THE INTERVIEW

The interview
The managers on recruiting…
•Most managers consider recruiting as a
frustrating and time consuming activity
•One of the most important responsibilities
of a manager is to take good recruitment
decisions
The interview
The best interviewers

• … are the one that can suspend the

their subjective reaction until they
make an objective evaluation
The interview

• The best candidates are not necessarily

making the best interviews
• The best candidates do not necessarily
have the desired experience and studies
• Frequently, the best candidates are as as
anxious during the interview as the
average ones (a study case reveals that
during 5000 interviews, 75% of the
candidates showed a high degree of
anxiety at the beginning of the interview)*

*Lou Adler – “Power Hiring – Hire with your head”

The interview
• “Over 70% of the hiring decisions are taken in the first
5-10 minutes of the interview”
• Over 50 % of the candidate accepted during the
interview would be rejected if the interview would be
held rigorously and would take more than 30 minutes
• “In 40-50 % of the cases, the first impression would
substantially change if the interview would take more
than 30-40 minutes and would focus on competencies
and past performance

*Lou Adler – “Power Hiring – Hire with your head”

The interview
• The emotional charge of an interview is similar with:
• Delivering a public speech
• Being fired
• Negotiating a salary raise
• Asking someone on a first date
• Clues of a high emotional charge:
• Hesitant speech, nervous gestures
• Panic-like state, making strange remarks
• Does not sustain visual contact l

*Lou Adler – “Power Hiring – Hire with your head”

Observation
The emotional state might be a strong indicator of the
desire of the candidate to succeed
The anxiety usually disappears, in 80% of the cases,
within 10-15 minutes
The main cause of recruitment errors reside in:
•Too much emphasis on the relationship between the
two parties – Interviewer and Candidate
•Too little emphasis on competencies, values and
motivation probing
 Interview Stages
• Building the relationship – creating a
relaxed environment – 2% of the time
• Introduction – Starting the evaluation
process – 3%

• Main stage – obtaining the relevant

information – 85%
• Final confirmation – Validating the
information – 5%
• Closing – 5%a
 Types of questions

Open Questions – require elaborate answers;

they start with “why?”, “how?”, “what do you
consider?”

Hypothetical / Situational – are presented under

the form of a problem requiring a solution

For validation and informing – usually

supplementary questions, in order to obtain
information
 Types of questions
• Closed questions – they require a short
answer, usually Yes or Not

• For validating a competency

 Errors in questioning
• Questions with suggested answers
•- Do you agree that….?
•- Isn’t it true that…?
• Using negative formulations:
•- Don’t you think that...?
•- Don’t you consider that it has been done enough
for…....?
• Putting two questions in a single phrase:
• Do you want to continue in this field or do you want
to make a radical change such as….