MightyRecruiterPower Interviewing: Key Candidate Assessment Question
The process of power interviewing is one that ought to be used by every company, but it is an especially crucial practice if you own a small business. Chances are that if you are one of these small business owners, your time is spread somewhat thin with making sure that the day-to-day operations run smoothly. You might be understandably of the mindset that any time you spend away from the current state of the business is a detriment to its success. You may not have the means for extensive formal job interviews that involve drug tests and background checks.
However, the time is inevitably going to come in which you are going to have to bring new people on board, and so one key pillar for the business’s success going forward is for you to make sure that these new hires are the best possible candidates. To that end, power interviewing is a method that, when administered correctly, gets right to the core issue of an interviewee’s competence through questions that gauge his or her awareness of any professional accolades and achievements he or she has earned. Here are a few of the best ways to quickly get to the most important information with your candidates.
Get Specific With Their Skills
If you are speaking to an individual who would be leaving his or her current position at another company in order to come and work at yours, a great power interviewing technique is to incorporate that current work into some of the questions. Ask what the candidate has done of his or her own accord to move their current company forward, whether it is reducing costs, improving time efficiency or increasing revenues. This will give you a solid indication of the interviewee’s capacity to quantify his or her contributions. Additionally, remember that even people with little to no prior work experience still ought to have an answer about saving time.
Once you have done this, you might consider giving the person the opportunity to demonstrate these techniques in a real work setting. If your business is conducive to it, allow the person to work the open position for a day or two in order to get a more accurate read on his or her skills and level of commitment to the craft. It’s possible you might even learn a thing or two in the bargain.
Keeping Questions Focused on Achievement
While choosing the right person to hire can be a great way to reignite the passion in some of your other workers while increasing productivity, bringing the wrong person aboard can just as easily have the opposite effect. To quickly get to the information that matters most in an interview, it is recommended that you dispense with the old-fashioned and vague request for the interviewee to tell you about himself or herself.
Instead, ask the person to take you through the major steps in his or her career. Keep your ears open for any mentions of promotions and instances in which the individual took on greater responsibilities. This is a great way to find out if the person is capable of going the extra mile to ensure that company objectives are fulfilled to their maximum potential, thereby setting up the business for greater success.
Additionally, there are a few more power interviewing questions you can ask that effectively assess a candidate’s accomplishment awareness and self-esteem:
-What sets you apart from others in your field
-What would your superiors in previous jobs remember most about you
-Identify what you believe to be you greatest strength and your greatest weakness.
These are different ways of getting to the same essential subjects of the candidate’s personality, sense of initiative and ability to find strong points as well as areas for improvement. If someone stumbles on one of these questions, he or she might be able to answer one of the others with greater confidence.
No Time Like the Present
If your business has reached a point in its evolution in which you need to fill some new positions, the best time to implement these power interviewing techniques is now. While there is some merit to the tried and true questions that have been used for decades, the sheer volume of applicants you are likely going to have for a single job demands that you get the important information quickly. As you continue to pursue new ways to improve your business with all-star hires, check out the resources at Mighty Recruiter for some of the best starting points.