How to Be a Good Interviewer

Needing to hire employees can be great news — perhaps it means that the small business you purchased is expanding. However, it also means you’re going to have to develop a new skill: the art of being a good interviewer. 

You’ve gone through the stack of resumes and chosen a shortlist of candidates who are the best fit on paper. So what comes next? Well, how you structure the interview process depends on the size of your business — for instance, you can’t watch prospective candidates perform in a team environment if there is no team — but whatever size the business, the main objective is to find the person who best meets your company’s needs. 

This article provides some tips on how to secure the right candidate and lays out the steps you should take before and during the interview itself. 

Pre-Interview Preparation

Review the Applicants’ Job Experience 

It’s a waste of time to ask prospective job candidates about their job history when you already have that information at your fingertips. Thus, any pre-interview research should begin with a close look at the candidate’s resume, noting any unusual job titles or work experience as things you might follow up on during the interview. This is also a good time to contact your candidates’ references if you are inclined to do so.

Finally, you can check their LinkedIn page and any other social media information. However, Indeed encourages interviewers not to be too concerned with public information that doesn’t align with their own personal beliefs unless political or social views are critical to the performance of the job itself — i.e., you are an organization with an overt social or political mission. 

By the same token, there has been a lot of talk about “cultural fit” within a given organization. While it is important to have employees with shared values, finding people with skills, experience, and attributes that make them good at the job you are hiring them to do is even more important.

Consider the Skills You’ll Need to Drive Your Business Forward

I hired my neighbor to clean when I first started renting my Airbnb. She had both excellent organizational skills and a number of local connections, and I immediately saw her potential as an assistant who could help me hire people and serve as a caretaker for my property. Moving her into this role saved me time and money because she was able to bring on reliable people to fulfill a number of tasks.

Albeit a small potatoes example, it illustrates a larger point — making new hires, especially when expanding a small business, requires a bit of forethought. This is a good time to dust off your business plan and consider the kind of roles you’ll require as the business expands. Candidates who can transition into positions of greater authority over time can become part of your trusted inner circle and, as such, play a vital role in your business’s success.

Prepare Questions and Interview Format

Would you want to work at a company whose hiring manager asked vague questions and almost seemed to be relying on you to set the tone for the interview? Of course not. This approach sends off red flags you can ill afford in such a competitive hiring market. 

In order to attract the best candidates, make sure that you have prepared your questions and the interview format in advance. 

What kind of questions should you ask? According to the Harvard Business Review, asking candidates a stock question, such as “What are your weaknesses?” is an invitation to have them lie. The focus should instead be on behavioral and situational questions. Ask how your interviewee would solve a real-life problem your business is having. Ask for their assessment of a process your company already has in place and if there is anything they would do differently. Think about what attributes you want this hire to have — if they will play a managerial role, ask them to describe a time when they got others to listen even when they were not in a position of authority.

As we mentioned, the Interview format depends on the size of the company and the requirements of the position. You might have a candidate do a single interview with the CEO. You might schedule a tiered series of interviews, starting with the hiring manager and ending by having the candidate engage in a task with other team members. You might ask the candidate to solve a series of hypothetical problems on paper first — this is something I was asked to do as the first step for a college essay coaching position — before conducting a follow-up phone or Zoom interview with team managers. 

There is no right or wrong interview process. The only real mistake you can make is not determining a process that allows you to see the candidates perform the needed job skills.

Let the Interviewee Know What to Expect

When the interviewee has no reliable structure, they might over-prepare and underdeliver. Tell them in advance what kind of questions you’ll ask and what the interview process will be. This gives candidates time to consider what anecdotes and information to reveal rather than leaving them grasping for straws. 

Yes, there are always those people who are quick thinkers. However, they are not necessarily the best person for the job. You want to give each individual you interview their best chance to shine rather than being inscrutable about your expectations. In doing so, you will nourish curiosity and confidence, both of which will bring out the best in your prospective candidates.

