This chapter will show you how questions are used to assess and score the skills the candidate reveals in the interview.
You will need to have practiced all the skills we have worked through in the previous chapters to be able to make sense of the questions and answers, as well as to assess the candidate's score in the interview itself. In particular, you need to have practiced the NLP skills you learnt in the previous chapter. A good way of gaining confidence with NLP is to use these skills in your daily life; become familiar with these skills in a way that they become almost natural to you. This will ensure you are well prepared to observe the candidates' performances.
I need to show you the way questions can be used to clarify not only what skills each candidate has, but also what level of skill. To give you the greatest benefit, I will take you through an example of a job, its job description, skill requirements, interview questions, and scoring.
After we have worked through this, you will have learned how the interview works and you will have gained some interview experience from the example.
This chapter contains the following learning points:
- Hire for attitude, train for skills
- Active listening
- Avoid illegal notes
- Avoid thoughtless or unplanned remarks
- The Interview Simulator
- The closing question
Making a decision to hire someone is an important one. You and I have worked through a lot of preparatory material to bring you to this point. The attitude displayed by the candidate in the interview is an important factor.
You may know this maxim. Changing a person's innate behavior is difficult, while training a new skill is relatively easy.
While a good attitude and high level of skill are not exclusive, you may not find that combination sitting in your interview room.
You will be making judgments on a candidate's aptitude and attitude from the moment you meet them. It is your job as the interviewer to match the candidate to the job. Their attitude will be an important part of that matching.
Remember that attitude is not visible to you except through the resulting behavior. Is the exhibited behavior suitable for the job? The candidate may display behavior suggesting an attitude towards risk based on a belief in luck. You might think carefully about employing a surgeon that behaves in this way! The attitude portrayed in the interview should be tested through questions. People can be nervous in interviews, so dig down in the questions to seek clear examples of relevant behavior.
A team of enthusiastic, high energy individuals would be great if only they knew what to do. How much you trade attitude for skill depends on who comes to interview and what you need for your team right now.
You may want to hire a mix of people, some very enthusiastic, some with a high level of skill. It all depends on the circumstances in your organization.
Think through who and what you want for your team. You may need people ready to change the world, but you probably need someone to do the routine work reliably and consistently as well. With a modicum of luck, you will find the ideal combination of candidates waiting to be interviewed.