Interview Mastery: Proven Methods for Effective Candidate Evaluation

Lori Cole (00:02):

Thank you so much for joining us today. I’m Lori Cole. I am a content creator and career advisor here at iHire, and we want to welcome you to today’s webinar interview Mastery Proven Methods for Effective Candidate Evaluation. Before we get started, I’d like to point out some other features of the webinar platform that will really put you in the driver’s seat. There are widgets on your screen and you can move those around, resize them, and explore content related to today’s presentation. And just a heads up, there is a resource widget where you can look for all of the things that we talk about today in the presentation from our resource center, and there’s also an ask a question widget and that will allow you to ask a question.

Vickie Krolak (00:59):

I think they lost Lori. Molly. What Lori was saying is you can ask a question widget and submit your questions at any time during the presentation. Only our producers will be able to see those questions and we’ll try to answer as many of those as we can after the webinar. And also keep your eye out on your inbox tomorrow for a recording of this live webinar today. Also, a quick reminder that you’ll receive one credit today for SHRM and HRCI recertification,

Molly Floyd (01:35):

So I can introduce us. Vickie, we are the presenters today. Vickie Krolak here. She is a senior HR business partner here at iHire, has over two decades of experience in HR accounting, office administration, mostly in software as a service company like iHire here. She’s highly knowledgeable, results driven, professional, passionate about employee and engagement, recruitment, training and development. In addition to being a member of a national SH RM association, she’s also the mid Florida SHRM chapters President-elect. So congratulations on that, Vickie.

Vickie Krolak (02:24):

Thank you Molly. Molly here, I’ll introduce her. She oversees our customer success team. She focuses on the unique challenges of iHire’s clients and develop solutions to ensure their experience with their industry focused recruiting tools are personalized, seamless, and rewarding. So welcome Molly.

Molly Floyd (02:44):

Thank you, Vickie. Welcome as well. And hopefully Lori can join us back here as soon as possible.

Vickie Krolak (02:52):

All right, so let’s kick off today with a poll. Which aspects of candidate interviewing do you find most challenging? Is it crafting effective interview questions per position? Is it maintaining control of the interview, selling the role or company culture during the interview or evaluating candidates after the interview? What do you think, Molly? What do you think is most challenging?

Molly Floyd (03:20):

I would say just from personal experience, maintaining control of the interview can be a challenge. Definitely. What about you Vickie?

Vickie Krolak (03:31):

Yeah, I would say from my clients I hear sometimes evaluating candidates and crafting those questions. And we’re going to take a deep dive into that today. Let’s see what our poll results are. Alright, maintaining. Yeah, so crafting and evaluating. Yeah, these are two things we’re going to take a look at today. All right, so let’s talk about why interviewing is so important. Think about why you interview candidates in the first place. The most critical thing about hiring people, we want to make sure that when we do hire that they’re competent, motivated, and productive employees that are really going to help your organization become successful or continue to be successful. Interviewing helps you validate information on their resume and application. It helps you glean from more information that may not be on that resume. It gives you a chance to meet the potential employee and get to know their background and how they’re going to behave on the job.

(04:40):

Also, you’re evaluating for culture fit and culture add. It provides you a quick look at how employees may behave in stressful situations. It’s going to substantiate the reason for hiring and it’s going to help you make that best choice to avoid costly turnover. And so let’s look at that real quick. The fact, if you make the wrong hire, it can be extremely expensive to your organization. It can cost anywhere from 30% to 200% of that person’s annual salary. And this depends on a couple factors like training, the time the position goes unfilled and maybe that loss of productivity because you haven’t hired for that position or backfilled someone who left the organization. It is said that according to SHRM, the average cost per hire is around $4,000 and some change. And the top that hiring someone making a bad hire can negatively impact your employee morale, your company’s productivity and overall impact your customer satisfaction. So Molly, tell us a little bit about evaluating for job fit.

Molly Floyd (05:51):

Yes. So an effective interview will help you determine two things. One, the candidate’s job fit and also how they fit into the culture and how they can add to the company culture. So first we’ll talk about the job fit. There are three components here to be aware of. That’s knowledge, skills, and competencies. So knowledge is the information necessary to do the job that the candidate is interviewing for. These tend to be job related. For example, knowledge to be an accountant, software developer, recruiter, et cetera. This is what people need to know to do the job. Knowledge is generally attained through education and or experience. Skills are needed to perform the job and include technical skills. So how to code, how to set up an email marketing campaign, how to screen candidates if they’re a recruiter. It could also include management skills to manage resources and or people. So people management, project management, time management, planning processes, budget management, et cetera, competencies. This is the attitudes and behaviors, the emphasize how people do their jobs, competencies influence how well people apply their knowledge and management skills. It also reflects the culture and value that we expect staff to demonstrate in their roles. Knowledge and skills are what’s needed to do the job. And then competencies are how we do the job. So Vickie, tell us a little bit then about evaluating for that other piece of the puzzle, how they fit or add into our culture.

