Learn how to conduct a successful interview

Structured Interviewing

Interviewing is the time where most companies rely on ‘gut instinct’ assuming that the candidate is qualified for the position when what they should be doing is evaluating their qualifications during the interview.  In addition to direct questions the interview will want to prepare specific behavioral questions, knowledge questions, and questions to assess a candidate’s interpersonal skills.

The best way to conduct an interview is to have a structure established before the candidate arrives.  This enables you to maintain control of the interview and to extract all the necessary information that you need to make an appropriate and effective hiring decision. 
 

An Interview Structure Might Look Like This:

• Greeting and nonverbal assessment

• Brief conversation to set candidate at ease

• 5-10 warm up questions.

• 10-20 Behavioral Questions

• Confirmation questions.  Clarify concerns.

• Candidate question period

• Closing questions/discussion.  Ask for references.

• Address the next steps in the process.

• Handshake/Goodbye

• Move on to next interviewer or process is complete
 
Decide in advance how long you have for the interview and make sure that the candidate is aware of that time frame when you make the appointment.  Also decide how you want to document the interview for later reference and in the event that any legal concerns arise.  The best way to conduct any interview is to prepare ahead of time. 

Let’s begin with questions to ask yourself to establish a structure.

1. Who is conducting the interview?

2. How many people are going to be interviewed?

3. What will the interview format be?
a. Series (will there be a series of interviews)
b. Face to face with one person
c. Sequential, (the interviewee will meet with several people one after the other)
d. Panel (the interviewee will meet with several people at once)
e. Group interview (Several candidates meet with interviewers in a group setting)

4. How much time will you allow for the interview?

5. Lastly, what questions will you ask the candidate?

Once you’ve established a general format for the interview and all parties involved know what to expect the next step is to identify key questions that you want the candidate to answer.  There may be additional questions that you’ll need to ask based on the candidate’s answers and there may be fewer questions that need to be asked based on the candidate’s answers and performance during the interview.  (If the candidate blows the interview in the first five minutes then there isn’t a need to prolong the agony, simply cut the interview short, gracefully, and move on.)

Assessing Non-Verbal Cues

Assuming that your candidate’s have arrived in a timely manner and are groomed and dressed professionally.  I’m also assuming that they have introduced themselves properly and have thanked your for meeting with them and have shaken your hand.  Additionally, pay attention to how your candidate sits during the interview.  If they’re attentive to what you’re saying with their posture or if they’re sitting back with their legs crossed and behaving in too casual a manner. 

Are they taking notes on the interview or doodling?  Yes doodling.  I’ve witnessed senior management drawing on their notepads one time too many!  Not a good first impression unless they’re applying for an artist position. 

Does the candidate make eye contact and have they been respectful of all members of your staff before, during, and after the interview.  If they have failed to meet any of the above professional behaviors, then depending on the job position and requirements you may need to call the interview short.

Interview Questions.

A great place to begin any interview, after the initial handshake and visual assessment, is with a job description and some general rapport building questions to set the applicant at ease.  General questions might include the weather, the drive in, the sports game last night. 

Next, you’ll want to move in to the introductory questions.  These questions serve to warm up the applicant and get them into ‘interview’ mode.  Questions might resemble the following:

 “Please describe your current job responsibilities.” 
“What do you like most about your current job?”  Least?
“Why do you want to leave your current position?”

Based on the candidate’s answers to your questions, you’ll likely have a few more questions to dig deeper or clarify their answers.  Then it is time to move into the competency based questions.  Competency based questions are designed to keep the interview in control of the interview and they cover measurable skills, knowledge, behavior, and interpersonal skills.  They are the core of the interview and where you will derive the majority of your decision making information.

Competency based questions can address many behaviors, skills, and experience.  For example:

• “Tell me about an unpopular decision that you’ve had to make and how you handled it.” —This question assesses the candidate’s decision making skills.

• “Describe a situation where you were overwhelmed by a problem at work and how you handled it.” — This would address the candidate’s problem solving skills.

