Hiring Interviews: Determine Your Best Interview Format

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Consider what hiring interview format will best serve your needs. One on one, with just you and the applicant. Two on one, with you and your boss or another person who'll be working with the new hire. And interview by committee.

One on one is the most common behavioral job interview format. It maintains privacy and confidentiality and is the format applicants feel most comfortable with. This helps you getting candid answers.

The problem is, you may not be as objective as you need to be, and having another interviewer's input on the evaluation helps serve as a check. With good teamwork, two on one tends to brings more objectivity and impartiality to the process.

More than one interviewer helps share responsibility for a decision that will effect other people's worklife. Another interviewer's questioning may touch on areas you would have missed.

However it's important if you share responsibility with others for interviewing, be sure to coordinate who will be probing what areas and asking which questions before the interview.

Group interviews are more stressful for the applicant. An interview by a group requires the applicant to be a public speaker, and surveys show public speaking is the number one fear of business people. Death is about seventh on the list - speaking to a group is number one. You need to take care not to turn a group interview into an inquisition.

I have a friend who sits on civil service hiring interview committees. She watches applicants enter the room and scan the panel of faces sitting across from them, anticipating a barrage of questions. When their eyes meet hers she smiles and says, "Don't forget to breath!" It's an icebreaker that works when applicants are feeling outnumbered.

Still another approach is to have the applicant be interviewed by several people, one after the other. This has the advantage of getting other's input on the hiring decision without the intimidation of the applicants facing a group. It's time consuming though, for the applicant.

Once you've decided on a format for your interview, and have prepared your behavioral interview questions based upon a careful analysis of the job's requirements you're ready to meet your first applicant.

This is one of a series of articles on best hiring techniques that next will show you how to get the job applicant to speak candidly to get past surface appearance for the information you really want.

About the Author:
Steve Penny author of Hiring The Best People has been asked to speak on Behavioral Job Interviews at the largest human resource conferences in the world. Video clips of this presentation and 7 Ways To Motivate People That Don't Cost A Penny may be viewed at http://hiringthebestpeople.com



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