Effective Employee Interviewing in a Competitive Job Market

Since everyone is hiring right now, the job market has gotten competitive. To hire the right people and have the right people want to work for you, the process starts during the hiring process. Your organization needs to stand out to talented potential employees. Prior to the interview, you’ll need to post an effective job description, followed by facilitating an effective interview. 

Effective Job Description

An effective job description is both detailed and enticing. It makes the employee interested in the position, and they want to know more. Include the responsibilities for the position as well as key benefits. Right now, every potential employee wants a great job with great benefits. The benefits are almost, if not as, important as the position itself. If your company doesn’t have great benefits, that will need to change for you to be competitive in the current job market. 

Once a candidate is interested in your company, they will look into your organization. Be sure to have clear messaging about your company’s core values on your website and social media accounts. Employees are allowed to be choosy right now, so they are looking for companies that align with their own values. This will be something they ask about in the interview, and you may want to know about theirs as well. 

Effective Interviewing 

Most people take their interview cueing from their previous interviews, but this may not be best practice. As times have changed, so have interviews. Consider the ways you prepare for and execute an interview. If you’ve been doing it the same way for a number of years, it may be time to revamp your system. 

Preparing for an Interview 

Preparation for an interview may seem obvious. You should have questions ready as well as the physical space prepped, but you also need to complete your own research about each candidate. Prior to the interview, you should read through their resume thoroughly. Take notes on anything you might want them to clarify. The more you know about them, the more interested you will come across. 

Taking the guesswork out of the interview for the potential employee is a huge benefit and shows how prepared you are for the hiring process. Consider sending the candidate an agenda for the interview, and then stick to that agenda on the day of the interview. This shows them how respectful you are of their time as well as the organizational skills of your company. 

During the interview, follow a script for the most part. You should have questions prepared for each candidate. Ask each candidate most of the same questions, but you may also want to prepare specific questions about their resume as stated above. Open-ended questions or questions that start with “tell me about a time when…” will elicit a better response and help you get to know the candidate. Of course, always allow the candidate to ask you questions, and be as honest as possible during that portion of the interview. 

As you move through your script, you will want to take notes. A tip for this is to put quotes around anything the candidate says that stands out to you in a positive or negative way. This reminds you of the candidate’s exact words and you can revisit those with your hiring team. Taking notes will also help you distinguish between candidates, depending on how many you are interviewing. 

Trust Yourself

Many times hiring an employee comes down to trusting your instincts. An hour or two with a person cannot possibly give you enough information to know whether they will be a stellar employee, but you are in charge of hiring for a reason, and your instincts are important. Trust them during the hiring process.