Sunday 27 April 2008

The art of interviewing

There are squillions of articles online and books about interviewing skills and techniques aimed at candidates with the aim of securing a new job role. Advice on everything from sample interview questions to advice on how to dress and behave.

But what about from the other side of the desk?


Interviewing is after all a two way process. As a candidate you can easily forget who the other people are in the equation.

Since I am about to sit on an interview panel, this issue is intriguing me. I wonder to myself if I will behave to type and be either an absentee, a buddy, an inquisitor, a laser beam or the shotgun interviewer or even a chatty, nosy, inexperienced, by-the-book or interrogation interviewer. Will I do a good enough job?

Interviewing is an art and a science. It involves so many variables:

Listening + Personal Connection + Focus on job and Competencies + Intuition + Skill + Situation + Verbal and Non-verbal cues

I feel a weight on my shoulders knowing that:



  • The average cost of filling a vacancy in 2007 has been calculated as being between £4333 and £7750

  • Bad recruiting decisions result in less productivity, additional training and development costs, wasted time and effort and impacts on team culture and motivation levels.

  • To pays to recruit well since it is clearly costly to business to recruit. According to Gregory Smith, research shows that those organizations that spend more time recruiting high-caliber people earn 22% higher return to shareholders than their industry peers.

Interviewing is not as easy it looks. So to help me and anyone else who is interviewing for the first time, the following resources might be useful:



As with many things in life, it comes down to preparation and planning along with a level of flexibility and openness on the day.


Wish me luck!

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