• “Tell me how you prioritize tasks and budget your time?” – Time management.

• “Tell me about a time when your team or department did not meet expected goals.  How did you handle that?”  — Management or Team Building.

• “Tell me about a time that you had to deal with a difficult employee/co-worker.”

• “What do you do at work to relieve stress?”

• “Describe what motivates you at your current job?”

A competency is a trait or quality that contributes to a candidate’s ability to meet the job requirements as established by you and your company prior to posting the position.  The questions therefore focus on having the candidate explain past experiences to predict future behaviors.  Questions will be designed to assess all behaviors, skills, and experiences necessary to perform the job’s responsibilities.

The next stage of a structured interview will  be a clarification or confirmation stage where you briefly address questions about the candidate’s education, and work history making sure to inquire about any inconsistencies.  If the competency portion of the interview has been comprehensive then this portion of the interview will be brief.

The last phase of the interview is the closing.  This is where you turn the interview over to the candidate to ask any questions that they may have about the position and to establish a method of communication for the future.  What is the next step?  When will you have a decision made?  How and when will the candidate contact you?  This is also the time where salary requirements will  be clarified.

Once you’ve completed the interview, if you haven’t documented or assessed the candidate’s answers to your questions then take a few moments to record your assessment.  I recommend a formal interview format where assessing an answer to a question can be as simple as circling a number on a scale of 1-10 so that you don’t have to write down complete answers.  This also enables reassessment of the interview to be an easier and more efficient process.  Leave room at the bottom of the form for comments.  Sign and date the form and make sure that the candidate’s name is on the top.  This will keep them together.

Questions not to ask.

There are of course questions that you need to avoid asking for legal and moral reasons,   including questions about the origin of a name, questions about a person’s residence, age, physical appearance, marital status, children, religion, and finances.  Tread lightly when inquiring about education, military experience, organizations, disabilities, criminal offenses, citizenship, and a person’s name sticking only with the facts.

Happy Holidays from all of us at MemberSpeed.com!

Simon and I along with the whole MemberSpeed team would like to thank you for being a MemberSpeed member and helping us to make 2007 a very memorable business year for us all.

We truely hope you are benefiting from using the software to build your sites now and into 2008 and beyond. Many great things to come for all members in 2008!

Be sure to take some time off this holiday season wherever you are and spend time with your family and loved ones. May you have a wonderful time and may 2008 bring you much happiness, prosperity and success!

Hope you enjoyed some time off and best wishes into 2008:)

10 Tips To Make Working From Home More Productive

Working from home is a great thing, no doubt about it.  You can wear what you want.  Keep you own hours.  Eat and drink when you want.  Surf the net without feeling like your boss is going to bust you.  You don’t have to worry about commuting and all of the stress associated with bumper to bumper traffic.  No annoying bosses to deal with anymore and you can take breaks when it suits you.  In short, you control your own destiny. 

All of those things are fantastic pros to owning your own business and working from home.  However, there is a dark side.  There is the tendency to get sidetracked from the work that generates a profit and puts food on your table to the work you would maybe rather do at the moment like build that deck in your back yard, work on your car, or ugh…do the laundry.  There is also the tendency to lose track of time researching for your business or taking care of tasks that may be better suited for a different time or even handled by a different person.  All of these sidetracks, and many more, will take away from your daily productivity and essentially end up affecting your bottom line. 

Here are 10 tips to help you stay on track and heading toward the profits you desire and deserve.

1. Organize everything.  Having a system in place for your business, your home office, and your work time is essential to remain focused and productive.  Develop a system of organizing your office files and your computer files.  Make sure there is a place for everything including the stuff you got in the mail today.  Some common file categories are:

•Expenses
•Bank accounts
•Receipts
•Customer files
•Contracts
•Payables
•Receivables
•Taxes
•Business entity documentation
•Marketing
•Copywriting ideas

On your computer it is often helpful to have a folder for every major aspect of your business with separate smaller folders contained inside if necessary.  For example you could have a taxes folder on your computer with separate tax information stored in sub folders by date.  Al l the tax information and documentation for each year would be stored in that year’s folder.  The important thing to remember when developing a system of organization is to make sure that it is a system that will work for you, your business, lifestyle and needs.  If it doesn’t you wont use it and it won’t do you any good.

