Tips for a first time Interviewer?

[ImInStealthMode]

Hello :)

I was promoted into a management position earlier this year, and am currently recruiting for an admin position. First interviews are tomorrow, but I've not even attended an interview for nearly 20 years, never mind hosted one!

Does anyone have any tips to pass on? It's a non-corporate company in a fun industry so will be more about making sure a candidate will fit in with us as a small team and be capable of the work than grilling them on qualifications or asking tricky questions, but I'd like to be sure I'm not missing anything important.

Thanks in advance.

Make notes.

You are not looking for a friend but for someone who will fit in with the team you have

If over teams/zoom do not look over the screen at someone else & roll your eyes whilst interviewing a candidate.

Thank you. They're in person so definitely won't be rolling any eyes!!

Ask a gentle opening question where the answer doesn’t matter too much - but gives you and candidate time to calm some nerves and settle into the process

If in person then how they treat the receptionist or similar (ie when not in the actual interview) will tell you a lot about how they may fit in.

You want real life examples of how they have done key tasks or dealt with situations that you expect them to deal with in the role you're recruiting.

Be mindful of the word 'we', eg we developed a process, we made sure all the tasks were done...... you need to know what the person you are interviewing did, not what the team they worked in did.

Don't do the whole bad cop/hard ass thing that some managers like to do. Ultimately you're having a conversation with someone to identify if they:

• have the skill set you need
• will fit in with the team
• have the right attitude to fit your companies values
• can add value to the team through their experience

Be honest, if you know they want more money then you can offer, or if they are looking for a role in a mature, structured team and you know that you have a team with a lack of processes and lots to do to become mature... then don't lead them on. All that will happen is they'll drop out of recruitment at the next stage or they'll stick it out, start the role and then be high risk for leaving quickly once they uncover the truth.

When I recruited admin roles I was looking for

• accuracy - how do they ensure they are accurate in tasks, especially when telly busy
• pro-active approach - what would they do if they had no work, how do they keep up to date with any training/new processes, what would they do if they identified a possible improvement to a process
• workload management and prioritisation - how do they prioritise activities? What would they do if they got given a big but unimportant job by the CEO and at the same time had lots of high priority urgent work that needed to be done? How would they handle that situation, what would they do first?
• ownership/accountability - How do they handle mistakes - if for example they accidentally CC'd a load of customers on an email instead of BCCing or sent a letter to the wrong address, or deleted an important file, what would they do?
• team working - how do they share work amongst a team, support colleagues, share knowledge, mentor new starters

Try to have an idea of the qualities you are looking for and the traits you do not want in the tam before you start.

I found it very telling to ask people what they knew about our organisation and what we did. I was amazed that people had not looked us up.

Thanks @HalfShrunkMoreToGo.

The role is really varied and includes some fun stuff owing to the industry but there is a lot of tedious admin / data entry involved too so I've got in my notes already to ask how they feel about that sort of work. No point pretending it's going to be a barrel of laughs all day every day.

I'll also be asking for an example of where they've used initiative in a previous role. Our team spins an awful lot of plates and it's great to have people who are pro-active in getting things done without needing to be micro-managed.

Be honest with yourself throughout the interviews.

Are you looking at the interviewee through a lens of yourself? Or the team? Be scrupulous in recording the quality of the answers not just thinking that the person is "one of us".

Best teams I've ever been in have had diversity with employees

(Apologies if snippy, I've just come back from an infuriating meeting with about five interchangeable people who did not get it)

How did the 8nterviews go @ImInStealthMode

Great thank you! I think I was more nervous than the candidate in the first one but soon settled in to it