4 Tips to Hire the Right People

How can anyone 100% predict a candidate’s behavior on the job in only the standard 45-minute interview?

The answer is that you can’t.

But interviewing skills training experts have some advice that will help you conduct more effective interviews and get closer to the ideal of hiring the right people every time.
  1. Use peers, too, as interviewers. It is important not only to hire people who you as interviewing manager feel are a fit for the culture, it is important that the candidates’ potential co-workers see them as fitting on their team.
  2. Set them at ease. The more comfortable interviewees feel, the more they will reveal about themselves.
  3. Ask questions that show how a candidate might think and act on the job. Begin with the phrase, “Tell me about a time when…”
  4. Test for the skills you need. If you are hiring for a customer service position for example, set up a typical customer service situation and observe how they would handle it. If they claim to have lots of experience, you will soon discover how true or false their claim.

When Planning a Career Change…

When planning a career change, be sure you craft a story that makes sense. You will be asked many times to answer why you are making the change…by friends and family as well as by colleagues and, more critically, interviewers as you apply for a new job. Your family may be anxious about your shift because it involves risk. Your colleagues may be dubious that it will be a fit for you. And interviewers need convincing that this move is in their best interests as well as yours.

Interviewing skills training experts recommend that you put together a rationale for changing careers that includes the following three factors:
  1. Logic. For others to better understand your move there should be a natural progression from one career to the other…not a complete break.
  2. Building of skills. Describe how your previous career has prepared you for the new one by showing how the skills of one help you toward success in the other.
  3. Value. End your story with how you believe that you will bring value to others with this change…especially to the company you hope will hire you.