How To Conduct An Interview To Choose The Best Job Candidate In 2024

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Employees are the assets of an organization. The success of any organization depends on how skillful, loyal and hard-working its employees are. It is common for organizations to screen a candidate on the basis of his or her resume and then conduct an engaging and judgmental interview session in order to finalize the hiring process. However, conducting interviews is a painstaking process and takes a lot of time, energy, and effort. Yet the end results might not be as per the expectation of the organization and they may fail to find a suitable candidate even after a monumental effort.

How To Conduct An Interview To Choose The Best Job Candidate

10 Tips To Hire The Best Candidate

1) Examine The Body Language

The fist and foremost thing to be studied or evaluated in an interview session is the body language of a candidate. A special focus and examination of their:

  • Gestures
  • Hands and Legs (whether or not they are trembling)
  • Eye contact (regular or not)

will enable an interviewer seek answers for several of his or her questions, such as:

  • Whether they are prepared for an interview session ?
  • Are they interested in the position offered?
  • Are they able to handle the interview stress?
  • Can they control their anxiety and concentrate the interview session itself?

The answers to such questions can be interpreted only by observing the body language of a candidate. The results must be noted for future considerations. You will observe that around 70% to 80% of the candidates are nervous and anxious. It is the task of an interviewer to select the candidates who are able to control their emotions and maintain focus. As such candidates can perform their duties in a more calibrated and structured way.

2) Judge Their Grip On The Core

For all the positions ranging from Electrician to Engineer to Finance Manager, it should be the primary duty of an interviewer to prepare a few questions that examine and judges the grip of the candidate on his or her core subjects, that would be useful in executing the practical tasks, which an organization is willing to offer to its employees. A candidate weak in his core profile, must not be considered for future selection, no matter how good his interpersonal or communication skills are.

3) Evaluate The Personality

If a candidate possesses a superior grip and knowledge of its core subjects, an analysis of the personality should be made. This can simply begin with asking a common interview question, such as, What are your strengths? A well-prepared candidate gives unique responses to the personality evaluating questions after conducting a thorough self-analysis and scrutiny. There could be several questions that evaluate the personality of a candidate, such as:

4) A Real Time Problem

Post personality check, it is advisable that a candidate is given with a real life problem, such as:

  • How will you handle a situation in which you are working with incomplete information?
  • How will you handle a situation in which your expenditure limits exceeded the budget allocated?
  • How do you manage an insincere and lethargic sub-ordinate?
  • How will you improve when you are working in an underperforming team?

Such questions require a real-time response and test the critical thinking abilities of a candidate. A candidate performing well in this set of questions can be considered as smart, quick-witted, intelligent, and most importantly he or she has the ability to adapt and respond.

5) Check Out Reasons For Conflict With Previous Employer

It is common for employees to migrate and change their organizations in search of a better salary, growth opportunities, or maybe infrastructure. The reasons are innumerable and are candidate-specific. However, there are certain situations in which an employer fires an employee due to his or her misbehavior, lethargy, or any other unethical practice. An interviewer must seek out the reasons, that why the employee left his or her previous organization and if the matter is suspicious it is advisable to have a conversation with the previous employer if the candidate is deserving of the vacancy.

6) Is The Candidate Obscure To Learning

There are several candidates who are opposed to learning new technologies, methods, ways to execute their tasks. With constant progress in the field of technology and persistent improvements in working methodologies, it is advisable that you choose a candidate who is adaptive and loves to learn new things in life with a positive mindset. You can evaluate the level of obscurantism of a candidate by asking the following questions:

  • What are your views on the constant technological advancement?
  • How comfortable are you in learning new methods of working?
  • How do you see a change in procedures?
  • Should an organization burden its employees by forcing them to learn new working methodologies?

7) Stress Handling Ability

It is common for organizations nowadays to operate in multiple shifts, with each shift offering a huge workload to its employees. Hence, a candidate’s viewpoints in relation to hectic and stressful conditions must be thoroughly evaluated and judged. A question similar to “Can you work under stress?” can be asked. A positive response from a candidate must be appreciated and a negative response must decrease his or her selection chances.

8) Salary Expectations

Asking the salary expectations of a candidate during the course of an interview session is a good practice. The candidates usually, prepare for this question and they normally conduct serious research in regards to salaries being offered to other professionals working in a similar role and in a similar industry. If a candidate responds with any random or arbitrary figure, then this simply means that he or she is either underprepared or too greedy to be employed.

9) Evaluate Their Seriousness

It is advised that at the end of an interview session, you ask a question similar to “Do you have any questions for us?”. Such a question is pivotal to ask, as it evaluates the seriousness of a candidate towards the role offered, the organization, and benefits related to the job. A candidate who tries to skip this question is simply not committed to joining the organization and treats it as just another organization to work for. Further, it has been observed that a candidate denying an answer to this question, is not involved or engaged in the interview session thoroughly or completely.

10) Self Analysis

After concluding an interview session, you are advised to take out a sheet of paper and write answers to the following questions in Yes or No format. This is a universal set of five questions that is suitable for almost all vacancies. The questions are:

  • Is the candidate impressive and intelligent?
  • Does the candidate possess a good grip on its core profile?
  • Is the candidate adaptive?
  • Is the candidate capable of working under stress by handling huge volumes of work on a daily basis?
  • Is he or she serious for the organization as well as the position offered?

This must be done for all the candidates attending an interview for the day. The candidate getting at least ‘3 Yes’ must be considered for selection on the basis of his education and work experience. The rest of the candidates must be outrightly rejected. This way you will be able to hire cream candidates for your organization who will have the capability to perform exceptionally and take the organization to the zenith.

References

  1. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ijsa.12325
  2. https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8709954
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