Archive for February, 2009
Here are some additional ideas to consider as you develop a process for evaluating candidates following an interview:
• Don’t wait. Make it a point to take a few minutes following each interview to complete the evaluation. The quality of evaluations sharply decreases when they are completed following a series of interviews.
• If you have used a panel of interviewers, hold off any discussion of a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses until each member has completed the written evaluation.
• Instruct each team participant to focus on the evidence of important job-related skills. Don’t allow “gut feelings” to play a role in the evaluation process.
• Be sure that all interviewer notes have to do with a job-related topic. Ignore anything that is not directly applicable to the job for which the candidate has applied.
• Make sure that interviewer notes are legible and that they contain complete sentences. Interviewer notes may become very important when it’s time to make a hiring decision.
Taken From: 10 Minute Guide to Conducting a Job Interview
In the structured behavioral interview model, the process of evaluating candidates should also be structured. You should devise an assessment tool to help your organization evaluate candidates consistently. (See Appendix B, “Interview Evaluation Summary.” )
The Assessment Tool
Design your assessment tool with simplicity and consistency in mind. The idea is to assess a candidate’s behavioral evidence as it relates to the mandatory success factors required by the position. That’s as technical as your tool should get.
TIP
Occasionally I’ve found assessment tools that appear to be very complicated and technical. With some of them, the math alone would probably frighten Einstein. Take my word for it, you don’t need anything that complicated. I recommend that you construct your own assessment tool and keep it simple. Simple tools are usually the most effective.
In constructing an assessment tool, devise a system in which mandatory success factors identified within each skill set are weighted depending on importance. For example, if there are six mandatory success factors in the technical skills set, the most important of the six factors would be given a weight of 6; the second most important would be weighted 5; the third would be weighted 4; and so on.
Candidate performance scores for each factor, which may range from 0 (poor) to 5 (excellent), are then multiplied by the weight factor to arrive at an adjusted score for the factor being assessed. If several members of an interview team have rated the candidate, average the scores for each skill set to determine final candidate scores (see Appendix B).
Taken From: 10 Minute Guide to Conducting a Job Interview
The information exchange is the central part of the interview. During the information exchange, questions are asked and information is received that will lead directly to a decision to hire or not to hire. Don’t hesitate to ask as many follow-up questions as needed whenever you feel that more information is required.
Be sure that all questions about the candidate’s experience, education, and work history are asked and answered. Now is the time to explore any gaps in a candidate’s employment history, and to confirm (if necessary) important information about education, experience, and job-related skills and abilities. Such questions should be limited; this is not a time to ask a candidate to make a verbal presentation of the entire resumé.
TIP
Practice the 80/20 rule: During the core part of an interview, the candidate should do 80 percent of the talking, and the interviewer should do only 20 percent. Resist the urge to help candidates who become stalled or who are searching for words to convey information.
To help put a candidate at ease, it’s wise to ask easier questions first. Questions about the candidate’s resumé or application having to do with experience or training work particularly well in the beginning of an interview, as do questions that elicit insight into a candidate’s character and personality such as, “Of all the jobs you’ve held in the past, which was the one you liked best and why?”
As you move into the more difficult structured behavioral questions, be sure to allow the candidate time to think through each question and formulate a response. Allow periods of silence. Don’t rush the candidate, either verbally or nonverbally.
Closing
The manner in which you close an interview will leave a lasting impression on the candidate. Interviews should be closed in a professional, unhurried manner. Ask one member of the team to “sell the company” by presenting the benefits of working for the organization and the opportunities that exist. Invite the candidate to ask any lingering questions. Finally, tie up any loose ends that need attention, and inform the candidate of what to expect next.
Don’t forget to thank the candidate for participating in the interview. By standing and offering a handshake, you signal to the candidate that the interview has concluded.
Taken From: 10 Minute Guide to Conducting a Job Interview
To ensure consistency in the interview process, be sure that your interviews contain three major parts:
• Opening
• Information exchange
• Closing
Although each stage is distinct and has a unique purpose, the overall process should be seamless. Moving from the opening to the information exchange and finally to the closing should be done smoothly and naturally.
TIP
Give each interviewer all the candidate’s information well in advance of the interview. This will enable each participant to ask pertinent questions about a candidate’s background, and generally will enhance the interviewer’s ability to evaluate candidates.
The Opening
Interviews should open with a genuine attempt to put the candidate at ease. The interviewer (or primary interviewer, in panel interview formats) should use body language that conveys warmth and genuine pleasure in meeting the candidate—standing when the candidate enters the room, leaning forward to offer a handshake, and smiling are great ways to break the ice and establish instant positive rapport.