Vickie Krolak (07:43):

Yeah, good question, Molly. So culture fit is a concept that can be hard to define, but we all know when it is missing. Imagine a leader who believes that an open office plan promotes creativity and collaboration, but some employees can be overwhelmingly introverted and this may not be a good environment for them to thrive in. Or think about the ambitious employee working for a company that offers no training, perhaps no tuition reimbursement or no room for advancement. What do you think is going to happen in that situation? It’s going to be a cultural mismatch. These employees are not going to be very happy or thrive in the environment and they’re most likely going to leave your organization at a core. Culture fit means that the employee’s beliefs and behaviors are in line with the employer’s core values. And this is something we really focus on at I hire Do the new hires coming in have the same core values that we value?

(08:43):

Research has shown that people who fit well in companies express a greater job satisfaction, perform better, and are more likely to remain with the company for a longer period. You can teach someone or train someone how to do a job, but you can’t teach them the love the way you operate. An employee who is not aligned with your culture is not going to be committed to living out those values and can wreak havoc pretty quickly and even if they bring a great deal of skill to their role. Now we want to be careful not to confuse personal similarities with culture fit. It’s important that we focus on hiring a workforce that is the same type of person and this can result in a lack of diversity. It’ll also manifest poor creativity and undermine the company’s competitiveness. Hiring based on a shared background or experience can also lead to discrimination.

(09:41):

It can be a just like me bias, which we’re going to touch on later in here in the presentation. This is where culture ad comes into play. Culture ad is about expanding what you have and increase your diversity, increase your innovation and creativity, and it’s a different philosophy that can encourage growth in your organization versus complacency. You want to look for candidates that’ll bring new fresh ideas to your organization. They can share their experiences and it’s going to help your team grow maybe in an area that they’re currently lacking in. Employees with novel perspectives provide a unique and ideas and drive innovation. They also challenge the status quo and can inspire your team members to develop products and services maybe your company doesn’t currently offer. So we’re going to dive in here a little bit to interviewing now. So Molly, would you tell us a little bit about traditional or resume based interviews?

Molly Floyd (10:40):

Sure. And welcome back Lori. I see you here with us now. Yes.

Lori Cole (10:44):

Sorry about that.

Vickie Krolak (10:49):

Technology is great until it’s not right.

Lori Cole (10:51):

Oh my goodness. That’s my next fix.

Molly Floyd (10:55):

Well, we’re glad you’re back. Thank you. I can share a little bit about the traditional or resume based interviews. There are several great ways to interview candidates to determine job fit and culture add. And this is a commonly used and quite basic approach. It includes questions like, tell me about yourself, tell me about your current position. What did you like most or least about your last position, greatest strengths, career goals, what are you most proud of, et cetera. These are really good questions to get the interview started, especially if the candidate might be a little nervous. These are easier questions than the alternative that Vickie’s going to talk about, but they’re a good way just to kind of get the conversations going. That’s a good way to break the ice too.

Lori Cole (11:51):

Yeah, I really like the about just easing the people into the conversation because everybody is nervous during an interview whether they’re showing it or not. So anything that you can do to make that person feel more comfortable, it will just be a better interview for everyone all around Own. Vickie behavioral interviewing seems a little bit trickier to me because we’re processing a lot of information from the candidate. So can you tell us a little bit more about this process?

Vickie Krolak (12:28):

Absolutely. So behavioral interviewing is going to be a structured interview that’s going to build on the premise that past behaviors and performance are the best predictor of future behaviors and performance. Behavioral interviews require the to give you very specific examples of what they have done in the past versus those hypothetical answers of what they would do. Behavioral interviewing aligns with opportunity to get greater detail about the candidate on what they’ve done versus a superficial or rehearsed answer. Since candidates are required to give specific examples, it allows you the ability to ask follow-up questions and it can be difficult for them to bluff or fake the way through the behavior interview. Research has shown that behavior interviews promote equal opportunity because they can help you manage your own personal biases and enable you to give more objective hiring decision. Research has shown that behavior interviews correlate well with job success and performance.

