An effective first-round interview can set the stage for the entire hiring process, ensuring you identify the best talent for your organization. Here’s a quick guide on how to conduct a first interview, tailored to help employers streamline their interview process and make informed hiring decisions.
Planning the Interview
1. Define the Role and Get Stakeholder Agreement
Before you even sit down with a candidate, define the role clearly and get agreement across all stakeholders on the desired profile and skillset. This ensures that everyone involved in the hiring process is aligned on what to look for in a candidate.
2. Craft Targeted Interview Questions
Develop interview questions that are directly tied to the job requirements. This helps in properly assessing the candidate’s skills. Behavioral interview questions are particularly useful as they can help you gauge how the candidate handles certain situations, both in terms of their skills and their behavioral responses.
Consider what you want to learn from each question. Are you interested in how the candidate creates a process, handles conflict, or manages up? Each scenario should be approached differently to get a comprehensive understanding of the candidate’s capabilities.
Structuring the Interview
3. Balance Conversational and Structured Approaches
First-round interviews benefit from a mix of unstructured, conversational approaches and structured skill assessments. Starting the interview with a conversational approach helps set the tone. Transitioning to structured questions then allows you to evaluate the candidate’s skills relevant to the role.
4. Use Interview Scorecards Wisely
Interview scorecards can be a double-edged sword. While they help in gathering consistent feedback and reducing bias, over-reliance on them can lead to missing out on valuable insights that emerge from natural conversations. It’s essential to use scorecards to collect feedback for further rounds and decision-making while staying engaged with the candidate.
Evaluating Cultural Fit
5. Assess Cultural Fit Without Bias
Evaluating cultural fit is important but can be a slippery slope. Gone are the days of hiring someone you’d like to grab a beer with. But done correctly, you can hire employees who share the company sense of purpose and values. In turn, leading to heightened job satisfaction and team cohesion.
Look for candidates who can add value and bring alternative perspectives to your team. Diversity is shown to increase productivity and the success of teams. How people will work well together is far different that how well they will play together.
Streamlining the Process
With time-to-hire rates increasing, an effective first-round interview can significantly reduce the time your critical roles remain open. By streamlining the initial interview process, you can maintain candidate engagement and convert qualified candidates more quickly once you get to the offer stage.
Michelle Holahan is VP, Head of Employer Brand. She specializes in digital marketing, media and analytics recruiting for CPG, eCommerce and retailers. She serves as a consultant to employers in understanding the nuances of the market and how employer brand and processes impact talent attraction and retention.