Once the candidate is seated, introduce him or her to everyone participating in the interview and ask each panel member to introduce themselves by name and position within the organization.
The opening of the interview is the time to talk about the interview process. Tell the candidate what to expect during the interview.
Begin by providing a context for the interview. You might say something like, “The purpose of our interview with you today is to provide you with an opportunity to learn more about our organization … and for us to learn more about you. We’re particularly interested in learning whether you have the qualifications we’re seeking for the position of sales manager.”
CAUTION
In attempting to help a candidate feel at ease, it’s tempting to ask a few personal questions that are irrelevant to the job. Resist the temptation! Even innocent questions about a candidate’s family are prohibited and could be grounds for a discrimination action by an unsuccessful applicant.
Taken From: 10 Minute Guide to Conducting a Job Interview
Consistency is important in the interview process. It ensures that interviewers perform quality interviews that elicit relevant information, and that candidates leave with a favorable impression of the organization.
The structured behavioral interview process is no exception. You’ll need to consider the following consistency guidelines.
First, if you plan to use a panel of interviewers, be careful whom you select. This is especially important if the position being filled is a senior position. For most positions, however, a good rule of thumb is to invite all supervisors to whom the new employee will report, together with a peer or two from the department or unit in which the opening exists. These are the people who know what it takes to get the job done; their input will be valuable.
TIP
A panel interview offers the advantage of allowing several interviewers to question and evaluate a candidate. Consider assigning roles to members of the interview team: “hostile interviewer,” “friendly interviewer,” “company salesman,” and so on. How a candidate
responds to the various personalities can in itself be revealing.
Second, in developing the interview process, make sure that you allocate enough time for each interview, remembering that part of the time allotted must be devoted to evaluating the candidate following the interview. Usually the position to be filled will determine the length of the interview.
(It’s common for middle-management positions to require interview slots of two hours or more.) Don’t short-change either the candidate or yourself by failing to provide an appropriate amount of time for the tasks to be accomplished.
Third, be sure to stay on schedule. Nothing communicates unprofessionalism quicker than interviews that always seem to be “running late.” Start on time; end on time. In fact, it’s a good
idea to inform a candidate of an anticipated end time before the interview begins. Concern about time demonstrates regard for the candidate and for those participating in the interview.
Fourth, to the extent possible, arrange only morning interviews. It’s a fact that neither candidate nor interviewer performs as well later in the afternoon. Give yourself and your candidates an opportunity to perform at peak levels.
Finally, try to avoid interviewing more than two to three candidates a day. It’s difficult to do justice to more than that.
Taken From: 10 Minute Guide to Conducting a Job Interview
Traditional forms of interviewing can enable some candidates to look good because they offer the ideal opportunity to display their presentation skills and knowledge of the subject matter. But talking in generalizations is one thing, and offering concrete examples is another.
Structured behavioral interviewing requires a candidate to talk about real-life situations in which they used the particular skill being evaluated. Using the structured behavioral interview model, it’s not “Do you know how to do it?” but rather “Tell us how you’ve done it and the result that you achieved.”
Structured behavioral interviews differ from traditional interview formats in a number of additional important ways. For example:
• Control of the structured behavioral interview always remains with the interviewer. Candidates are never allowed to redirect the focus of questions to areas of their own choosing.
• The interview is “structured,” which means that the same job-related questions are asked of all candidates and that each question is based on a specific mandatory success factor of the job.
• Candidates are evaluated using a standard evaluation tool also based on mandatory success factors. “Gut feelings” and “hunches” are ignored.
• Candidates are not presented with hypothetical questions to answer or problems to solve. Instead of being asked to speculate on what they would do in certain situations, candidates are asked what they have actually done in similar situations in the past.
• Follow-up probes, similar to those used in more traditional types of interviewing, are used extensively to test answers for accuracy, honesty, and consistency.
• Interviewers take copious notes throughout the interview, as opposed to other forms of interviewing, in which taking notes is not as much of a priority.
Taken From: 10 Minute Guide to Conducting a Job Interview
Estimates of the cost of equity for a particular company vary widely and depend upon the methodology used. For a particular company, cost-of-equity values based on systematic risk tend to be lower than cost-of-equity values calculated from downside risk measures. For some companies, downside cost-of-equity values are twice as large as cost-of-equity measures based on systematic risk. This is true, even though all of the cost-of-equity values use the same risk-free rate and same risk premium. Read the rest of this entry »
In this lesson, you learn about structured behavioral interviewing and how a typical structured behavioral interview works.
