Interview and Hire the Right People — A 2-Day Course

 Open Public Course Closed In-House Course

Course Synopsis

• Do you need to hire people - internally or externally?
• Do you want to be able to create a job specification?
• Do you feel uncomfortable interviewing people?
• Do interviews turn into waffle, uncomfortable silences or are unproductive in helping you come to a decision?
• Do you want to confidently ask all the questions you have?
• Do you need a structured approach to interviewing and hiring?
• Are you aware of the legal pitfalls awaiting the inexperienced interviewer?
• Do you want to know how to decide who to interview and who to hire?
• Would you like practice being interviewed as well as interviewing?

If the answer is "YES" - this is the course for you!

You will explore how to create competencies, sift CVs, plan the right questions to ask, actively listen and make a decision on whether or not to hire.

There will be plenty of practice and a chance to try out techniques in a safe environment so that you can get comfortable and confident with your new skills.

"Hire for attitude, train for skills" - Tom Peters (management guru)

Course Objectives

During this training course, delegates will:

• Learn how to prepare for an interview
• Understand the legal implications of the questions you ask
• Learn how to think in terms of competencies (skills and attributes)
• Understand how to ask questions that will get you the answers you need, rather than provoke waffle
• Ensure you get dependable evidence form the candidate rather than made up stories of what they think you want to hear
• Gain the ability to deal with legal and cultural implications of interviewing
• Create a personal action plan to enable them to put what they have learned into action when they get back

In the Practical Workshops, students will:

• Experience all stages of hiring from preparing job specifications to interviewing and deciding who to hire
• Learn skills in funnel questioning to gain specific information and probe
• Practice actively listening to understand what people are saying
• Gain feedback on your interviewing style
• Gain practice at each stage of interviewing as well as 2nd interviews

Intended Audience

This course is intended for:

• Anyone who wants to improve their success rate at hiring suitable candidates from the interview process, whilst creating a fair and standard process to follow.

Benefits for your Company

Hiring the wrong people causes conflict within teams, demoralises individuals and results in lengthy HR discussions to get rid of the person before too much damage is done. All the while the business is still suffering from not having someone in that role. This course helps you to ensure you don't make this costly mistake.

The company will also benefit from you using your time more efficiently in planning the interview and reduce the risk of losing money from unnecessary tribunals from unfair interview processes. This course can be run as a dedicated company event incorporating your own competencies, values, processes, forms and standards.

Benefits for You

Gaining confidence in this area will enable you to interview and be interviewed without feeling stress or worry. You will be able to relax and see the simple process behind what you are doing.

Publicly scheduled dates, locations, and prices

Outline Course Contents

Introduction & Welcome

You will meet other interviewers and discuss the best/worst interview you have ever been part of and what makes an interview effective.

An experienced, friendly trainer will help you visualise where you want this course to take you.

Why Structure an Interview?

We will discuss the benefits of successful recruitment for you and the company as well as the interviewee. You will be shown the stages of an interview and what should happen at each stage.

Prepare to Recruit

You will look at creating a job specification as well as designing competencies (skills and attitudes) required. We will also look at messages you unconsciously give to agencies, applicants but the language you use in your job specification. We will discuss whether to use pre-written application forms or ask for CVs.

You will write sample job specifications and competencies for your vacancies or use our case study examples.

Decide Who to Interview

You learn a quick structured approach to sifting large numbers of CVs. We will discuss the use of agencies in fulfilling this role and what guidelines to give them. You create a checklist for your vacancy or our case study.

Create Interview Questions

You will create questions for each of your competencies and in addition learn what to look for on CVs that you might want to ask questions about. You will look at open, probing and closed questions as well as demonstrative versus hypothetical questions. We will discuss legal aspects of what can and cannot be asked. You create questions for your vacancies or our case study examples.

Meet & Greet

We will discuss what details need to be discussed at this stage, from putting candidates at ease, showing them where to sit, to saying a few words about yourself, the company and the role. You role play meeting and greeting interview candidates and telling them a bit about you and your company.

Fact Finding

This is the main stage of the interview that you have designed your questions for. You will look at the funnel technique for getting candidates to become more specific if they are being vague and also tactics to use with people who are talking too much. You will look at exploratory and probing questions where you need more detail.You will also look at methods of recording information for use in decision making later.

You role play asking your questions and finding the facts as well as noting down what is important.

Ending the Interview

We will discuss what details need to be discussed at this stage, from next steps, 2nd interview details if important to natural small talk whilst the candidate is shown out.

You role play closing an interview and showing the candidate out.

2nd Interviews

We will discuss whether to hold second interviews and the types of questions to ask and activities you may ask the candidates to perform. You will role play a 2nd interview.

Cultural Considerations

Here we will discuss the nationalistic, departmental, religious and company culture differences and the impact they have on interviews, including discussing recent news stories.

You become aware of the aspects to alert yourself to when interviewing those with different cultures to your own.

Decide to Hire

We will discuss how to use the notes we made to score and decide who to hire as well as weighting aspects that you may consider to be more important, for example culture fit.

You create a checklist for your own decision making.

Action Plan

You will write an action plan to take back with you to ensure you take away the best practice from the course.

You write your top 3 tips and an action plan with SMART goals.