Finding good employees is a challenge that involves different steps to attract, source, qualify and evaluate candidates. Interviews are one of the most important tools to help you identify the right candidates, providing important insights that a resume or application form is not able to provide. Interviews are also a way to connect with candidates, explore their career aspirations, and test soft, communication, and problem-solving skills.
Having a framework to assess the performance of candidates during interviews is an excellent way to deal with the complexity of choosing the right candidate. The objective of your assessment would be to identify if the candidates can do the job and if they would be motivated to work with you. You also need to identify if their attitude and personality match your team culture and if will help them to develop their professional skills in the long term.
These are 5 criteria to identify the most suitable candidates during the interview:
Read Their Body Language And Motivation In Working With You
Enthusiasm is a good driver of success and having a positive attitude, and body language during an interview is a good start for a working relationship. Read their gestures, movements, and eye contact to identify how they feel, and their motivations to work with you. Body language is also an excellent way to assess their personality, and attitudes.
Focus On Their Experiences And Capabilities
Explore what have they done in the past, to identify what capabilities and skills match your specific needs. Remember that resumes do not provide all the information, and asking about specific responsibilities or milestones in their past jobs can be very helpful. This type of conversation will also help you identify their work ethics and other important aspects as their ability to work with teammates, their relationship with managers, and their response to specific challenges. Asking about their mistakes or a negative experience would also help to evaluate their honesty and self-awareness, and their ability to learn from mistakes.
Test Their Problem-Solving Skills
You can bring a case study to the interview and ask them to solve a specific problem, or you can send a small task to test their skills into practice. Keep it simple, and be creative to design a project that wouldn’t take too much time for them to finish. A project can also help you assess how efficiently they manage their time and resources.
Check For Culture And Communication Fit
Having poor communication with remote workers is a common cause of poor performance and lack of motivation, so check if the communication is flawless, and if the candidate will fit into your team culture, in terms of values, communication styles, and other behaviors. Ask them about their motivations and drivers to see if there is a match with the role they are applying for.
Get A Second Opinion
Trusting in your guts is a good idea, but sometimes is not enough and you need a second opinion. Get the opinion of other team members, or check references to complete information gaps. You can invite people to the interview to see their impression, or just ask people that interacted with the candidate during other stages of the process.
Using these criteria will help you identify different attitudes, skills, and behaviors that really match your team, setting the first step for the effective onboarding and development of talent in your company. So, it is worth preparing your interviews to get this level of understanding of the candidates and be able to choose the most suitable candidate for your role.
Nevertheless, interviewing is a time-consuming process, especially if you need to process a large number of candidates. To ease this process, Shark Helpers tests and interviews several candidates to provide you with a curated list of the most suitable candidates. We are also supporting you during the interview process, to help you choose the right employee for each position. If you want to learn more about it, schedule a call at this link https://calendly.com/sharkhelpers
