The Freelance Recruiting Bible: Interviewing

You’ve prepared, preened and posted, checkout out your body language and made sure you’ve got something noteworthy to ask and say at your interview (imagine how the candidates feel!). Now let’s get this show on the road!

Interviewing – what to do to survive it (and still employ someone to work with you!)

On the day of the interviews, prepare (yawn, yes, more prep) a list of times of candidates, along with their original application if it was done via a CV or application form, and a question sheet for each of them to allow you to record their answers. This will give you something to look at, at the end of the process, especially if you are seeing a few people. Interviewing can tend to be like a fairground procession, especially if you are seeing too many people (did you get bogged down when shortlisting this time? I’ve done that loads of times!) and they can kind of parade in front of you, with you missing some of the key facts unless you follow the standard question route and record the brief facts about what they say in response.

If you’re lucky enough to have someone help you out for the day, they may show your candidates in and out for you, leaving you to prepare yourself for each of the candidates as they are brought to you. If not, make sure you keep an eye on the time, and try and process each person according to their time slot. Before your candidate walks into the interview room, re-read their application, and remind yourself of why you’ve shortlisted them. Take a deep breath and smile – you’re on!

Set the scene each time: To start off with, it’s a good idea to tell interviewees about the structure your interview is going to take, and to put them at ease about the fact that you are taking notes. An example of this would be to say
‘Please be relaxed. It’s a nice chance for us to chat about the job and about your skills today. I’ve got some information about the job and about my company, and I’ve got some questions and then a test for you. After this, you can ask any questions you have. Are you OK with this? OK, good, while I ask you questions, I will be writing down your answers, so don’t worry if I take notes during the interview.’ (See – how smooth is that?)

Ask the questions and record the answers. Very briefly. Make enough of a note about the answer to jog your memory later. Observe the interviewee at the same time. How do they come across? If a candidate does not answer fully, try and ask the question in another way. You could grade answers out of ten/five and use this later.

Allow the candidate to ask questions. Answer them clearly, and again, make notes of any interesting or pertinent questions. Your interviewee should have researched the industry, and should really have something better to ask than ‘Do I get training?’ or ‘What about holidays and time off?’

Tell your interviewees what to expect. When will be making a decision? How will you let them know?

And again… Do this whole process three/four/five times depending on the number of candidates you’re seeing.

Go and sit in a quiet room somewhere, and go back over the paperwork. Which of your candidates was stronger? Who has the most potential? Who will be best suited to do the job? Will they promote you and your business in a professional manner? Can you see them dealing with your customers? Are they going to need a lot of training? You will be asking yourself all of these questions as you consider who the best interviewee was. Hopefully, using your questions and grading, you’ll be able to pick the right person for the job.

Once you’ve done this, you should take up any references before making an offer, and then, once you’re all happy and ready to go, inform the chosen one, by letter ideally, and let them know when to start.

Kindly and politely let the other applicants know that they were not successful, and if they want to know why not, tell them in a positive way, to allow them to build up their confidence and improve for next time.

Voila! You’ve done the easy bit, now you’ve got an employee, you’ve just got to work out what to do with them!

Next week – induction for your new employee.