By Jack Osterloh
The number one most important thing to do when giving an interview may sound simple but it is essential when trying to make the decision to hire the right candidate. You want to clearly convey the responsibilities and expectations of the role they are applying to fill, then use the information you gather from the interview to decide if they can fulfill all requirements to be a solid fit to the organization.
A good way to get an idea of how they will handle situations likely to arise in your company, you can ask them questions that you and your other managers write specifically for the interview. It can be based on common problems that happen in your place of work, or frequent incidents they will likely have to deal with. To get an idea of just HOW they will handle it, these questions are great opportunities to learn what they might do if they were presented with a similar problem on your organization’s behalf. These hand-crafted theoretical questions about certain problems or dilemmas help see through all the grades and recommendations and give the interviewer some real insight firsthand.
Since we can often observe somebody’s education history, class grades, test scores, & recommendations, it’s what we can’t see that is vital to know. Some ways of figuring out just who they are as a person behind the mask include asking situational questions as well as having them discuss times where they had to overcome a problem and what their thought process was going into the situation. These can give the interviewer clues and ideas about who this person is outside of their workplace or classroom because this is just as important.