Interviewing Skills: Hiring the Best

Background Situation

In his book “Good to Great”, Jim Collins talks about getting the right people on the bus, and the wrong people off. Various organizations have asked for help in building the skills to populate their organization with winners. Because of an emphasis on employee engagement strategies, many companies have adopted the practice of team interviewing. However, most employees know how to “chat”, but they don’t know how to interview. The cost of a bad hire is frightening. Most interviews don’t produce winners any more effectively than the flip of a coin.

Learning Objectives and Content

The goal was to reduce the inconsistency of decisions about candidates and improve collective commitment to the process. We addressed the following areas:

• The six steps of the interviewing process
• Structuring the interview
• Content of the interview (relating questions to identified competencies)
• Making the applicant feel comfortable
• Creating a team interviewing plan
• Making the decision

Learning Process

Depending on the time the organization was willing to devote, sessions included group practice and role-playing. Additionally, individuals were hired to play the role of applicants and were interviewed by different groups so that assessment comparisons could be made.

Length

1/2 to 1 day