Interviewing Skills

The first step in building trusting relationships in the workplace is hiring the right people! The interview process is a virtual mine field waiting for the unwary and untrained selecting manager to blunder in and make mistakes that will cost tens of thousands of dollars. Our program teaches managers and supervisors everything they need to conduct effective interviews and to select the “best qualified” candidates. Of course, since we use attorneys to teach these courses, we always teach the legal “Do’s and Don’t’s of Interviewing!” We go much further and teach a version of the most effective interviewing technique.

Hiring the Best Based on Past Performance

We custom design our interviewing program to fit the needs of your organization. We use behavioral interviewing, which is a relatively new style of interviewing that was developed in the 1970's by industrial psychologists. Behavioral interviewing or “Performance-Based Interviewing,” as it is called by some, starts with the position that "the most accurate predictor of future performance is past performance in a similar situation." One recent study indicated that at least 30 percent of all organizations are using behavioral interviewing to some degree.

Traditional interviews typically include such questions as:

• 1.Tell me about yourself.
• 2.What are your strengths?
• 3.What are your weaknesses?
• 4.Why are you interested in working for us?

With behavioral interviewing, the interviewer uses questions that focus on past performance and behaviors. The quality of behavioral-based interview questions drives the effectiveness of this approach. In our course, interviewing officials are taught how to analyze their vacant position; how to identify the key functions of the position; and then, most importantly, how to craft questions that require the applicant to demonstrate his or her past experience with some of the most challenging aspects of this type of work. We also teach interviewers how to develop a 5-point scale for possible answers. This provides the interviewer with a measuring stick so that responses from applicants can be scored on an objective basis.

An Interview Process that is Virtually Bullet-Proof

Our training provides schooling in the legal issues that often create pitfalls for the unwary interviewer. It also provides a methodical process for creating questions that go to the heart of what is most challenging about this particular position and it teaches future interviewers how to create a scale for scoring responses that will provide a highly objective basis for the selection decision. The bottom line is an interview process that will be second to none for identifying the best and the brightest and for defending those selection decisions when necessary!