Hiring Experts Share Winning Advice on Conducting Effective Job Interviews to Hire Excellent Employees

Hiring is a challenging task, but a properly conducted interview can minimize the risk of a bad hire. To help you maximize your interview success, consider the following advice based on interviews with 65 experienced human-resource professionals.

Prepare 'Behavioral' Interview Questions

Behavioral based interviewing helps you uncover how an applicant handled specific situations in the past. The idea is to ask questions that deal with the responsibilities of the position you're looking to fill.

As an example, if you're hiring for a customer service position, you could ask "At your last job, describe a situation where you effectively dealt with an upset customer."

Or a more general question could be "Identify a difficult situation you faced in a previous job, and tell me how you dealt with it." (Courtesy of Mike Phinney, Human Resources Director, HRDC)

The Best Predictor of Future Behavior is Past Behavior

If you're looking for somebody who is efficient and organized, you could ask them to describe how (and when) they create daily task lists for use on the job. You could then ask them to go into detail about how they manage their list. Of course, it would be important for you to understand how an effective task list is created and managed (which would include prioritizing the list, estimating time for tasks etc.) If the applicant's response suggests they have an unorganized approach to task management, you can pretty much bet they're not going to change overnight...

Linda Jeffers, Human Resource Officer, Bank of Agriculture & Commerce suggests the following question to get a sense of somebody's work style: "Tell me about a typical day in your current position."

Tip: unless you're okay with having employees who are overly critical, be on your guard if they start to criticize former employers during the interview. It really can't be stressed enough: The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior!

Corporate Culture: Is the Applicant a Fit?

It's important to share details about your company's culture so the applicant can get a clear picture as to what the environment is really like. And make sure you ask them if they have any questions about your culture, and try to get a sense as to whether or not it's a fit for them. This can be very important when it comes to employee retention...

A Great First Interview Question

Over the years, a number of human resource experts told me one of their favorite interview questions was, 'Tell me how you prepared for this interview.' I took it to heart, and began using it when I started my own company. In fact, it was the very first question I would ask when conducting an interview!

To say this question really separates the prepared individual from the unprepared individual would be an understatement. So if an applicant responds with a "deer in the headlights" look followed by an unprepared rambling statement, I get a pretty good sense of their preparation abilities. On the other hand, if the reply is to the point and discusses the fact they've researched my company and feel their specific skill sets are in line with the responsibilities posted, I know I have a potentially viable candidate. And that's a good thing...

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