Why Structured Behavioral Interviewing?
Whether you’re searching for an entry-level employee or a seasoned executive, structured behavioral interviewing will help you select the best candidate for the job. The technique is based on the behavioral consistency principle that the best method of predicting future behavior is to determine past behavior under similar circumstances.
Plain English
Behavioral Consistency Principle Argues that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior in similar situations.
Practically speaking, the behavioral consistency principle suggests that probes such as “Tell me about a disagreement you’ve had with your boss” will prompt more worthwhile information about an applicant than questions such as “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?”
Behavioral questions force candidates to discuss real-life situations in which they use key skills to solve problems. As a result, interviewers are given a unique opportunity to look “behind” the resumé and discover a candidate’s real potential.
TIP
Expect some candidates—those who rehearsed their answers in preparation for a traditional interview—to be surprised that the questions you ask require them to think and reveal real-life behaviors.
Structured behavioral interviewing has a proven track record of success. My informal research has shown that this method of interviewing improves the probability of hiring successfully by more than
three times the rate of a traditional, less structured interview. Current employment literature reports similar findings and recommends structured behavioral interviewing as a best practice.
But that’s not all. Consider these added benefits:
• Structured behavioral interviewing provides an orderly, efficient process of jobrelated assessment.
• Behaviorally based questions yield more valuable information about a candidate than questions normally asked in traditional interviews.
• Managers obtain and evaluate behavioral evidence of skills and abilities before making critical hiring decisions.
• Legal guidelines involving fairness in the selection process are respected.
• There is maximum assurance that a good match will ultimately exist between new hires and the jobs that they enter.
• Structured behavioral interviewing results in shorter new employee training time, higher initial productivity, and significantly lower rates of turnover.
Successful organizations use structured behavioral interviewing because it works. Hiring decisions based on behavioral evidence about a candidate’s job-related skills are bound to be better decisions than those based on a “hunch” or “a gut feeling.”
Taken From: 10 Minute Guide to Conducting a Job Interview
Access to affordable technology to improve the flow of information is essential to the development of an economy. Closing the Digital Divide could bring many benefits to developing countries. In many ways, developing countries have the most to gain from improvements in telecommunications and information technology. Bringing the benefits of IT to developing countries is possible, but the governments of these countries need to be aware that the process is going to cost money and require institutional changes. Read the rest of this entry »
“Tell me about a time when you disagreed with a decision made by your boss. What did you do?”
Structured behavioral interviewing is based on this simple premise: The most accurate predictor of future performance is past performance in a similar situation. This form of interviewing focuses on real-life job-related experiences, behaviors, knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Candidates are asked to talk about actual situations in which they’ve had to use certain skills and abilities. In answering behavioral questions, candidates draw from their past experiences at work, in school, as a volunteer, or even from extracurricular activities and hobbies. Structured behavioral interviewing is considered a modern business best practice.
In Lesson 6, “Structured Behavioral Interviewing: Part 1,” we’ll discuss structured behavioral interviewing at length. But for the purposes of this lesson, it’s important to understand that structured behavioral interviewing can revolutionize your interviewing practices and, according to my research, improve your chances of hiring the right candidates by as much as 300 percent.
Advantages: Structured behavioral interviewing enables you to catch a glimpse of a candidate dealing with real-life situations that required the same skills and abilities that your open position requires. A structured behavioral format allows you to get “behind” the resume and explore the
depth and breadth of a candidate’s experience and training. Job-related questions are prepared in advance, and the same questions are asked of each candidate interviewed. Combined with a rating system tied to the mandatory success factors that you’re seeking, this model is an objective and highly effective way to select a candidate.
Disadvantages: Initially, adjusting to the structured behavioral model can be challenging, especially for those who have used the traditional interview model for years. With a little practice, however, you’ll soon be comfortable with structured behavioral interviewing.
The 30-Second Recap
• Selecting the best format for an employment interview is one of the most important tasks in the selection process.
• Telephone interviews are an effective and inexpensive way to help narrow the field of candidates to a manageable number.
• The traditional interview usually results in traditionally high numbers of hiring mistakes.
• Stress interviews should be reserved for positions that involve extremely stressful conditions.
• Team interviews work well when they are part of a structured interview format.
• Situational interviews deal in the hypothetical; candidates offer conjecture about what they might do in a given situation.
• Structured behavioral interviews focus on the behavior of candidates in past situations requiring skills and abilities similar to those required by the position they’re interviewing for.
Taken From: 10 Minute Guide to Conducting a Job Interview