Recruiting new employees can be an easy task for most of the managers because they think that they are good at interviewing. However, many human resource practitioners find that it is not easy to do the recruitment well. Many reports have shown that interviewers fail in their tasks over and over again because they make up their minds too early and they get the wrong candidates. They fail to collect all the relevant information about the job applicants. As a result, they can’t evaluate the applicants in a systematic manner. To be frank, conducting interviews is still considered the most common method of selecting new staff. Hence, being a responsible manager, you should learn some useful interviewing skills so that you are able to identify the right people to be placed at the right place.

Before you start conducting the interview, you should do some necessary preparation first. You must make sure that you have the job descriptions on hand. You need to know the duties and responsibilities of the job positions clearly before you meet the candidates. You are reminded to go through the application forms of the job applicants thoroughly so that you know what to ask when you meet up with them face to face. If you are new in conducting interview, I would highly recommend you to list all the general questions before the interview sessions. Being a recruiter, you need to be well-prepared. The candidates may have bad impression on you if they find out that you are inexperienced.

When you start conducting the interview, you have to make the session organized. You should ask the questions according to the right sequence. You are advised to brief the candidates about the job descriptions and the background of the organization. At the same time, it is important for you to draw out the candidates’ career biography, i.e. past, present and future. You need to capture the job applicants’ attention. The rationale of doing so is to “convince” the talents to work with you and your organization. In order to evaluate the candidates in an effective manner, you are suggested to ask more open-ended questions. Let the candidates provide you the information you need.