How to Choose Better Candidates: An Interview Guide

Interviewers can face a lot of pressure. After all, the recruitment process takes up quite a lot of precious resources and time from every business. It’s your job to make sure that you are not only hiring someone who deserves to be there, but who is cut out for the job and will help move the organization forward.

The good news is, you can save yourself the headache and trouble of picking the wrong candidate. Here are some expert interview tips to help you hire a candidate that is a right fit for the job.

Avoid common pitfalls of the interview process by following these interview tips:

Think outside the box: try interviewing your candidate not only from behind a desk, why not take them on a tour or even share a meal with them?

Interviewing your candidates behind a desk is the old school way of getting to know your candidate. You will gain a much better sense of them if you get out from behind your desk and see how they behave in other environments. 

You don’t have to take them far from the interview location. You can go for a tour in your building, show the job candidate the way around and introduce them to any colleagues you run into. You’ll be able to get a real time sense of whether or not the candidate is genuinely interested in the company, see how they interact and treat others.

As a hiring manager, you can also take your candidate out for lunch or dinner, which can also show you what kind of person they are and many great leaders say that this is one of the most important parts of an interview process. During a meal you can analyze their body language, see how they treat others and if they are considerate, which is a key characteristic when working in a team. 

Ask more unusual questions to get candidates to open up more and give you details on what makes them tick. 

Smart candidates will know how to be prepared for the common interview questions, and they will also find ways to turn their negatives into positives. But, to get beyond these prepared answers, recruiters should instead have some of their own unique questions to ask a candidate to find out what they are truly like. 

Brain teasers aren’t the type of unusual question you should be asking, as they are not very good at predicting someone’s work ethic or personality. Instead, here are some examples of the questions that you should ask:

What animal would you be and why?

This one might seem childish, but it can actually tell you a lot about a person. For example, if the job opening is for a sales role, then you might want to hear the person say that they are a predator like a wolf or a lion. 

Or, if someone will be working as part of a team, then you might want to hear that they are a type of social animal, etc. The second part of the question, the why, will let you know how self-aware the candidate is. 

What qualities of your parents do you look up to the most?

Everyone is influenced by how their parents raised them, so the answer to this question will be able to show you a lot about the candidate. You can also ask them how those qualities show up in daily life. 

What is the biggest misperception other people have about you?

This question will also let you know the candidate’s level of self awareness. Are they aware of how they come across to others? This reveals a combination of self awareness, and whether or not they can grow. If they are not self aware then it can be hard for them to evolve or work in a team setting.

Trust your gut.

When interviewing a candidate, you should listen to your gut feelings while you are getting to know them. Having too much structure to an interview will constrict it and won’t allow for any personal connection. It gets in the way of really getting to know the candidate. It’s best to make the job interview more conversational in nature, and just chat with the interviewee, letting the conversation flow. 

Not only should you be looking at their qualifications, but you should also see whether they would be a good cultural fit. 

Having the right work experience is definitely a bonus, but talent and cultural fit can be make or break. Will the candidate be able to relate to their supervisor and others on their team? Will they understand your customer base well? Your hiring process should assess employee fit on all of these fronts.

Use more behavioral assessments instead of situational. 

Behavioral assessments can give you a greater certainty to understand if your candidate is a  great fit for the role. While their resume can tell you information about their skillset, it can’t give you an understanding on how successful they will be in their new role, working in a new environment with a new team, which is most of the reason people fail at a new job. 

At 1Huddle, we offer cloud-based employee gamification software that can easily adapt to any employee recruitment or gamification strategy you want to implement at your workplace. You can customize your content for a seamless experience and all of your employees will be able to access their training anywhere, anytime and at the push of a button. You can use our gamification platform to measure their performance and make key decisions on where you should take your gamification strategy next. 

Do you want to learn more about how 1Huddle can help you level up your workforce? Request a demo today.