Effective Interviewing

There are many different styles of interviews. The approach you adopt when interviewing a short list of candidates may vary depending on organisational requirements, the industry you work in and the situation surrounding the vacancy. Ideally, you will have prepared a set of questions to ask prior to conducting any interviews. Asking the same questions to each of the candidates on the short list and noting down their responses will help you to benchmark the applicants against one another.

Remember the old adage, "Organisations hire on skills and fire on fit?" Skills are readily trainable, knowledge is readily learnable, but the attributes, behaviours and motivations required to be successful in a role are much harder to develop. Useful things to ask include:

• Why do you want this role?
• How does this role fit with your longer-term career objectives?
• Are you comfortable with the progress of your career to date?
• What aspects of your current role do you enjoy best? Why?
• What is your preferred leadership or management style?
• What sorts of people do you work best with?
• How would other people describe you?
• How would you describe yourself?
• Tell me about a challenge you have faced and how you responded.
• How do you measure your own performance?