Job Interviewing Techniques

There are several job interviewing techniques – our laser beam focus is on the interviewing techniques that allow you to find as objectively and as accurately as possible, if the candidate has the required skills (soft and hard) for the position you are looking to fill.

You only have the interview – a couple of hours – to decide if the candidate is the right person or not. What can you do to maximize your chances to hire the best of the right candidate?

To get your job interviewing techniques right, you need a three-steps process:

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Work Examination

This is the first one of the job interviewing techniques:

You have a position to fill. This position must have a list of its indispensable tasks: Indispensable tasks are the basic duties that are key to adequate performance on the job.

If you don’t have a clear-cut list of tasks for the position in question, you must make it before you can move any further ahead.

Once you have your tasks for the job, you must write the corresponding human soft skills and hard skills necessary for each one of these tasks.

For clarity sake, education, diplomas, knowledge, abilities, talents, aptitudes, personality, experience, etc., all of this can be boiled down to just two things: Soft skills and hard skills.

For every position’s function you must have a corresponding skill (either soft or hard).

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Election Conditions

This is the second of the job interviewing techniques:

Once you have your list of all the necessary soft skills and hard skills for this job, then you can establish your election conditions.

Normally – not always – each soft skill and hard skill has several election conditions, and each election condition must be objective (as opposed to subjective).

For example, if one of the required skills for the position in question is to be a good sales person, your election condition cannot be this, because being a good sales person is a subjective term.

Why is it subjective? Because, if we ask 10 different people to tell us about the meaning of “being a good sales person,” these 10 people will give us 10 different answers.

On the contrary, an objective election condition would be something along these lines: “to make 10 sales a week where each sale is over $50 thousand dollars.” This is specific, observable, quantifiable, tangible, and objective.

Among the job interviewing techniques, this one is the most difficult to get right – but this step fundamental in order to be able to find the candidate with the appropriate skills.

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Interviewing Questions

This is the third and the last of the job interviewing techniques we mention:

Once you have your election conditions for all and each one of the soft skills and hard skills required for the position you want to fill, all you need to do is to ask your job interviewing questions.

For each election condition, you ask three questions:

Your first question looks like this: “Describe to me a situation in which (election condition)”

This question allows you to compare how similar or dissimilar are the situations in which the candidate has actually worked; with the day-to-day situations of the position you want to fill.

Once you have a clear picture about the situation in which the candidate has worked – and once you have assessed similarities and dissimilarities – you ask the second question: “What did you do?”

This question allows you to look at the candidate’s behavior and to get an idea about her way of thinking (e.g., problem solving abilities, decision making skills, etc.)

And finally you ask the third question: “What was the outcome?”

This question allows you to get the big picture perspective, to close the circle, to evaluate actual experience, etc.

If you just asked your first question but the candidate jumps to answer the second or third question – candidates usually do this unconsciously – gently stop her on the spot, restate your question, and bring her back to tell you what you need to find out. You want to guide the interview according to your needs.

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These job interviewing techniques are fundamental in finding exactly the best of the right candidate to fill your position.

They are behavior-based interview questions – interviewing questions that allow you to predict the future (so to speak) based on past behavior.

You only have a couple of hours with this candidate sitting in front of you – and your best bet in discovering who this person really is, it is by finding out how she has behaved in the past, in situations that are similar to the situations corresponding to the position you want to fill.

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To get complementary tools for these job interviewing techniques, take a look at our sample interviewing questions section.

To keep on learning about leadership skills, go back to the previous page (or click here ), and continue reading in a sequential order.

If you would like your managers to learn out about our job interviewing techniques through our speaking or consulting services, please click on this link.