There is no set SOP’s or established rules for conducting interview. Every HR professional / recruiter conduct interview as deemed appropriate to him/her, following his/her organization’s policy. Purpose of this writing is to bring maximum interviewers on same page as well as to let the readers know why interviewer is talking about something in interview.
Facing interview panel (whatever the number of official personal are on the interview panel) is of course something very much difficult for everyone. Regardless of the knowledge of the subject, experience in the same field for which she/he has been shortlisted for the interview, as soon as the interviewee enters the room, the candidate will get confused, may not gather his/her confidence, may not even breath properly to talk properly as interviews are always daunting. Now, its Interviewer’s job, not bombard him/her with questions in this situation; neither the interviewer should ask him/her to introduce him/herself first.
Having different departments on interview panel, the HR professional must take the lead and help the interviewee by starting introducing panel members with slight detail about the organization and about the position this candidate is appearing for interview. Reason for this detail introduction (minimum 5-8 minutes) is to allow maximum time to the interviewee to gather his/her confidence level by getting used to the environment of interview and organization. HR professional must congratulate the candidate for getting shortlisted out of so many applicants and tell him/her why he got shortlisted – this will make them feel good and will boost their confidence in seconds. Only then let the interviewee start with self-introduction.
Due to shortage of time with the interview, panel members always insist to minimize the time for interview thus, they bombard the candidate with a number of questions back-to-back right after s/he grabs a seat in front of them and this is the reason why very competent candidates normally could not answer many questions as they are not given proper time to settle down. That’s a loss for HR professional to have lost good candidates which could be an asset for the company.
Feel free to comment below.
Thanks to Mr. Shahzadullah for highlighting many key points that are mostly ignored by many interviewers ‘due to shortage of time’ as mentioned by your good self . All suggestions are very good tips and must be followed by all organizations.
Dear Shahzad sb,
Much appreciated the way you explain basics of conducting interviews. I am in agreement with you that many interviewers often ignore theses points which resultantly lost a lot of competent candidates.
A very practical and completely applicable advice from Shahzad. Many interviewers are not aware of the ethical protocol to be followed. I would also add to this by mentioning another mistake that is committed by interviewers – which is asking questions/ personal details not pertinent to the position. In many countries of the world, it is illegal to ask questions on ethnicity, marital status or family background which may affect the hiring decision. It is time for Pakistani recruiters to also understand the etiquette and rules of the business. Of course, probing the candidate to evaluate his/her suitability is right of the employer and an acceptable norm all across the globe.
i don’t know agree with shahzad,the main thing is shortlisting,job description on add ,Majority of HR personals don’t know about technical points regarding job descriptions,even team leads and manager deliberately add the most of things in job add which they don’t need ,this is wastage of time,creating stress of candidate what will happend next.
A very good attempt by Shazad sb, we do lose good candidates for such reasons and Maam Farwa, again has pointed out very genuine follies which are generally committed. You know the problem is that we do not dig the root cause of such behaviors. It’s us HR people whose responsibility is to share or teach the norms in advance with the panel we have arranged for the interview. we must arrange in house trainings on such skills for our department heads and all those who can at anytime form part of the interviewing panel. Trainings must be kept simple, straight and to the point. To show our expertise and abilities and to impress the audience we mostly resort to bending the plain content into ‘jalebi’. knowing ourselves is the only way to know others.
Dear Shahzad Sb,
Thank you very much for sharing such a useful practical experience in writing with us, sure that it will help both experience and inexperience candidates that are planning to appear for an interview sooner or later. i am intending to share your these expert opinion with my final year students.
thanx
Atiq khattak
Lecturer Haripur University
You have discussed such an important points in the interview. Most of the Time the interviewer skip the opening of interview and directly jumps into the body of interview. Which ruins the interviewee confidence, and results in a loss of a competent employee.