Following on from our previous blog posts on writing job specifications and choosing the right candidates to interview, we will now look at job interview techniques. Most job interview articles whether it is for accountancy jobs or finance jobs you will read will concentrate on the interviewee and what they will encounter, but in this blog we will look at what the interviewer needs to do and look out for.
Conducting the perfect interview is all about getting the right balance of preparation, questioning and listening.
There are many interview techniques you can use, the two most common are the behavioural event interviewing technique and the criteria based interview.
The Behavioural event interview is where you look at the applicant’s past and you look at how they performed and handled previous tasks and roles. This is based on the assumption that the applicant will handle your role in a similar fashion to how they handled previous relevant roles.
Criteria based interviewing is when you measure a client’s performance in different areas, this is done by testing the applicants knowledge using structured questioning. This formal technique is a great way of testing the applicant’s performance but does involve the right questions and the ability to interpret the answers given.
The technique you use in your interview depends on various factors such as personal preference, objectives and company regulations to interviewing. But with careful planning, questioning and listening, you should be able to conduct a successful interview. Here are some of the things you need to factor into your interview.
Detailing your requirements and what you are looking for is something you have hopefully prepared already and used in your job advertising process. But it helps if you go into a bit more detail at this stage. Make sure you are clear about what skills, experiences and qualifications you are looking for.
You should always look and analyse the applications and CVs in advance, but this can sometimes be overlooked. Make sure to highlight any points you would like to raise in the interview, this includes both strengths and weaknesses. This is a great chance to highlight any questions you have about previous employment as most people don’t go into great detail in their CVs.
Remember you will not only be asking questions, the applicant will probably have some for you as well. So make sure you have relevant information to hand to make sure both you and the company appear professional, this may include history of the company, benefits or what its like to work there.
Make sure the area or room you will be conducting the interview is suitable. You want to put the applicant at ease, so don’t choose a place where you will be disturbed a lot.
Preparing an agenda for the interview will help you to stick to your time slot and also make sure you cover all areas that you wanted to go over. One of the best techniques to put an interviewee at ease is to introduce yourself and then cover your agenda so you can let them know what to expect.
Once you have finished your questions you should close the interview by asking the applicant If they have any questions. They may want to cover some of the areas you have introduced briefly. After the questions you can let them know things like, when they can expect to hear back and how the rest of the process will go. Whether there will be any other interviews for example.
As well as notes during the interview, it is always a good idea to make notes at the end to summarise what you thought of the applicant.
Once you have performed all this and seen a good range of applicants, you can hopefully come to a decision on who you want to see again or even who you want to offer the job to, completing your financial recruitment process.
