Ways to conduct a fun and a great interview

It is important that you first try to comfort your candidate by asking him basic questions and letting him speak his mind. Don’t try to conduct an interview, instead start off with a conversation. You don’t have to have a set of mandatory questions and expect certain mundane answers. Instead, make it more personal and find ways to ask your candidate the same questions in a more easy environment. This will make your candidate set his tone towards you and he will become confident when he talks to you. Tensing him up might make you lose a good candidate because he is just under pressure.

[Also know – What you shouldn’t say in an interview]

You need to do your homework even if you are on the other end of the interview. The only way you need to figure out how to not get stuck with the questions, is by doing your homework right? Know the number of questions you should ask, get your facts right about the subject matter and try to slip yourself into the other person’s shoes. Asking appropriate questions will gain you a good candidate. If you go ahead asking if something totally irrelevant, he might not be wanting to sit through the interview. It all starts with your homework. So, get that right!

Don’t make everything look like you have written down. You don’t want to be looked at like the person who writes your questions down while asking. That will make you look like you are not ready to be the interviewer. Wear a smile and get your questions from your mind. Writing down an agenda or the number of questions is not going to help you. You need to let loose and go in for follow up conversations to know the person better. That way you will learn more about the candidate.

Don’t have close ended questions because if you do so, you will get only Yes or No as an answer. If you have open ended questions like Why or How, candidates generally tend to open up and answer better. When you have open ended questions, you also have the freedom to check on follow up conversations which makes it easy for you.

You might have to be careful with your facial expressions because this may flip your candidate. When you change cringe or change expressions, your face shows it all and tenses up your candidate. Instead, keep a smiling straight face or a nod which is more encouraging for them to open up. That way, they will be less scared to answer your questions. More expression change might involve more stammering or changing of answers by the candidates.

After a first few questions, you will definitely know how you candidate is doing, so taking lead for him if he is stuck somewhere is not a bad idea. Not everyone gets everything right, Right? So, it is fine to get stuck and not know what to answer next. That is when, you can be the bigger guy and step in and help your person who is in need. If he is not able to answer at all, then just ignore and go ahead with the next question.

Sometimes, your candidate might be so good with answers that you might forget to check on your clock. You should remember that a minimum interview time taken allot should be half an hour and maximum can go up to an hour and a half. Anything more than that, can be painful for you and your candidate. So, keep a tab on your watch.

It is good to write a certain things down when you candidate answers. It is better to have written records of what he expects from the job your offer than just verbal connection. That way, it is easier when you have to take decision since you might have to compare more than 2 people while employing them. So, write the basic stuff like their expectation on salary, the number of experiences etc.

End of the day, you are on the other side of the table and you can have fun. You can ask your candidate, whatever you want and get desirable answers. Make it seem like a casual meeting and converse instead of tensing him up. Smile and let him take breaks in between if need be. Nothing better than you are cool!

-Pavithra Ravi