Guide to Proper and Effective Employee Interviewing Techniques

How to find the best job candidates — and avoid legal pitfalls

By Mark Ingebretsen

To convince sought-after job candidates that your company is a competent, professionally run organization, an effective employer interview should:

1. Begin with a clear understanding of the interview's purpose and goals.
2. Provide a concise and organized background about the company and the particular job vacancy.
3. Be flexible enough to allow free-flowing discussion.
4. Encourage interviewees to be candid about their qualifications and their desires to join your company.
5. Finish with a shared sense of the interview's effectiveness and an understanding of what next steps (if any) will be taken.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Understand the legal issues surrounding interviews

Government regulations make plain what topics can and cannot be discussed in all employer/job candidate interactions.

I recommend: Lawyers.com offers guidance about the questions you can ask job candidates regarding disabilities, job discrimination and other matters. For a comprehensive reference, download the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment Law Guide. Find other resources on hiring compliance at the Hiring Procedures page of the federal government's Business.gov site.

Develop techniques to persuade top job candidates to join your company

To attract the best candidates to your company, develop and rehearse your key selling points in advance of the interview, including such areas as your company's vision and growth plans and the opportunities for quality employees.

I recommend: AllBusiness' Recruiting and Hiring Web page contains links to advice articles on attracting top job seekers. Find additional advice on hiring specialized employees, such as salespeople, managerial professionals and telecommuters from Entrepreneur.com's Hiring section.

Provide training and support for current employees involved in the hiring process

Current employees may be involved in the interview process. Make sure they convey a uniform message about your company and the position.

I recommend: Distribute this Small Business Administration guide to employees who will interact with job candidates. Download a low-cost hiring kit complete with forms and guidelines from Personnel Policy Services. A second low-cost guide from Job-interview.net has sample questions for interviewers.

Consider hiring outside expertise

A consultant or other outside expert can help you navigate the tricky waters of hiring.

I recommend: Find HR consultants using the specialized search engine at BuyerZone.com. Also find HR professionals at the Society for Human Resource Management. Smart Online provides a human-resources management tool to optimize recordkeeping from the hiring process onward. HRAnswers.net is a subscription-based service designed to answer pertinent questions from small company managers.

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Before interviewing for a new employee, analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your company and imagine how a key new employee might make a contribution.
• •  Become your own headhunter by continually networking among your colleagues and peers to help find quality people seeking new challenges.
• •  Attract top job candidates by projecting your company as one that provides a high-quality work environment that rewards the exceptionally talented.
• •  Use frank exit interviews to discover how well hirers' expectations were met, and let this information guide future recruiting efforts.