(13:29):

So when preparing for behavioral interviews, you really want to take a deep look at that job description. This is what you’re going to need to create that job ad when you’re hiring, even if you’re hiring an incumbent, you want to take a time to evaluate that job description and look to see the person that left the organization has that role evolved or changed. So once you have that in hand, you can identify the top skills and competencies that person’s going to need to be successful in that job. These are typically found in that job description qualification section. So you’re not starting from scratch creating these questions. When you’re crafting these questions, you want to start with statements like, tell me about a time when, give me an example of, can you describe when you take a look here at some traditional and behavioral questions here.

(14:19):

So pretty basic kind of open-ended, what are your goals for the next five years? I think I asked that question would be a little nerve wracking. Get a little more specific here. Tell me about one of your personal goals and something you’ve done specifically to help you achieve that goal in the last year. How do you make decisions, again, pretty open-ended? Describe a situation where you had to research and review information for the purposes of making a decision or recommendation. Are you a team player? Better question would be describe a situation which you had a peer that wasn’t cooperating. I actually like to add that I add in there. Tell me about a colleague you may have had a challenge relationship or difficult situation and how they navigated that and learned to work with that person. I think that tells you a lot about how they resolve conflict. It’s one of my personal favorites and personally I also like using the star method in this method. It allows the candidate to give you the situation, the task at hand, the action they took, and ultimately the results or the outcome. And that really gives you that full circle approach or square how we want to look at it of what all transpired and how they got to the end.

Lori Cole (15:47):

And Vickie looks, we have another Go ahead. Sorry. Wouldn’t this be a great thing to ask AI to do? If you could put your job description in and say, give me a list of behavioral questions for this job description.

Vickie Krolak (16:01):

And even before that you could say, tell me the key competencies or skills and knowledge to do the job. I actually really like writing job descriptions in ai. I mean obviously we know it’s not perfect, but it will give you some meat and potatoes to work with, especially if you don’t have one in place and you’re hiring for a new role. I,

Molly Floyd (16:22):

Lori I have to add to that. I recently did just what you described, but with our core values and said, give me some ideas on behavioral questions around our core values. So that helped.

Lori Cole (16:35):

Oh, that’s a great idea.

Vickie Krolak (16:37):

Yeah. So let’s take a quick poll here. Let’s see. Do you use panel interviews for your hiring process? I’m curious to see this is something that I hire does and think we do pretty well. What would you say Molly or Lori?

Lori Cole (16:54):

Big fan. I love panel interviews.

Molly Floyd (16:56):

Yeah, I appreciate being on a panel and then also having a panel if we’re hiring within the CS department.

Vickie Krolak (17:04):

Yeah, it really gives you a chance to see all different individuals in different departments. And since collaborative is one of our core values, it really gives the candidate a preview of what our team looks like and they get to just get to see how the county is going to fit into our organization and if they have the same core value. So let’s see. Looks like yes, good amount of people do use panel interviews. So Molly, for those that aren’t, let’s give us some information about what a panel interview looks like and how you do it.

Molly Floyd (17:39):

Sure. So like Vickie said, we are big proponents here at I hire, we view jobs as being collaborative, so the interview should also be collaborative. We know that groups make better decisions than individuals and a panel interview can be used when a candidate needs to interview with a team. So this saves time and ensures that everyone hears the same information but can interpret it differently and shared different thoughts around the candidate. So this can be used if the position will be a shared resource or will work between many departments. Limiting the panel to three or five interviewers is ideal. Any more than that one can become overwhelming for the candidate. And then it also takes a lot of time for that group of people to commit to. Some advantages are that it saves the candidates time. Again, everyone is hearing the same information. It’s easier to get feedback for all participants at once and it’s a great way for less experienced staff to get involved in interviewing and learn from others and kind of gain a more developmental perspective.

(18:58):

And like Vickie said as well, it’s a good opportunity for the candidate to see how the team interacts with each other. Some disadvantages might be that it is overwhelming for the candidate, it is a time investment for those involved and if it’s not structured, it can get away from you and there could be a panel member that may not really have a vested interest. So you want to make sure you are inviting the right people to be on the panel for that particular position. So with that in mind, you want to make sure that the people on the panel understand the position they’re invested in hiring the right person and that they have basic interviewing skills to apply.

Lori Cole (19:47):

That’s a great point about bringing someone into a panel that maybe hasn’t done a lot of interviews before so that they can watch that process. That’s a great suggestion and I love our panel interviews mostly because at the end of the interview, usually the candidate will ask us why we like working at ihi and then you just get a chance to see all of your coworkers light up and tell the story about why the parts of the job that they love. And I think that’s also a great thing for those candidates to see.

