3 Tips how employers get the most out of interviews
Employers can get the most out of interviews through carefully considering their questions asked during interviews and the tools they use.
Our 3 tips how employers get the most out of interviews are; Break away from standardized questions, utilizing positive reinforcement, and how best to use critical feedback.
Tip #1 – Break away from the norm
The first tip on how employers get the most out of interviews, is breaking away from the standardized questions in the interview process.
Asking questions like “where do you see yourself in 5 years?” or “why are you interested in working for us?” are generic questions that have generic answers. Most candidates being interviewed have answered these questions so many times it is muscle memory and sometimes can leave a bad impression on prime talent.
What are employers really trying to understand by asking these questions? How well someone potentially fits in with the company goals, direction, or team?
Instead of sticking to a script of questions that every candidate has scripted answers to. Have a conversation, make every interview a comfortable process. Talk about personal interests or hobbies, engage each candidate on a human level and you will transform your tedious interview processes into educational and thought-provoking exchange.
Yes, there are some standardized questions you cannot skip in an interview. However, you can ask these questions in a not-so-standard-way and retain a deeper interest for your company in each candidate interviewed.
Tip #2 – Positive Reinforcement
Have you ever answered a question and received no response back from the person answering the question?
It’s unnerving sometimes. You begin to question the confidence in your answer and/or if you understood the question and gave a proper response. Interview processes are very emotional for everyone involved.
When you interview candidates by asking a question and following up on a response with another question, it doesn’t only come off as rude, but it also allows interviewers to miss a huge part of the interview process: how candidates handle criticism.
When employers give responses (positive or negative) to open-ended questions while interviewing candidates. They can assess how each candidate handles criticism; does positive response give too much confidence, does negative feedback push more in-depth in answers or does it make the candidate withdraw?
How employers get the most out of interviews is by providing positive reinforcement in response to questions. After each candidate’s answer, give a positive response initially and then review the candidate’s answer honestly. Even if the candidate answered a question wrong, the initial positive response could help negate the loss of confidence and promote further effort.
Tip #3 – Critical feedback
Our last tip on how employers get the most out of interviews is giving honest and critical feedback to their internal/external recruiting teams.
Giving critical feedback to recruiting teams might be our most effective tip on how employers can get the most out of interviews and to increase candidate quality in the upper funnel.
Some employers are apprehensive about giving too much feedback to recruiting teams for various reasons. However, it is a recruiter’s job to deal with positive and negative feedback. By reserving feedback from recruiters, employers prevent themselves from building a well-defined candidate pipeline.
Critical feedback and constructive criticism help recruiting teams to best define their search strategies and increase incoming candidate quality.
Conclusion
Great interviews follow these 3 tips on how employers get the most out of interviews.
Great interviewers intentionally make effort to get the most out of every interview. Great interviewers break away from standardized questions and engage candidates on a human level. Great interviewers utilize positive reinforcement to promote healthy experiences for every candidate and give critical feedback to internal/external recruiting teams to better define candidate quality.