Hiring people is a must for any growing business, but it’s not as simple as picking random candidates and setting them to work – you have to write a job ad, read through resumes, and eventually, you’ll have to interview your shortlisted candidates. In other words, there’s a lot to do. While some of those tasks can be done in your own time, when it comes to conducting interviews, you’ll need to have a plan in place – you’ll want to ensure no one wastes their time and that you ask the right questions so you have a good idea of who to hire. With that in mind, here are some tips for conducting a good interview. 

Use Your HR Department 

One of the best tips for conducting a good interview is to let the experts do it, which is why, if you have an HR department, you should give them the task of interviewing shortlisted candidates (and in fact short-listing them in the first place). You’ll have the final say over who’s hired, but you can let HR do the in-depth work and then give you a summary of candidates to choose from. If you’re really intent on growing your business, reaching out to HR recruitment experts like Waddington Brown should be your first step. 

Prepare Thoroughly

Assuming you don’t have an HR department or that you’d prefer to conduct the interviews yourself, the first thing you’ll need to do is prepare thoroughly. Before the interview, familiarize yourself with the candidate’s application and resume so you can have a good idea of the type of person they are and what they can bring to your business ahead of time. Take note of any particular qualifications and experience they might have, and don’t be afraid to look for any red flags that you might need to ask about. 

Once you’ve looked through everything, you can come up with a list of questions that go more deeply into all those areas to get more information so you can determine whether they’ll be a good fit for your business. Don’t forget that it’s not just about skills and experience; they’ll need to fit in with your company culture too, and in some cases, that’s the most important element, so don’t forget to look for it. 

Listen Actively 

It’s all very well asking lots of questions that you’ve taken plenty of time to come up with, but if you don’t actually listen to the answers, you may as well ask nothing at all. That’s why you need to put active listening into practice – in other words, you need to pay close attention to the answers the candidates are giving, as well as how they give them and how they express themselves. Bear in mind that people will usually be quite nervous during an interview, so try to look beyond the nerves and see what they’re really like. 

You’ll want to look at their body language, their tone of voice, and perhaps how enthusiastic they are about the job or your company, and then you’ll be able to tell whether they’ll work hard for you or whether they’re not all that interested in the job – that can make a big difference to the quality of their work once you hire them.