The job interview is a two-way street. As you're trying to determine whether this person is a good fit for the job, department, and company, the person you're interviewing is also evaluating those same factors. Though the pendulum swings along the job availability continuum, an applicant is no more likely to take your job, no questions asked, than you are to offer it.

The most effective approach is to structure the interview as a dialogue in which you ask a few questions about the candidate's experience or education, then let the candidate ask a few questions about the job and the work environment. Prospective employees want to know how you envision applying their skills and abilities; they will also be curious about the other employees in the department and what kinds of working relationships they might expect.

Some people may be most concerned with factors such as whether they can put family photos on their desks, while others want to know how you as the manager can separate the contributions multiple employees make to the same project. By the time the candidate reaches you for an interview, he or she has likely already made it through a preliminary interview with human resources. You may choose to offer a tour of the department or work area or to introduce some of your key employees.

Finding the Right Match

Most jobs actually have two sets of requirements: those related to expertise and experience, and those related to personality and work style. Requirements related to skill sets appear to be fairly clear-cut and easy to establish. This is probably true for jobs in which the tasks are highly structured or even rote. If you need to hire someone to operate a punch press in the production department, it's easy enough to determine whether an applicant has the knowledge and skill to do this. Because the job itself is highly structured, the person's personality and work style are less relevant to performance. If you're hiring to fill a position in the sales department, the situation is far more subjective. Because the job involves forming relationships (however short-lived they might be), work style and personality are significant factors.

An Interview Example

There is more than one way to conduct an effective interview. Like Michael, you may employ a multilevel approach.

Michael was the manager of a software company's marketing department. His work group spent a lot of time together, and its productivity depended on how well employees could work collaboratively. It was crucial that new employees had both the appropriate job skills and the right “mesh” with the rest of the group. There was little room for frail egos or high-and-mighty attitudes, and Michael could sniff out either all the way from the lobby. His department needed people who were talented yet genuinely humble. They spent much of their time in meetings or on the phone with clients and prospective clients. They had to be people-people, and they had to be good listeners.

The company's HR department confirmed resumes and conducted preliminary interviews, then forwarded the applicants who met the job's technical qualifications and the company's basic requirements. One “test” Michael incorporated into job interviews was to drone on and on about a particular subject to see how the applicant responded. This gave him a sense of how the person might respond to a client who did the same thing. An applicant who maintained eye contact, nodded and smiled, and appeared to remain interested even when Michael began to bore himself earned an invitation to tour the department and meet with the group. An applicant who checked his watch, fidgeted in his chair, interrupted, or whose eyes glazed over was not likely to make it to the next round.

It was also important to Michael that the people he hired have diverse interests. His department supported a wide range of clients and projects. So he also engaged applicants in dialogue about events in the news. He broached topics of interest to the local community, to see whether an applicant could pick up the threads and weave them into a conversation. And he asked both work-related and more general-interest questions, just to see how he felt as he and the applicant talked. At this point, intuition guided many of Michael's reactions. Was this a person he wanted to spend time around? Was this someone he wanted to mentor or nurture? Was this someone who would get along well with the department's current employees and clients?

The final step in Michael's hiring process was to have the applicant meet with a number of his employees. He usually scheduled a formal meeting in which three to five employees sat down with the applicant to describe their work and ask the applicant questions. Michael also tried to have several informal connections take place, to get “first impression” feedback from employees as well.

Before making a final decision, he reviewed all the factors and responses, and compared them to what he knew were his personal biases. One of those biases was about attitude. Michael felt it was nearly always a better decision to hire someone who was eager and cooperative but a little short on practical experience than someone whose experience was astounding but who had an arrogant attitude. When Michael was satisfied that he had a balanced and quantifiable perspective, he consulted with HR one last time and then made a decision.

There are aspects of Michael's approach that appear arbitrary. It encompasses intangibles on Michael's end, such as his ability to select employees that his experience tells him are good choices for the work and the department. These are inherent dimensions of subjective judgment. But if you look closely, you'll see that Michael's approach incorporates a great deal of consistency as well, following the same pattern of questioning in each interview.