Effective Interviewing: A Lost Art?

Every manager has their own technique or style of interviewing, and every manager shares the same goal: to turn an employees' talent into performance.

I have found that the structure of an interview is key to help discover potential employees' talents and skill sets.  From my experience (as well as my education from a first-rate management coach), there are certain ways to approach questioning a candidate which allow you to have a glimpse into their “predictive behavior.”

The interview should stand alone, and have but one simple purpose: to discover whether a candidates’ recurring patterns of thought or behavior match the job description's talent and skill set guidelines adequately. 

Here are a few interviewing tips to help draw out someone's predictive behavior:

1. Ensure that you ask several open-ended questions - and above all, do your best to remain silent.  In my experience, the direction of the candidate takes spontaneously will be indicative of their typical behavior.  Whatever a candidate says “off-the-cuff,” believe them. Trust the response irrespective of what you want to hear personally, and ensure that you are not guiding their responses at all costs.  
2. Obviously past behavior patterns are good indicators of future behavior. Listen for minute specifics: Open-ended questions which start out with, "tell me about a time when you…" can serve you very well.  Again, listen intently to the specifics, and only give credit to their immediate “off-the-cuff" response.  
3. Bear in mind that each person is so complex that no interviewing nor testing system will be able to define their profile of talents accurately.  However, if you focus your questions towards the job’s specific talent and skill set guidelines, the candidate’s dominant traits and talents will eventually emerge.  At this point you can then compare their talents to those in your job profile and see if it's a good fit.
4. Many managers default to a list of favorite questions that they resort to every time they interview.  But GREAT managers have one important, direct distinction: they only ask the questions were they know how GREAT performers will respond.

Now, go find yourself a great candidate! 

Muffy Bennett - CEO Bennett Automotive Specialists, Inc.