Vickie Krolak (20:25):

I agree. Lori,

Lori Cole (20:29):

Vickie, how do we make sure that our behavioral interview techniques are

Vickie Krolak (20:36):

Successful? Yeah, good question Lori. So some of the things you want to look at when the candidates are answering your questions is the first thing is the I versus we statement. It’s important that the candidate tell you what action they personally took in the situation described. Sometimes candidates tend to respond by saying we did such and such. If the candidate starts to speak in those terms, politely steer them the conversation back to the direction and state something like we need to focus on what you personally did, not what your team or your work group did. We want to look at the action that you personally took. Also specific or general vague answers. Sometimes the candidate will begin their answers by saying, I always or I usually, and then offer the situation if it appears a candidate’s going to continue offering generalities, you want to politely specifically let them know that you need to hear about a specific situation, incident, or circumstances.

(21:39):

If the candidate goes off on a vague description, bring them back to the circumstance or action that they took. You can ask the candidate to provide more details and say something like, can you tell me more about that? Or can you provide additional details? Also, different versus repeated circumstances. And I’ve seen this quite often where candidates would use the same situation or scenario for every answer when you ask ‘em, sometimes candidates will use the basic, like I said, situation for all their answers. And this doesn’t allow you to really get a big picture of what they’re trying to, what their skills and knowledge and abilities look like and their behaviors that they demonstrated. You want to ask them politely, I know we talked about that situation already, circumstance, do you have another situation you can describe for us? And then effectively make sure that you’re asking those follow-up questions.

(22:37):

One of the most frequent errors we find in conducting behavioral interviews is that the interview doesn’t ask the right follow-up questions or get enough follow-up questions in. It’s important that you appropriately ask questions that will require more detail. So can you tell me more about that? You want to be able to evaluate the candidate’s proficiencies and competencies, make sure they’re all being explored. So let’s look at a couple examples here. What was the biggest obstacles you encountered with the project? So to give you an example of the project and how did you overcome it? What alternative approaches did you consider and why did you choose the one that you did? What did you learn from that experience and how have you applied it since then? So if it’s something big that they’ve implemented, are they continuing to use that method? And then how do you ensure effective communications throughout the project? And then what strategies did you take or what strategies did you use to stay motivated and to keep others motivated? So that kind of gives you that team approach.

Lori Cole (23:47):

All great advice. Someone professionally trained in HR is probably not aware of this or is probably aware of this, but there’s a lot of us that are not professionally trained in hr, but we still interview people. So what should we know about the legal versus the illegal questions?

Vickie Krolak (24:09):

Yeah, this is a good question. Lori and I was reviewing this earlier and thinking there’s so many state laws that have passed recently, especially around discrimination and disability. So even the ones we’re going to go over here today, and you can see ‘em on your screen, you really should familiarize yourself with your state laws when it comes to discrimination. I’ve seen anywhere from religious dress to hairstyles now being covered and they do really do vary by state. So specifically you want to focus on questions that are job related and job performance. Does the candidate have the core skills you’re looking for to do that job? Can the candidate thrive in your culture and does the job and culture meet the candidate’s needs? So is it a good match for both parties? Rule of thumb is if you’re not sure, don’t ask it. And as you can see on your screen there, these are some basics.

(25:09):

Again, state specific laws have expanded on these. So anything around age, marital status, sexual orientation, like I said, gender now is coming up, children, children’s ages, workers’ compensation, claims arrest, place of birth, residency, citizenship, languages, spoken childcare arrangement, disabilities, political views or organization affiliations. I will say with professional organizations like I’m a member of SHRM, that’s okay, I’m in an HR role, but if it’s something outside of work related or job not job related, I would stay away from that type of car. They own their credit, their financial status, maiden name. And then I also want to touch on disabilities. This is a key one. You have to ask the candidate, are you able to perform the essential functions of the job with or without accommodations? Once you’ve made that job offer, if they’ve identified that they may need accommodation, you can address it then, and most accommodations are less than $500 and we’re seeing more of these disabilities coming up in the workforce. So I do err on the side of caution with that in the questions that you ask.

Lori Cole (26:34):

I think that it just highlights the importance of training your staff, those that are not trained HR, but who are still in an interviewing position to help them understand these questions that they can ask and they can’t ask because once you start asking those questions, it’s a slippery slope and you get the candidate to maybe say too much and they leave the interview feeling like, well, I’m not going to get the job because I said that.

Vickie Krolak (27:08):

Yeah, Lori, that’s a good advice. Candidates tend to overshare sometimes. And I will share this example with you. I did have a gentleman one time that mentioned during an interview that he had six kids. Now I wasn’t alone in this interview. I did have the hiring manager with me and he came back later and said, oh, I didn’t get the job because I disclosed that I had children and maybe a challenge for me to get to work. That wasn’t the reason we didn’t move forward with his candidacy. He didn’t have the skill or knowledge they needed to do the job. Sometimes resumes, like I said, you can see some things on there, but when you really bring ‘em in a deep dive, it may not be a match. So if you have a candidate that discloses something like their children or they’re married or they’re pregnant, you need to redirect them back to the questions at hand that are job specific and job related.

