When I take on a new interview coaching client, particularly one with a lot of hiring experience, I often ask them about how they like to kick off candidate interviews. It can tell me a lot about the work that lies ahead.
I often hear something like this: “I like to start with a fairly open-ended question about who they are as a person. Something like, ‘What’s something interesting about you?’ or ‘Tell me about yourself.’ That gets the ball rolling.”
When I ask these same leaders about the challenges they face in interviews — that is, the reason they are seeking my help — there’s a strong correlation with two common pain points:
You probably guessed it . . . these issues are linked.
The first few minutes of an interview are extraordinarily important. This is where expectations are set. This is where you communicate what we are here to do.
Put yourself in the candidate’s shoes. Interviewing is a wildly chaotic ocean of different styles and approaches — stress interviews, unstructured interviews, brain teasers, ridiculous “curveball questions.” And many interviewers have no plan or questions to ask at all!
In those first few minutes of the interview, candidates are looking to you to understand what’s about to happen and how they should behave.
If you want candidates to share specific information about their experiences, and do it crisply, you need to communicate that expectation. And you need to do it early.
So, here are three tactics to get you started on the right foot:
1. Set the agenda. Once the small talk is over, jump in with confidence.
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