to the response of the previous one.
If listening is done well, then the interview becomes more relaxed and conversational since the next question follows naturally from the previous one and hence more valuable information can be derived.
5. Offer the opportunity for questions at the start and the end
Interviewing these days is a two-way process and it’s extremely important the candidate receives a positive but accurate, ‘warts and all’ understanding of the role itself (they won’t stay if they find the role is quite different to what they expected when they start).
This is also a great way to gauge a candidate’s interest in the role as well.
Someone genuinely interested is highly likely to have a range of questions that they want answered, whereas few questions may imply a lack of desire.
Ian Ash ACC, AInstIB
Managing Director OrgMent Business Solutions – ombs.com.au