Lori Cole (28:07):

Yeah, I think that the advice at the bottom of the slide is perfect. If you’re not sure, don’t ask.

Vickie Krolak (28:14):

Yes,

Lori Cole (28:15):

Best thing you can tell people. So what are some of the things that we can do to keep the candidates on track during the interview and keep control of that interview, Molly?

Molly Floyd (28:29):

Yes. So you want to make sure that maintaining control of the interview is happening to ensure that it’s effective for everyone’s time. As the interviewer only talking about 20% of the time is a good rule of thumb. The interview is your chance to get to know the candidate better and allow them to talk the majority of the time will help you achieve that. So be an effective listener. This means that you’re not just physically there but you’re truly present and hearing what the candidate is saying that will help you with follow-up questions and digging deeper into details, making sure your phone is away and turning off notifications to just ensure that you’re present with that candidate. And it’s okay to accept silence. Many people are uncomfortable with silence and might rush to fill in that time, but by allowing it, it will encourage the candidate to speak.

(29:34):

Definitely be aware of your body language, the roll of the eyes or looking around doodling on paper that all shows signs of disinterest and may color the nature of the candidate’s responses they can pick up on that. Something I like to do in an interview, especially in a virtual setting, if I’m looking down, I let the candidate know I’m taking notes while we’re talking so that they don’t think I am disengaged, helping keep the candidate on track. So sometimes candidates can go off in directions that become irrelevant to the question, so politely interrupting them and bringing them back on track is appropriate to do so. Saying things like, that’s an interesting point. Let’s circle back to the project you mentioned earlier, or I appreciate that insight. Could we return to discussing your experience with X, Y, or Z? Thanking them for sharing whatever it is that they’re sharing.

(30:39):

And then to clarify, can you tell me more about how you handled this specific situation? So just validating what they’re saying, but then politely redirecting When conducting the interview, you want to make sure you get balanced responses. So if the candidate is overly positive, ask them to recount a situation that maybe didn’t go as planned or smoothly and vice versa. So throughout the entire interview, always be sure you’re maintaining your professionalism and composure. You are representing the company that you work for and that candidate is interviewing you too. So it’s important to keep that in mind.

Lori Cole (31:26):

Yeah, that’s a great point because the candidates, if they’ve done a good job of research, we’ll have some questions for you and you have to be prepared to answer those questions at the end or during while the interview is going on. So Molly, people tend to think that the candidate is the only one in the hot seat, but employers do have a responsibility to sell the job and their culture. What kind of things can they do to make sure that they’ve got the best chance of attracting the right candidate?

Molly Floyd (32:04):

Yeah, that’s a good question. It is important to know and be very aware of that coming into the interview, that your purpose is not just to interview the candidate but to sell the position. And when you mentioned earlier that everyone in the interview is nervous, it’s true that as an interviewer it would be normal to feel that pressure and anxiety a little bit and healthy I think. So you are there to sell the role and sell the open position so that hopefully the candidate accepts that offer. Being specific about what you’re looking for and what you’re looking for that candidate to accomplish in the position is a way to be very clear and share expectations. Being specific, how the role will be challenging and rewarding and how you and the company will enable that candidate to grow professionally is important. Speaking to the candidate’s heart, so through expressing how they’ll have autonomy, mastery, and purpose are key drivers of employee engagement. So talking about those things are helpful. Talk about what makes your company and workplace culture unique in panel interviews. This can be especially powerful if multiple team members share what they love about working for the organization. Like Lori said, be prepared for that question and just making sure that every interaction with the candidate counts from before the interview to throughout the interview and after the interview as well.

Lori Cole (33:56):

Vickie, no matter how much we try, sometimes our unconscious biases can creep in. So what do we need to be aware of as an interviewer?

Vickie Krolak (34:08):

Yeah, good question, Lori. Our brain sabotage us during interviews. We all have these unconscious biases that we need to be mindful of, and these come from our life experiences, our upbringing. So the first one I want to touch on is leniency. And this comes into play when we happen to be a little too easy on the candidate and we might overlook some items, we might feel sorry for them because they’re struggling to answer the questions. So you tend to lighten up. Also, maybe you’re desperate to fill a position, so you’re just going to be lenient because you’re ready to just take that person that comes through the door, halo and horns. This is allowing one comment to affect the entire interview and it could be a good comment or a bad comment that just turns you either like this candidate’s awesome or this candidate’s horrible.

