Interview best practices

There are very few cases where hiring should be left to just one person. Tap into the collective wisdom of your organization to define the job, assess the knowledge, skills, abilities, and behavioral drives needed, and then assess candidates.

Selecting the right stakeholders

When you’re creating a hiring team, you want to focus on people who have relevant experience. Typically, hiring teams consist of the recruiter, hiring manager, a top performer, and another colleague.

INTERACTIVE: Click on a team member below to review what they contribute and the types of questions they might be responsible for.

There may be times when a team member feels excluded or aren’t a good fit for a hiring team. Be sure to have a plan for making them feel heard, allowing them to vocalize what they’re looking for in a new hire, and answering any questions or concerns they may have. Once a new hire has accepted, you may want to follow up with them to close the loop.

Pulling everything together for the team

Once you’ve assembled your team, you’ll need a place that will provide the information they need to conduct effective interviews. It’s helpful to create a Perform workspace, a folder on a shared drive, or another location that everyone on the hiring team has access to. Whichever method you use, it’s helpful to collect the following:

• The resume and portfolio (if applicable) for each candidate
• The insights packet for each candidate
• The Interview preparation template
• The location/document where they should take notes after their interview

Aligning on roles and expectations

Now that you have your team and they know where to go to get the information they need, they should work together to:

• Align on and discuss the Job Target.
• Determine which questions will capture behaviors, skills, or experiences that are critical to the role.
• Assign different areas of exploration to different team members;
  • One team member evaluates the candidate for their ability to build processes.
  • One team member evaluates them for accounting knowledge.
  • One team member evaluates their cultural fit within the organization.
• Make sure that different interviewers are asking different questions so the candidate isn’t repeating themself. 
• Determine what a high quality response sounds like so the interviewer knows what to listen for in each of their assigned ares and questions.

Create a communication plan for hiring teams that outlines what they can expect and what you expect from them. Make sure they’re familiar with the process, including the PI tools you’ll be using.