2. Plan.  Some people are planners and others are doers.  To be a successful business owner, you have to be both.  You have to plan it and then you have to do it.  Plan your business, plan your year, plan your month, plan your week, plan your day.  Task lists and project management systems are great tools for the day to day, month to month type planning.  For longer range annual planning you will want to go back to your business plan and review, revise, and reassess it annually. 

Goals are much easier achieved if you set out a plan to achieve them.  This includes the small daily goals like calling that contact about that new joint venture idea you have.  I’m sure you have already heard this, but good goals are measurable, relevant, timely, and attainable. 

3. To do lists.  To do lists or task lists as we talked about in #2 are essential to keep you on task and focused on your goal. Task lists also help keep you organized and they help you prioritize your day.  If you’re like me, then they help to motivate you too.  There’s something satisfying about crossing an item off of your task list, and conversely something terrifying about watching that task list grow and grow while doing nothing to shorten it and keep it under control. 

4. Automate what you can.  One of the fantastic things about working from home and owning an online business is that there are so many wonderful tools available to help make our lives easier.  There are autoresponders and electronic shopping carts.  Web tracking statistics and article submission software programs.  Heck, there are even task list programs that will email you your task list for the day!  Automating certain tasks will help take the burden off of your shoulders and free up your time to spend on more important tasks. 

5. Keep real hours.  One of the pitfalls of working from home is the tendency to work 12 hours a day.  I know you’re thinking no way, I wouldn’t do that, but it happens and your friends, family, and even your pets suffer the consequences.  You do too.  All work and no play makes ….well you know the rest.  Even if you LOVE your job, it is important to step away from it.  Keep real hours. 9-5, 8-4, 10-6 it doesn’t matter. Do whatever works best for you and your business but when it comes time to clock out and eat dinner with your family – do it.  Work isn’t going anywhere but your family is.

6. Let it go.  This goes back to #5.  When the horn blows and it’s time to turn off the computer and go to your child’s choir concert, be there with them in the moment.  If your mind is at home thinking about the task you didn’t quite finish or the project you’re starting tomorrow, you’re not truly with your child. 

7. Track your hours.  Tracking the hours you work and the time it takes to accomplish certain tasks can be an eye opening experience.  You may find that the copywriting you think is only taking you an hour a day is actually taking you two.  You may also find that your administrative tasks are taking significantly less time than you thought they were or that answering emails consumes half of your day.  Tracking your time is essential if you want to later determine the value of it.

8. Plan your admin time.  Use the time of day that you are most productive for the tasks that are important to your business.  You can easily handle your administrative tasks during the time of the day when you’re unable to focus as well or are likely to have more interruptions. 

9. Outsource what you can.  Since there are only 24 hours in a day and 5 days in a working week, it may not be possible to get everything done.  If you can fit it into your budget to outsource some of the more time consuming, and less appealing tasks, it may be worth your while to do so.  Particularly if your time would be better spent on tasks that generate revenue.

10. Identify your time stealers.  Everyone has time stealers.  Some get easily distracted by email.  Others find themselves spending too much time networking online or researching.  You likely know what your time stealers are.  If you don’t track what you do during the workday and how much time you spend doing it.  The results will be interesting. Once you know where you’re losing time, you can take measures to eliminate it.  For example, if email is stealing your time, schedule checking your email into your task list in the morning, at lunch and near the end of the day.  That way you’re not responding to every new email in your inbox.  

Working from home is a joy but it takes a bit of structure and discipline if you want to be productive.  Using these ten tips as guidelines, you’ll be well on your way to a productive, and profitable future.
 
>>If you have more ideas please post your comments.