(35:02):

Then there’s this similarity bias, and this is probably the most common one I see out there. They remind me of me, so they must be great. You’re not hiring to replace yourself. You want to look for that culture add and culture fit and job competencies. And then there’s contrast. And this happens when you compare a candidate against each other versus the established job that’s open. It’s nice to have multiple candidates to interview, but you want to make sure that when you’re assessing them, you’re really taking a deep dive into that job, their knowledge, skills and ability and competencies and not one candidate against the other. If you don’t have a evaluation process or maybe a templated form that you’re using, I highly recommend developing something and this is something our HR services can help you with. If you’re interested being in that panel interview, and I’ve been in several in my career, this is something that I’ve used and we go around and say, how did the person rank against a job?

(36:06):

And we would number rate them from one to five. And this really does help, especially in those tough choices when you have maybe two really awesome candidates and you’re really struggling to decide which one to move forward with. And lastly, the first impression, this is letting your first impression influence the entire interview. And this really can blind you to the candidate themselves. Maybe they’re awesome, maybe they’re not prepared. And I would say in addition to the interview training that all hiring managers or even those that are interviewing on behalf of the organization, it’s really important that they get this level of skill, but also the unconscious bias. That’s a really important thing to be aware of as well. And I will add today we’re doing a more condensed version of this training. This is something that our HR consultants provide to our employers. So if you’re interested, it’s typically runs two to two and a half hours and we’d really take a deep dive into all the things we’re touching on today, but we can personalize and bring it to organization if that’s something that you’re interested in.

Lori Cole (37:21):

Yeah, I would highly recommend that because we’ve all been through the interviewing course that I hire those of us who do interviews and it is very helpful. I also would recommend that you have a core list of questions that you know that you’ll ask each candidate that’s interviewing for that job that will really help you in the long run. Of course, those are going to deviate a little bit depending on where you have to dig in and the follow up questions that you need to ask. But that’s always helped me to think about how did that person answer the question as it relates to the job that we’re hiring for.

Vickie Krolak (38:04):

Absolutely.

Lori Cole (38:07):

Molly, what is our game plan for after the interview?

Molly Floyd (38:12):

Well, this is an important step, and so covering the post interview steps here will help you make your selection, reviewing all interview notes and assessing each candidate on basis of the duties and responsibilities of the job, any specific information described by the applicant about their experience and qualifications, and then your observation of the applicant’s behavior during the interview. If there is a panel, then that’s a collective group of observations that you can discuss. So identifying your selection criteria or rating factors ahead of time and then rate all candidates against that same criteria. And Lori, that’s what you were saying there too, having the foundation of your interview, and then you can fill that in with customized personalized content based on that candidate’s resume. Being aware of common rating errors or biases in the interviewing that we just discussed, and reducing your personal biases by involving multi raiders, like Vickie was saying, having the panel each rate the candidate and come up with a final score then can help you determine who really is the better job fit and who can add to your company culture. And then this is very important and we hear about it on both sides of employers and candidates, but don’t ghost the candidate. If they’ve taken the time to interview with you, it’s appropriate to thank them for that and provide a status update on where they’re at. And if it’s not a fit, then to confirm that with them as soon as possible so that everybody can move on to the next task that’s ahead.

Lori Cole (40:05):

That’s a great point. Do unto others. You don’t want them to ghost you, so you also don’t want to ghost them after the interview.

Vickie Krolak (40:14):

And I would add one more thing before we recap. If you have two candidates that are really awesome and you decide to move forward with one versus the other pipeline, that second candidate, because you never know when you might need to fill that role again or when your company expands and has the opportunity that that candidate might fit into your organization. So stay in touch with them.

Lori Cole (40:38):

We’ve had several situations like that at iHire right where we’ve had somebody in there. The runner up was just not quite the fit for that particular job, but we thought they would be amazing in this other job, so we would stay in touch with them. And eventually we have hired a few of those people and been very happy that we’ve stayed in touch with them.

Vickie Krolak (41:03):

Yes, absolutely. All right, so to recap today what we covered, we know that interviewing is a critical step in your hiring process. It’s going to help you avoid costly mistakes. Interviewing is going to help you determine that job fit and job culture, job culture ad using a combination of those traditional questions, resume based and behavioral interview questions using the panels when appropriate. This isn’t needed for every single role depending on what you’re for, but it is recommended for those professional roles and then know what you can and can’t ask during the interview. And being aware of those unconscious biases during and after the interview when making your selection covered a lot. Today

Lori Cole (41:51):

We have covered a lot, but there’s more because we have a ton of questions here. So let’s jump in. What are some effective ways to develop our interview questions?

