Does Interview Skills Training Make For Better Hiring Decisions?
By Rachel Hill
February 26, 2024
People are not born knowing how to interview. It always surprises me that people are promoted into leadership positions and just expected to know how to interview or get the most out of a process. And it’s not just hiring managers - many in the Talent Acquisition (TA) profession have also never received any formal training.
Often our Hiring Managers and or those new to recruitment are given an interview pack – and off you go. Anyone can interview, right? Err sorry - no.
Having a good interview technique and decent probing questions can make the hiring decisions much better and get a better fit for the role and the organisation. Not only does it ensure the candidate has the right skills and competencies for the role. A professional interview can also ensure the candidate has a good experience.
A professional, well-structured interview with searching questions can be the secret sauce to creating a great candidate experience that makes the candidate really want to join your organisation.
Do Your Hiring Managers Know What To Ask?
So the key question HR and TA teams need to be asking is: Do your hiring managers even know what to ask, and how to ask it? And that they have to sell the role and organisation too? In a tight marketplace, this could mean the difference between an offer accepted or an offer declined.
Recent AHRI research in 2023 predicted that 50% of people accepting job offers will decline later and go elsewhere.
Sometimes hiring managers are even quite adept at putting candidates off the role!
The Benefits of Good Interviews
There are significant benefits to performing well-structured and properly trained interviews. We call our format WIGGS which we train hiring managers on. How did we come up with this? Well throughout my career I’ve undertaken I estimate over 10,000 interviews! Yes, that’s over 28 years… and during that time I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly of recruitment interviews with hiring managers.
The Structure WIGGS stands for:
- Welcome
- Getting Information (Competency Based Questions)
Ideally the above should be done in that order and take at least 45 mins to an hour to ensure everything is covered.
We also train on far more than just a good structure. Hiring Managers and your leaders need to know so much more.
So, make sure any recruitment skills training courses you do also cover:
- The current marketplace
- The role of social media in modern-day recruitment
- EVP and Employer branding and the need to sell the role & organisation
- Competency and behavioural-based interviewing
- Making the right hiring decisions (choosing the best candidate) scoring and evaluation
- Understanding the recruitment and selection process
- Creating diversity and inclusion in recruitment practices
- Understanding unconscious bias,
- EEO and the laws affecting recruitment.
- Using suitable evaluation and assessment tools and techniques to select the right candidate (job fit)
- Good Reference checking and onboarding practices
- Potential barriers to hiring (for minority groups)
- Different question types and how to probe for specific information
And The Benefits:
- Stops Hiring Managers doing all the talking (we support a 30:70 rule)
- Stops Irrelevant questions
- Stops Illegal questions and practices (think Discrimination Acts at Federal and State levels)
- Get the most relevant information from each candidate
- Ensures managers are prepared and have thought about their questions
- Ensures consistency and compliance
- Provides structure (less rambling or inappropriate questions)
- Reduces unconscious bias
- Improves Diversity and Inclusion across hiring practices.
- Raises standards of attraction
- Improves candidate care and feedback mechanisms
- Ensures EVP and Brand messages (selling the role and organisation)
- Raises standards of questions and question types
- Makes sure it’s a great experience and managers can better sell the role and organisation and secure talented candidates
Improving Your Internal Capability
We believe:
- Recruitment should be a core leadership skill of your hiring managers.
- In a tight labour market, it is essential that hiring managers know who they are looking for, and why (review the PD and core competencies) how to assess skills and competence and how to better sell the role and organisation.
- It helps identify talent when looking for transferable skills (skills-based recruitment) as opposed to just qualifications or experience.
It’s A No-Brainer, Right?
Recruitment should be the cornerstone of your business strategy. Your people are your biggest asset, so investment in attracting and attaining the best – by picking the best skills is essential.
Want To Start Your Interview Training?
We run training groups of up to 15 people, deliver at your premises or online and can tailor each program to your organisation’s needs. It can be a half day, a full day and pitched for senior leaders or TA fundamentals for Juniors in TA.
Whats Next – It’s Easy…
So, if you wish to uplift the capability within your organisation, let's arrange some specialist training for your leaders and hiring managers.
To find out more visit either Hill Consulting. check out our dedicated Linkedin page or book an appointment via contact us button.
Email Rachel Hill
Visit our sister website for more trainer bios.