Tips for Being a Good Interviewer 

Put the Candidate at Ease

A job interview is not a college midterm. Instead of diving right in with questions, take some time to introduce yourself. You might explain how you came to work in the field itself. If you have things in common, mention them. For instance, during an interview I gave, I found out that the candidate went to the same college as my brother. I asked if he had visited a local landmark that had been used as a film set. This point of connection helped to establish rapport and made for a better interview.

Don’t Mistake Bias for Intuition

If a person rubs you the wrong way, you’re probably not going to hire them. But sometimes a person who makes a bad first impression is the best person for the job. In “The Inaccuracy of First Impressions,” Jas Singh, a fintech recruiter, acknowledges that first impressions are a short-term biological imperative — will this person put my life in peril? — but they tend not to be a great way of gauging long-term capabilities.

Although it takes mere seconds to make up our minds about a person, these impressions are often based on superficial biases that have no basis in fact. As an interviewer, you should strive to be more open-minded. If you have done your pre-interview carefully, you know why this person made it to your shortlist. Give them a chance to prove themselves without coming to hasty judgments.  

Elicit More Specific Responses by Using the STAR Format

The STAR acronym stands for situation, task, action, and result. When you ask a behavioral question, job candidates often use the STAR method to respond. For instance, they may tell you that they deflected a tense situation when the chef at a popular eatery quit in mid-shift, and subsequently, no orders were coming out, by using humor (“Anyone else having a bad day — let’s see a show of hands.”) followed by generosity — comping the meals at each affected table. 

As the interviewer, you can also rely on this method to create follow up questions. “So what happened after you made that announcement? Did people laugh?” Sometimes interviewees are so nervous they forget the most impressive part of something they did. (For example, in the case of the missing chef: “The result was applause and happy customers.”) The STAR format can help you tease this information out.

Allow the Candidate to Ask Questions

Some recruiters believe that the first half of an interview is when you assess the candidate’s fit for your company. And if you think the candidate has potential, the second half of the interview becomes a time to focus on what the company has to offer. But allowing candidates to ask questions throughout the interview is a way to sell the company organically. With luck, the interviewee will put aside the stock questions they developed when they researched your company and instead lean in with curiosity, asking about future vision and long-term goals.  

Give the Interviewee a Chance to Interact with Peers

As a coach, I worked with a talented young engineering student who took a summer course at a prestigious university taught by a graduate student. Most students take courses like this just to have a line item on their college application, but this student’s genuine interest led him to bond with the teacher and go to his dissertation defense. He left the course with graduate student friends and a strong desire to someday also become a professor.

This anecdote illustrates the power of peer interaction. Your other employees can more readily establish rapport with a hiring candidate, bringing out their strengths while at the same time illustrating why your business is a great place to work. Small businesses may lack the ability to introduce candidates to peers — after all, this could be your first hire! — but at the very least you should take time to show a promising candidate around the business to highlight its unique features and explain your future plans. 

Close the Interview

Be mindful of your candidate's time. If the interview was scheduled for 30 minutes, adhere to that time limit. Your candidate may have taken time from their existing obligations to meet with you. Being disrespectful of their time will send them a red flag about you and your business practices, and you might lose a great hire in the process.

Close the interview by thanking them for the opportunity to meet with them, and let the candidate know what comes next. Will a follow-up meeting be scheduled? Will you be making a hiring decision soon? Do you have other candidates to meet with? Let the candidate know where they are in the process and most importantly…when they should expect to hear from you. 

Conclusion

With these interviewing tips under your belt, there’s a much better chance you’ll allow potential candidates to shine and have gleaned enough critical information about your candidate to make a solid hiring decision. Hiring can be a time-consuming process, but taking the time you need upfront will pay dividends in the long run.

Whether you are an established business owner or just starting your entrepreneurial journey with a business you purchased through Dealstream, showing your pride of ownership may be just the thing to attract desirable candidates.