Very few hiring managers will brag about how perfect their interview process is. In fact many we talk to seem to think that you need a lot of luck to have everyone getting what they want out of a hiring process. Part of the problem might be the lack of consistency in the process, and that’s what the structured interview can help eliminate.
It’s not about the questions, it’s about the answers
The questions in a structured interview can seem pretty boring. They have to be the same for every candidate so you can create a baseline, this way you’re not just going off of how you feel about one candidate but creating an even comparison so you can really tell which candidate is best suited to forward your company’s strategy.
Being prepared
The tough part of a structured interview is designing the questions and testing them. Then you have to make sure everyone sticks to the script. It’s a good deal of work, but it really beats hiring someone who went to the same college as you or lives in a town near you, and as silly as it sounds, that’s often what lands people jobs when interviewers don’t have the right tools to make sound, unbiased judgments.
Get Everyone Involved
It’s probably not typical to be interviewed by someone who will eventually report to you, but it’s something companies like Google are doing. It’s a smart thing to do if you care about fit, and of course you do. Fit’s everything. Because a structured interview is more about the answers to questions, you can play around with who the interviewer is.
The Hiring Strategy Your Managers Will Love
Give your managers a platform in which they can input the attributes they are looking for and they’ll be issued a list of questions that have been tested to be effective in identifying those attributes. Viola! The managers don’t need to use the exact wording provided but will have guidance to create their own interviews that have a basis in data. Setting up this sort of system gives you a better chance of hiring the right people the first time and is worth the investment.
Structuring your interviews lets you make better decisions and compare your candidates with greater confidence and precision. It’s a great way to protect and preserve the culture of your office, and if it’s expanding you must be doing something right. Take care of it with a structured interview process.
About NextGen
NextGen is the brainchild of longtime telecom professionals with nearly 50 years of experience and millions of dollars in Telecom Recruiting Services. We focus on establishing long term relationships with our clients and candidates so we can recruit the best and the brightest in the telecom industry. This ‘quality over quantity’ approach is at the heart of everything we do and has resulted in successful job placements at Fortune 1000 firms worldwide.
