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Preparing for an Effective Interview
Posted: 12-09-2010 03:54 AM
Views: 3010
Synopsis:
Hiring a new employee can be a legally dangerous situation. Turnover as a result of a bad hire can be costly. Most studies show a cost of about 30% of the employee's annual salary to find a replacement. In addition, interviews can put the company in legal jeopardy if they are not conducted correctly. One of the most important aspects of conducting a legal and effective interview is the preparation. In addition to preparing questions that are legally acceptable, an interviewer needs to make sure that the questions also are sufficient to provide an effective hire.
Hiring a new employee can be a legally dangerous situation. Turnover as a result of a bad hire can be costly. Most studies show a cost of about 30% of the employee's annual salary to find a replacement. In addition, interviews can put the company in legal jeopardy if they are not conducted correctly. One of the most important aspects of conducting a legal and effective interview is the preparation. In addition to preparing questions that are legally acceptable, an interviewer needs to make sure that the questions also are sufficient to provide an effective hire.
The location of the interview needs to be in a quiet area, free from interruptions. Both the candidate and the interviewer will be more at ease in this environment and it will allow both parties to concentrate. The candidate will be able to provide better answers to the questions and the interviewer will be able to take better notes and find the answers he needs from the applicant. The area should be prepared and reserved well ahead of the interview. Turn off your phone and make sure that you are interrupted only for emergencies.
Make sure that you take a sufficient amount of time to learn everything available about the candidate before the interview. This will allow you to formulate questions to fill in information gaps and expand and confirm the information that you have. The time spent in the actual interview will be much more effective.
The job you are hiring for needs to be reviewed. All qualifications need to be listed so that you can compare them with the applicant you will be interviewing. This will allow you time to update the qualifications from the last time you interviewed for the position and see if any new qualifications need to be added.
Lastly, interviewers need to prepare all of the questions in advance. Asking questions on the fly is not effective and can result in illegal interviews. Make sure that questions are designed to elicit behaviors from the candidate past experience, so that you can predict their performance in the future. The behavioral interviewing questions along with informational questions need to be examined closely by several employees and preferably a lawyer if available to ensure that they are legal.
Don't get caught spending precious dollars from your company's bottom line to replace employees or to settle lawsuits. Conduct a legal and effective interview by thoroughly preparing in advance.
Charlie Bentson King, a writer and producer of training videos for TrainingABC, is on a crusade to promote behavior-based interviewing. TrainingABC is a distributor of DVD programs such as More Than a Gut Feeling and other interviewing training videos.