Interviewing Candidates

We listen to what others are saying in one of two distinct ways: we either listen to respond or we listen to learn. Listening to respond means that we are formulating our response to the candidate while she is talking to us-therefore we do not really hear what the candidate is saying-we miss important information because we are saying to ourselves-"when is this person going to shut up so that I can dazzle her with my brilliant comments!"

Listening to learn means that we really focus on what the candidate is saying-we pay attention-we keep our ego in check, and therefore we learn a lot about the candidate that is not on her resume. She is telling us what we need to know to make the right hiring decision-all we need to do is listen to her.

Thanks for reading.

Interviewing Candidates

(To my readers-I am back after a family vacation and a training event).

We were last talking about the interview process from the interviewer's perspective. When they are conducting interviews, interviewers utilize different techniques-some spend a lot of time asking the candidate questions about his/her background using the candidate's resume as a reference-others ask each candidate the same set of questions-some interviewers use a combination of these two (2) techniques. What ever technique you chose to use, make sure that you ask the questions, then STOP TALKING AND REALLY LISTEN TO THE CANDIDATES' RESPONSES TO YOUR QUESTIONS.....you will be amazed by what you learn.

Interviewing Candidates

One of the biggest mistakes that interviewers make is that they talk too much during the interview. I interviewed once for an HR Manager position at a local manufacturing plant. My interviewer was a Vice-President of this particular organization...and he did not know the first thing about conducting an effective interview. He talked almost the entire time-when we were done, he really did not know anything about me other that the info. that was on my resume.