Ten Tips for Successful Interviews for Employers

Having successful interviews as an employer can be just as hard as having successful interviews as a candidate. There are job interview tips for employers that, when followed, can produce an excellent end result of high-quality interview after high-quality interview. In this article, we will touch upon ten different tips covering the entire employment process in an aim to help employers make the very best employment decision possible. The interview process begins before the applicant even enters the room and does not end when they leave, understanding this can make your interviews go from good to great.

Create a Set of Criteria

When you are advertising a job there can often be a large influx in the number of applicants, which can make it very hard to narrow down to the people you want to interview. This is why, before you interview anyone, you should create a person specification and a job description. You should be strict when it comes to who you interview, if someone does not meet your criteria, do not offer them an interview, this will lead to successful interviews.

Research the Applicant Thoroughly

Once you have narrowed down your applicants you should then try and use different techniques to put in further research to find out more about them. You can use sites such as LinkedIn to find more about their professional life, including references and contacts. You should also look at their social media profiles. This can give you a much better idea of the kind of person they are and will also allow you to potentially eliminate any applicants from the process if they do not suit the professionalism, you are looking for.

Approach Every Interview with An Open Mind

Now that you have sent out your invitations to your applicants and have screened them through social media and LinkedIn you are ready to begin interviewing. Whilst you may have an idea in mind based on who you would like to employ it is very important that you go into every interview with an open mind and should judge applicants based on successful interviews as opposed to preconceived notions.

Have Set Questions for All Applicants

A vital job interview tip for employers is to ensure that you have set questions that you are going to ask all applicants. This is a great way of knowing exactly what you want to achieve from your original questions and will give you basis to ask any follow-up questions based on the applicant’s answers. You should also try and find an ‘ideal’ answer to each of your questions. If an applicant answers the majority of your questions in the way that you would hope, you can consider it a successful interview.

Ask Open-Ended Questions

Tailoring your questions is an art form and can be difficult for some interviewers to grasp. A job interview tip for employers that is invaluable is discovering how to ask open-ended questions. Open-ended questions are questions that do not just have a yes or no answer. You will want to get your candidate talking and the best way to do this is by giving them a question that they can build on.  These questions should also be a mixture of job-specific questions and personality-based questions in order to gain a broad knowledge of the candidate.

Make Your Interviews Interactive

A successful interview will not just be about asking and answering questions. You should look to make your interviews as interactive as possible. A great way of doing this is to play fun games that can help to work out different aspects of your candidate’s behaviour. Certain tasks can help to discover how a candidate will react in different situations, whereas others can help to establish a candidate’s team working ability or problem-solving capabilities.

Keep The Candidate at Ease

Everyone knows that job interviews can be stressful, and as the employer it falls on you to ensure that the candidate feels comfortable and at ease in your environment. Successful interviews are often conducted when the candidate feels confident and calm in your presence so you should try and achieve this straight away. Start with a smile, if you are interviewing in-person offer a handshake and a warm smile, and do the same if you are interviewing online, without the handshake of course.

Look Past Nerve Based Errors

Errors are par for the course. Nobody will ever be perfect in an interview and once you are able to look past nerve-based mistakes you will often find that successful interviews and not always perfect. Even when you have put your candidates at ease, nerves can still play a large part in job interviews. A job interview tip for employers to follow is to look past these nerves and focus on substance more than style. If they get the job, then they will come out of their shell. Job interviews can be awkward, embrace it.

Be Prepared to Answer Questions

Following your interview, you should always as your candidate if they have any questions that they would like to ask. The last thing that you will want is to seem unprepared to answer any questions. As the employer, you should know that you are going to be asked certain questions and you should be prepared with the answers. Some common questions that you can expect to be asked include queries around wages, annual leave and working times but be prepared to stay on your toes.

Make Detailed Notes or Record the Interview

If you have lots of successful interviews, which you may do if you have followed our tips, then it can be hard to remember which one was the best, or which candidates you wish to invite back for a second interview. A good way to remember all of this information is by making detailed notes during the interview. However, you may feel that this can be disruptive, so you can instead choose to record the interview. If you do wish to do this, ensure that you have permission from the applicant beforehand.

If you would like any further information, or if you would like to receive high-quality training from professional human resources providers to maximise your successful interviews, get in touch with Lotus HR today.