A brief look at interviewing skills.

1. Interviewing Skills Workshop

3. Understanding Job Descriptions & Job Specifications

4. Why is it important?

5. Interview Techniques

6. Competency Based Interviews

7. Interviewing Mistakes

8. Pre-Interview Preparations

9. The Interview Process

10. Post Interview Process

11. The Interview Assessment Sheet

13. A selection procedure designed to predict future job performance on the basis of an applicant’s verbal responses to verbal enquiries A process in which a potential employee is evaluated by an employer for prospective employment in their company, organization or firm

14. Understanding Job descriptions & job specifications

16. Important contributions & outcomes needed from the role

18. Understanding of competencies required

20. Outline & organize the specific duties

21. List the attributes required

22. Write the Job Description

23. Simple English, precise and to the point

24. Job duties

25. Educational & Professional qualifications

27. Spells out important attributes in terms of education, skills, knowledge & abilities

28. The attributes may be classified into:

29. Essential Attributes – skills, knowledge, abilities a person possesses

30. Desirable Attributes – qualifications required both educational as well as professional

32. The title & team structure

33. The role itself

34. How the role will develop

35. Personal attributes / qualities needed

36. Remuneration

38. An interview process checks the candidate's fitness for the intended Job. Organizations will be successful with the right people in the right jobs. Wrong Person Right person Selected Not selected

39. Interview techniques

41. Usually, because a wrong interview technique is used

42. The different interview techniques used:

43. Traditional Interviews – resume based, direct questions, usually close-ended questions

44. Case based Interviews – a hypothetical situation, analytical skills, troubleshooting knowledge

45. Situational Interviews – more in-depth view of thought processes

46. Behaviourial Interviews – real world examples of a specific skill

49. Described in terms such that they can be measured.

50. JDs typically list the tasks or functions and responsibilities for a role

52. considered essential for staff with managerial or supervisory responsibility.

53. include analysis and decision making, team leadership, change management, general business knowledge and skills, etc.

54. Behaviourial

55. an expression of the softer skills involved

56. include communication skills, customer service, team work, inter-personal skills, etc

57. Technical / Functional

58. essential to perform any job in the organisation within a defined technical or functional area of work.

60. Team Leadership SkillsExamples of Questions: Thinking Analytically: Breaks down problems, identifies information to be used for analysis, uses both qualitative & quantitative methods to analyse data. Describe a time you had to analyse a problem, when did this happen, how did the situation arise, what data did you gather, how did you go about analysing the data and what were your recommendations. Team Leadership: Actively take steps to build a cohesive and results-oriented team. Please describe a situation in your career in which you built a team using members from separate workgroups. Be specific about the groups with which you worked, your common goal, the specific role you played in bringing everything together, and the outcome of the situation.

62. Interpersonal Skills

63. Customer care SkillsExamples of Questions Communicating with others: Produces clear and effective communication, both in writing and verbally, both in formal and in informal situations. Describe a situation in which you had to communicate a difficult message to either a group or an individual, when did this happen, what was the message to be communicated, why was this a difficult message, what approach did you choose, how did the audience respond and what feedback did you receive about the success of your communication? Customer Care: Seeks to understand customer requirements and works to exceed them. Describe a time you exceeded a customer’s expectations, when did this happen, what was your involvement, how did you establish the customer’s needs and how did you respond to those needs, how did the customer respond to what you did and how do you know that you had exceeded and not just met the customer’s needs?

65. Professional / Functional QualificationsExamples of Questions Computer Skills: Has a basic understanding of key concepts related to general computer skills. Describe how you would insert a table onto a word document, give examples of some commonly used excel formulae, how would you password protect a file, a cell, a worksheet; describe some animations used during a PowerPoint presentation, knowledge about using Microsoft Outlook for sending emails Professional / Functional Skills: Has a deep understanding of how to apply human resources policies and procedures to assist line managers in delivering organisational goals. Describe how you will administer a compensations and benefits program, manage a recruitment and selection program, demonstrate an understanding of relevant legal frameworks in hiring and firing employees, delivery of training programs.

66. Interviewing mistakes

68. Gossiping or exchanging stories

69. Afraid to ask tough questions

70. Falling prey to the Halo / Horns effect

71. Asking leading questions

72. Stressing the candidate

74. Rating candidates against each other

75. Poor preparation

76. Speedy hiring decisions

77. Not enough interviewers

80. Read the candidate’s resume completely & check:

81. Organisation of events

82. Clarity of description & conciseness of events

83. Unexplained breaks in education & service

84. Quality of the resume wrt template used, grammar, spellings etc

85. No external disturbances / distractions

86. No phone calls

87. Seating arrangements

88. Availability of stationery

91. Be positive & objective in your approach

92. Be an effective listener

93. Observe

95. Current & previous roles

96. Aspiration & awareness

97. Education & upbringing

98. Circumstances & interests

100. Close-ended Questions

101. Prompting / Encouraging Questions

102. Follow up Questions

103. Hypothetical / Situational Questions

104. Behaviourial, Descriptive Questions

107. Communication Skills & Body Language

108. Personality

109. Approach to People & Situations

110. Maturity Level

111. Role Specific Requirements

113. Non-compete clauses / contracts

114. Answering candidate’s questions

115. Selling the job / company

118. Fill up the Interview Assessment Sheet

119. Shortlisted / Rejected  / 

120. Feedback

123. This form includes the candidate’s suitability to the job profile that he/she has applied for; it also rates the candidate against the relevant competencies required for the job profile.

124. It records the feedback and any remarks that the interviewer may have regarding the candidate during the interview.