Vickie Krolak (42:06):

Well, I think we touched on some of that today, Lori, when it comes to getting those questions, taking a deep dive into that job description, identifying those core competencies, knowledge, skills, abilities, also adding in some cultural questions, what that resonate with the candidate and the organization. You can use Google Chat, GPT, Molly have some other things to add in there.

Molly Floyd (42:37):

No, I think that’s a good balance of using the resume and the job description and then some of the other sources you mentioned that would be a well-rounded balance set of interview questions.

Lori Cole (42:50):

And I also liked your suggestion, Molly, of taking your company values and creating some interview questions around those.

Molly Floyd (43:00):

Yeah.

Lori Cole (43:01):

Alright. What are some tips for making candidates feel more comfortable during the interview?

Molly Floyd (43:09):

Well, it’s normal, right to know that the candidate and probably the interviewer is nervous. So just normalizing that, maybe sharing an experience that you had that same level of nervousness, just starting off the interview with a positive tone, a smile, some casual conversation, but keeping in mind how that casual conversation could maybe uncover some of those illegal questions. So it’s a fine line there to be aware of setting an upfront contract basically with the candidate and saying, this is the plan. We’ll introduce ourselves. I’ve got some questions for you, you probably have questions for me. So kind of just setting this level playing field and the candidate can know what to expect. Then having a comfortable environment and just encouraging more of a dialogue type of setting rather than an interrogation that should help alleviate some of that initial anxiety that everyone’s feeling.

Lori Cole (44:23):

Offer them water, offer them something to drink. I think, Molly, you said it earlier, let them know that you’re going to be taking notes because there’s nothing worse than saying something. And then the interviewer going to their notepad and starting to write things down. And you think as the candidate, what are they writing about me? What did I just say that they felt this need to write. So if you just let them know you’re going to be taking notes during the interview, I think that will help them feel more at ease too.

Molly Floyd (44:59):

Yes.

Lori Cole (45:02):

How should we handle a situation where a candidate is nervous or not very communicative?

Vickie Krolak (45:10):

Yeah, good question, Lori. And I think Molly touched on some of these, breaking that ice. Start with some non-threatening questions, maybe some casual conversation. Again, careful in what you say. Express understanding and knowledge that interviews can be be nerve wracking and stressful. Let them know it’s okay, slow down and you’re allowing the candidate to give you those clear responses that silence is golden. Maybe use some open-ended questions to break that ice as well. Tell me more about, and then positive reinforcement like Molly shared, it’s okay, you want to give them a chance to answer the questions, maybe boost their confidence a little bit, and that’ll help encourage more communications. If they’re struggling to answer and give you situations, perhaps give them some examples and see if they can build on that example that you give them. And then maybe clarify and summarize back what they’re saying to you that reinforces that active listening. And then at the end, ask for feedback and where they are in their interview process and if they have any questions. I find I really think it’s good when a candidate comes prepared and has questions to ask you, even if they are nervous.

Lori Cole (46:36):

Absolutely. It’s always a disappointment to me when you ask, do you have any questions? And the candidate says, Nope, I think you’ve covered everything. And it’s just like, oh, really? I know I didn’t cover everything. I really want to be able to talk to you about this more. So that’s very telling.

Vickie Krolak (46:57):

Yeah. One of my icebreaker questions when I start interviews off is like, what do you know about iHire and what attracted you to apply for this position? And it kind of just opens up that conversation and breaks the ice for them.

Lori Cole (47:09):

Yeah. I’m sorry. If the requirement of the job includes being able to speak multiple languages, can you ask what languages the candidate can speak?

Vickie Krolak (47:26):

I would caution about that. Asking a blanketed statement. If your job requires, for example, bilingual, I see this pretty often in job posts that they require to speak English and Spanish. Put that in your job ad that they’re required to be bilingual and these are the two languages that they need to speak, or three languages, whatever it is. I actually have a client this morning I was working with that does American Sign Language. They’re a deaf company or the CEO’s deaf, and that’s part of the requirements that the person that they hire has to be able to do American sign language. So that’s absolutely a bonafide qualified occupation requirements. So put that in there, but I wouldn’t leave it open-ended as like what languages do you speak? You really could go down a rabbit hole you don’t want to.

Lori Cole (48:19):

Right? And if it’s in the job description, I think that that covers you for being able to ask the question and discuss that topic during the interview. But if it’s a random, oh, what other languages do you speak? And there was nothing that indicated that that was a requirement in the job description, that might be a bad thing for the company, right?

Vickie Krolak (48:44):

Yeah. So maybe a question could be, you may have seen the job description. This job requires you to be bilingual, being able to speak both English and Spanish. Can you confirm that you are able to fluently speak in English and Spanish, both written and possibly verbal? Definitely, but possibly written too.

