Common mistakes of interviewing
Everyone has their own style of interviewing; this is unavoidable and I wouldn’t try to change it if I wanted to. So instead of telling you want to do, Iet’s talk about errors or less-than-ideal approaches, so you can tailor your style accordingly.
Formal and unnatural
In its essence, an interview is a basic human action of meeting someone for the first time and getting to know them. We’ve been doing this all of our lives, and have developed our own skills, styles, and personal touches. To attempt to force all of that into a strict and structured format would result in very unnatural behaviour, which the candidate would find unnerving.
Interviewing is not dissimilar giving a speech- the more the speaker sounds like they are naturally talking, the more engaging it is for the audience; the more structured, rehearsed and pre-written, the sooner the audience loses interest. So if you need formal structure and questions in your interview, use these, but the more natural the better.
There is a caveat to this- you might want to keep it formal, to keep the candidate more uncertain, less confident that they will be successful. There are good reasons why you might want to do this. But don’t do it by accident, only by intent.
It's not just about you
Interviewers have the power in the situation- they set the time, they ask the questions, they are choosing from amongst many. But it’s not just about you. Applicants are also appraising and assessing you. Personally I have withdrawn my application based on a poor interview, and I’ve had candidates do this to me. This is always important to remember, but it is particularly important to remember if; a) the applicant is a passive candidate, b) you remuneration isn’t attractive, c) they have options, d) it’s a tight market.
Not giving them enough information
The primary purpose of the interview is for them to explain themselves to you- who they are and what they have to offer. But it’s also important to explain the organisation to them. Personally I break this down into three parts- the company in general, the division or operation they will be working within, and then the job.
In addition to the above (that they are interviewing you), it’s good interview practice for a candidate to structure their answers to the job they are applying for. Whether you want them to or not, they are trying to persuade you that they are right for job, they are spinning the information to look good for this role. The temptation is stop them doing this, to withhold information so they answer more truthfully. There is some merit to this, but on the balance, I don’t personally don’t agree. If they don’t know because you don’t tell them, they will still guess. This creates a messy situation where the candidate is guessing what the right answer looks like, and answering accordingly. This creates an environment where a candidate can look worse than they are, because they guessed wrong.
Talking too much
I feel I shouldn’t have to say this because it’s so simple, but I’ve seen it happen far too often. Like a drunk uncle at a wedding, sometimes people don’t know how to wrap it up. Sometimes interviewers keep talking, and talking, to the point where the candidate either has to interrupt them or wait patiently, the latter being the prudent strategy.
But talking too much has one of two effects; it either ruins the back-and-forward interchange that makes for a good conversation, such that when the candidate does get to talk, they are ‘cold’, i.e. need to warm up again into the conversation.
Alternatively (and I’ve seen this happen many times) the interviewer subconsciously decides they don’t like the candidate because they are too quiet. The interviewer pulls the person in for an interview, talks at them, decides they don’t like them before allowing the person to get a word in edgewise. It happens, and it’s very weird when it does.
How important is talking under pressure?
I talk about this in our deep dive into interviewing and selection tools in general, but we need to think again about test validity. A test’s validity is the extent to which the test actually measures what it proports to measure. You can have your palm read, and it proports to measure your personality/future/fate/whatever, but does it really?
Interviews are our most common tool, and too often our only evaluative tool, but we run the risk of measure their capacity to interview, not their capacity to do the job. In most jobs, social interaction is not a key component of job, so unless they are in people-focused job, we are best served to put them at ease in the interview to get the best out of them, rather than put them through a tough social test.
