Job Interview Tips: How to Interview Potential Employees

By Susan M. Heathfield

Job Vacancy Indonesia, Employee, Vacancy

The job interview is a powerful factor in the employee selection process in most organizations. While the job interview may not deserve all of the attention that the job interview receives, it is still a powerful force in hiring.

Other background checking and work history references provide much less personalized and more factual information, and hopefully, you have added these checks to your hiring decisions, too. But the job interview remains key to assessing the candidate's cultural fit. The job interview remains the tool you can use to get to know your candidate on a more personal basis. The job interview process helps other employees “own” the new employee who joins your organization.

How to Select Candidates to Interview

Your starting point, before scheduling a job interview with a candidate, is to review each candidate's:

• Resume cover letter and
• Resume.

When faced with 100-200 candidates, it's important to use tools that separate the great candidates from the many. These will help you select the candidates for the job interview. They will also help you prepare your list of questions to use to telephone screen candidates and ask during the job interviews.

• Read Why This Resume Rocks.
• Hold a recruiting planning meeting.
• Devise a list of qualities, skills, and experience to use to screen resumes and job interview candidates.

Telephone Screen Candidates Prior to an Interview

The telephone interview or candidate screen allows the employer to determine if the candidate's qualifications, experience, workplace preferences and salary needs are congruent with the position and organization. The telephone job interview saves managerial time and eliminates unlikely candidates. While I recommend developing a customized interview for each position, this generic job interview will guide you.

How to Prepare for the Job Interview

The interview team was selected at your earlier recruiting planning meeting, so the interviewers have had time to prepare. You will want to use the list of qualities, skills, knowledge, and experience you developed for the resume screening process.

Use this list to make sure each interviewer understands their role in the candidate assessment. Review each interviewer’s questions, too, to make sure the interview questions selected will obtain the needed information.