Interviewing is a Skill

Earlier this week, social media was agog with the news of a hiring manager who decided to keep a candidate waiting for over two hours just to test the ‘quality’, ‘quantity’, and ‘depth’ of the candidate’s patience or should I say long suffering.

Am sure most incidences such as this go unreported as they are not ‘lucky’ enough to be caught in the effulgent headlights of social media.

This story brought to the fore one of the misconceptions about interviewing that is rife across organisations. There is this misconception about the ‘ease’ of interviewing, and a lot of times hiring managers/teams are not trained to interview. Interviewing is a skill! There is a strategy and methodology to it.

I was once in an interview where a hiring manager asked a candidate how many kids she wanted to have. Another was whether the candidate was Christian? It was utterly shocking! I had to have a sit down the person afterwards. There are some questions that should NEVER be asked in an interview! 

To overturn this unwholesome narrative, HR leaders across several organisations should begin to intentionally design effective interview training plan for hiring managers and teams. Particular attention should be paid to training in areas such as using structured interviews to ensure same questions are posed to different candidates thus ensuring fairness, legal and appropriate questions to ask, combating biases,  understanding and knowing how to appropriately test for relevant skills and competencies required for the role. 

As you plan to train, do keep it in mind that a candidate’s interview experience goes a long way in shaping and informing his/her perception of your Employer branding and employee value proposition. Remember, people may forget what you said, forget what you did, but will never forget how you made them feel. Let’s get this right!