Interviewing Training Can Help Managers Avoid Hiring Mistakes

The process of interviewing someone is fraught with a number of potential pitfalls. Interviewing training can be helpful for navigating these obstacles. First, acknowledging the fact that an interview is not really an accurate predictor of how the candidate will behave on the job. Yes, you read that correctly! How a candidate behaves in an interview is not an accurate predictor of their on the job behavior. People often get into character for a job interview.

Many managers and HR recruiters who are responsible for conducting interviewers indicate that they need interviewing training so that they can avoid these 5 common mistakes:

1. Not presenting an organized interview. If you have randomly collected information on candidates during the interviewing process, how do you go about comparing their answers? To be able to ferret out the best of the best, it is enormously helpful if you can compare responses to a specific set of standardized questions. Randomly jumping about from question to question with interviewee's will further complicates the selection interviewing process.

2. Placing too much importance on first impressions. Studies indicate that it only takes six to eight minutes for a typical interviewer to make a decision about a potential candidate for a position. Keep in mind that they have probably been schooled by articles just like this and are going to come to the interview with all the charm and composure that they can muster. Wait for the second 3. Spending too much time talking and not enough time listening. Talking about career opportunities, or providing company statistics, its mission, strategies, and the like, although informative for the interviewee, does nothing to help you determine if they are a good fit for your organization. Under no circumstances should the interviewer consume more than 50% of the interview time. Always remain cognizant that it is the interviewee that should be your focal point. Let them do the talking.

4. Not being familiar with the job requirements. Not understanding the true requirements of the job that you are interviewing candidates for is one of the most common mistakes that managers make. Caught up in a fast paced world, this necessity is often one of the most important pieces of the interviewing puzzle that gets overlooked. F ailure to ask specific job task questions leads to nothing more than a casual chat about philosophies and a list of intangibles, not an accounting of a candidates capacity to perform the job function.

5. Projecting the correct answer to the candidate. Many times the interviewer will provide just enough information within the questions that they are asking during the selection interviewing process to cue the candidate with what the expected response should be. Most interviewees will graciously provide the expected response knowing that to do anything other will probably damage their possibility of landing the position. Sound and simple advice is, don't telegraph the correct response to the candidate!

If your organization has not trained managers to make accurate pre-employment assessments, they probably are not doing as well as they could. Selection interviewing training can make a difference. Swan Consultants (http://www.swanconsultants.com/) has developed a Selection Interviewing Workshop that gives participants the skills they need to make more effective and valid hiring decisions.

The success or failure of any organization is determined by its people. To increase profits, productivity and morale, there is no better way than to hire the right person -- the first time around.interview, if there is one, before drawing any conclusions.