All of your efforts so far, designing the job description, the person specification, the performance criteria and interview questions, have led to this point – the opportunity to meet candidates in person and determine through the interview process who will best meet the needs of your company or organisation.Here are a few things to consider:

Scheduling
If at all possible, schedule all candidates on the same day. This will allow you to make a decision efficiently. (In small companies it is understandably not always possible to convene a panel or to interview all candidates on one occasion.) Be thorough and consistent in your record keeping of each interview. If it is not possible to see all candidates on one occasion, proper note taking and scoring against the job criteria is even more important. If you have a panel, all panel members must interview all applicants.

Prepare the Environment
Prepare a room away from noise and distractions. If your premises do not have the space for this, it is common to rent space for this purpose. If you are holding the interviews on your premises, ensure that other employees are informed that you will be interviewing and that they should keep noise and disturbances to a minimum. If you have scheduled tests for applicants either before or after the interview, ensure that there is an appropriate, private environment available. One ever-present distraction is mobile devices. Restrict their use during the interview process. It is unfair to the candidate to be distracted by your ringing phones or your inattention while responding to texts or e-mails.

Time-Keeping
Try to keep each interview within the time allocated. Occasionally a candidate’s interview may take a little longer but, as the interviewer, you should be in control of the proceedings and not allow candidates to digress. Going over the allotted time puts pressure both on you and the following candidates.

Making the Decision
Having interviewed all candidates, review and compare your scoring for each against all the criteria. Inter-personal, attitudinal or behavioral skills could be the determinant that puts one candidate ahead of the others. Remember to consider person-to-organisational fit if appropriate; a candidate who may not have the desired level of experience, but has great inter-personal skills, may be a better choice where inter-personal relationships are critical to your enterprise.

Having made the decision, please inform candidates promptly; remember that you are not the only company that candidates are considering and the person you want might just accept something else while waiting for a response from you.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 at 6:06 pm and is filed under business & tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.