Here are 10 tips for becoming a better interviewer
Photo: The Cut So, you need to interview someone, and you want to do a good job. Maybe it’s your first time hiring people, or maybe you’ve been doing it for a while with less than stellar results. Maybe you’ve had your own terrible interviewers and want to make sure you don’t inflict that on someone else — or inflict bad hires on your colleagues. Here’s your primer on how to be a good interviewer.
2. Get clear on your must-have qualifications. It might sound obvious: When you’re hiring, you need to know what qualifications you’re looking for. But hiring managers often don’t do the serious reflection needed to distinguish the true must-have qualifications from those that are nice to have or not relevant at all. The most obvious example of this are job postings that require college degrees for work that doesn’t really require a degree at all.
That means you need to devise interview questions that really probe the candidate about the traits and experiences you’re interested in. In doing this, be sure to focus on the candidate’s actual experience, rather than asking hypothetical questions. Don’t ask, “How do you think you’d handle X?” Instead, ask how the person has actually handled X, or situations close to it, in the past.
For example, you might have applicants for communications positions write a press release for a fake event, or have analyst candidates research and summarize their findings about a piece of legislation, or ask prospective assistants to role-play a tricky situation. 7. Don’t ask silly interview questions. If you’re following the advice above, hopefully you’re not going to ask oddball questions like “If you were a tree, what kind would you be?” or “What song would you sing on American Idol?” But in case you’re tempted, let me say in clear terms: Don’t do it. These questions are irrelevant to your must-have’s, and they’ll irritate good candidates.
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