There are thousands of resources available online helping to prepare job seekers for interviews, but there is little help HR managers craft better interview questions.
Here are 4 recommendations for improving HR manager interview questions:
1. Explain the Context
Employees aren’t generally going to offer their best input unless they can really understand why they’ve been called into an interview, and what their job role will entail. To improve interviews, lay out the broad strokes, including an introduction to what the company does, what its mission statement is, and how people work day to day. Give them a few bullet points should be enough to orient the job applicant so that he or she can then talk intelligently about what he or she can bring to the table.
2. Cover All the Bases
It helps to go into interview with a more refined idea about what a human resources team wants to get out of it. Think beforehand about how much time you want to spend on things like “strength and weakness” or “how did you handle a challenge” questions. Do you need a lot of this kind of psychological examination in the interview or not? Think about what skills proficiency you’ll need in a job role and put it up top.
3. Evaluate Scripting
Too many HR professionals come into an interview with a typewritten script and start reading the questions aloud. This might turn out to be a disaster if they suddenly come across words they don’t understand, don’t know how to pronounce or aren’t really sure about. It makes the team look bad, and it can derail an interview. So if you’re going to use scripting, read it beforehand and understand not only the meaning of all the words, but the point behind all of the questions.
4. Listen
There’s also sometimes a lack of two-way communication in an interview. Remember, interviews are made to elicit useful information from the job applicant. It’s not a place to simply go through and explain all of the do’s and don’ts of what goes on on-site. You want to coax out some valuable business intelligence from each candidate, and really listen to what they say about themselves and how they work.