Lori Cole (49:08):

Alright, now here’s one I’m not sure of the answer to. If the job requires you to drive your own vehicle, is it acceptable to ask what vehicle they drive?

Molly Floyd (49:24):

That’s an HR answer that we

Vickie Krolak (49:26):

Need. Okay, this is a sticky one. And I would say I put that in the job or in the job ad requirement. So for example, if they are a delivery driver and you require them to have a pickup truck, you can confirm, you may have noticed in the job ad that this position requires you to a pickup truck because you’ll be picking up and delivering X, Y, and Z. Can you confirm you have the appropriate vehicle to do this job? If they come back and say, oh, I drive a Corvette, obviously that’s not something that’s going to work. If they’re picking up large boxes or automobile parts, I’m just giving examples here of something, it’s not going to work with that job.

(50:22):

And it’s okay also to do, if the job requires them to drive, it’s okay to do driving record background checks as well, make sure they have a clear record. Especially I worked with the manufacturing that had DOT drivers and there are a lot of requirements for those roles. It’s specialized hiring when it comes to DOT and the qualifications that go into that. And even once a year, you have to run a driving record to make sure they have a clean record as well. So definitely if you’re hiring per job that requires them to drive or have a certain vehicle, it’s okay. Make sure they fit those requirements.

Lori Cole (51:06):

Alright, I love this one. I can’t wait to hear what you guys say about it regarding maintaining control of the interview. What if you just cannot get a word in? No matter how hard you try? I always try to stay professional, but some candidates don’t allow me to even get a word in. What can I do in that situation without sounding rude?

Vickie Krolak (51:29):

Molly has a good example. She had one the other day when she was interviewing.

Molly Floyd (51:33):

Well, I’m thinking you might have to come across a little more direct than you would like to. And if the words that the candidate is sharing are full of content, then that’s a different story than if it’s not providing you information that is helpful. So you might be in a situation where you just have to interrupt rather bluntly and ask if the panel or anyone else has any other questions and thank ‘em for their time and just wrap it up

Vickie Krolak (52:14):

Politely interrupt them and say, I appreciate what you’re telling me, but I have a few more questions I need to ask you.

Lori Cole (52:22):

Is it rude while they’re talking to just say, okay, hold on for a minute. I want to dig into that deeper. I mean, is it rude? Put your finger up or give them some sort of gesture like I want to jump in here.

Vickie Krolak (52:43):

No, I think that’s good to interrupt them if you need to. And again, thank ‘em for their answer and I appreciate that. But we have a few more questions to ask you. Or like you said, Lori, I want to dive a little deeper into your answer there. As long as you’re polite about it and direct like Molly said, it should be fine.

Molly Floyd (53:04):

Typical.

Vickie Krolak (53:05):

Sometimes

Molly Floyd (53:05):

I tend to ramble, typically conversation and there’s some natural pauses in people’s conversation. And if that pause is not happening, if there’s not an opportunity, then there’s really no other choice than to say, excuse me, we need to do this and this. Still with a smile.

Lori Cole (53:26):

Alright, let’s just do one more. On our application, we ask, have you ever been convicted or pleaded guilty to a crime other than a minor traffic violation? Is that legal

Vickie Krolak (53:42):

Nowadays with all the ban the box laws? I do caution. Be familiar with your state laws, and if you would like to talk about that a little deeper, we can schedule a time to look at your organization and look at the state you’re in and help guide you in that,

Lori Cole (54:02):

Right? And if your question didn’t get answered here today, you can send an email to our customer success department at [email protected] and we will get you to the right person and help in any way that we can. So that’s all the time we have left. We really appreciated everyone who submitted these great questions. Thank you again to Molly and Vickie and for covering my technical difficulty at the beginning. You guys are just pros. Thank you so much. Remember to click the views certificate button in the certification widget and download that certificate of completion for your SHRM and HRCI activities, activity, IDs for credit.

(54:50):

A big plug here again for Vickie. She’s a member of our HR services and consulting team. They can provide candidate screening interview services. They can train your staff on how to do these interviews and just take on any projects that you don’t have time for. And you are always welcome to book a free consultation. There is a consultation widget on your screen and that will take you right to Vickie’s calendar. Keep an eye on your inbox tomorrow for any other, I’m sorry for on demand recordings of today’s webinar. We will invite you to the next webinar in just a few weeks. I hope you have a great rest of your day. And thank you again, Molly and Vickie for being so wonderful today.

Molly Floyd (55:39):

Thank you, Lori. Thank you, Lori. It’s been a pleasure.