Help with Interviewing Job Candidates

My workplace has decided I’m the person to start interviewing and filling positions we’re hiring. I’m mostly a design person, so I have no idea what I’m doing. I already had to do this once, and ended up choosing a person that interviewed well but is mostly a disaster. Incompetent, gossipy, etc. The person was so bad they eliminated the position and stuck them somewhere they can’t hurt anything. They interviewed well (twice) and also had a glowing reference from someone I’ve worked with before in the past and had no reason to think was fooling me, but they obviously didn’t know how to use basic software.

So I have to do it again, and I really don’t want to mess up this time. Can anyone offer tips and questions I can ask to try to find out if this person knows their stuff? It’s basically a secretary/admin position, but there is a lot of minor web editing and newsletter design involved. The position’s only been open for three days, and I already have 100+ applications for it. If I want to test for tech competency skills, do I give a short task and watch them complete it or what? I know these might be obvious questions, but anything to help me out would be great.

TLDR: I need help interviewing job candidates.

I’m pretty sure there are some turnkey Web-based testing programs, kind of like the ones they give you at temp agencies. They seem to have a module for virtually every software program/skill.

Does your company not have an HR person? Handing over interviewing to someone who does not know employment law and all the things you can/can’t ask/do sounds like a recipe for disaster.

I would check to make sure it’s OK to ask them to take a skills test. In a temp agency, EVERYONE takes a test. If you’re requiring a test of only certain positions, I think things start getting sticky. At least, that’s the way it is where I work.

Speaking of temps, why don’t you guys try advertising the position as temp-to-full time and go with a local agency? They’ll certainly be better at vetting candidates than someone with no experience in that area. Then, if the first temp works out, you offer them full-time. If not, scrap their assignment and try another temp. That way you won’t be stuck with another incompetent worker who interviews well.

Temps are a little more expensive in the short term, but you also don’t have to provide insurance coverage for them. And just THINK of the long-term costs involved in keeping a paperweight on staff for the next 5+ years. What a nightmare. This is the situation temps were MADE for.

It’s a long ridiculous story, but I work for a huge employer with its own HR department. For whatever reason they just want to approve the end person, not search themselves, even though I know this is a Bad Idea. We actually already asked for a temp and they said no. Honestly I think they get what they deserve at this point, but I have to work with this person, so I’m trying to be competent. Thanks for the suggestions so far, though.

This is a biggy. Stay far away from any question that could even slightly be thought of as against equal opportunity type questons, race, religion, politics, sex, etc.

Stick around situation questions. If their resume says they know how to use x software, ask them direct questions on how that software works and how they have used it. Ask them how have handled certain specific situations in the past.

HR is good for telling you what to do, but if there is any skill involved, HR should stay away from interviewing. In places I’ve worked HRs involvement has been setting up scheduling and travel, and a session explaining benefits.

Lots of people like tests. When I worked for Bell Labs tests were forbidden, so I’m not fond of them, but I see their value especially for pretty standard skills.

The other thing to do is to ask for specific examples about the application of skills claimed in a resume. If they claim they know a language, ask them about the biggest program they’ve done in that language. I like to ask about the worst bugs they committed. Anyone not having an example is either lying or has not done anything significant.
I get a lot of impressive sounding project which turn out to be two week class projects where the person I’m interviewing has had very little input.

Do enough of these, and you will eventually get to know who is good and who isn’t, but it takes some practice.

My daughter interviewed for a job as copy editor for a small publisher. The owner of the company chose three candidates from the interviews and gave them each a text to copy edit. She paid each of them the standard fee she always paid free-lance copy editors. After reading the three results, she hired my daughter and used the text as my daughter had edited it.

Believe me, it was worth it to pay to do this job (I think she paid each of them around $50, about 20 years ago) to find out what they could do.

My son has interviewed people for programming jobs and he has the feeling he has no idea what he is doing. Nor does he ever get feedback on how his hires work out. Not a good scene.

You say the person interviewed well, but is there anything that stands out in hindsight from the interview? I know I’ve observed behavior that seemed insignificant at the time, but that I later realized was part of a pattern. Did anything get “bookmarked” in your mind?

Some temp agencies and municipal HR depts. here use Kenexa Prove-It to test for MS Office and other job skills. I’m not recommending them, just giving you one site to look at.

A long, long time ago I had an interview for a highly technical position, where the main interviewer was the hiring manager but there was also someone from HR present. The manager limited himself to technical stuff, experience, can you do this, how would you do that. Well, to apparently technical stuff: the test that made him turn to the HR person and say “I want her” was that he asked if I was familiar with a specific variety of chroma and I said I wasn’t, and that in fact I couldn’t even recall studying the theory behind it. Turns out there was no such thing - but every previous candidate had claimed to have experience in it. Since he was going to spend a lot of time away from the lab, he wanted someone honest.

So, two suggestions: divide the interview with someone from HR and ask a couple of trap questions.

There is one question I always ask. Call the applicants former employers and ask if the person is eligible for rehire. Most companys are very carefull if you ask direct questions. You would be surprised how open they will be if you ask the right question.

I always start with a spreadsheet (I’m analytical, sue me) with the skills needed for the position in the first column and candidate names across the top. During interview I ask behaviour based inquiries about each skill (“Tell me about a newsletter that you designed.” “How did you decide on the layout?” “Who was the audience?” “How did you interact with the people on the newsletter team?” “Tell me about a bad experience while working on the newsletter” “How did you handle it?”). I make notes of teh answers on a seperate piece of paper. Immediately after the interview I review my notes and rate each skill on a 0-5 scale, with 0 meaning “no experience with this skill” to 5 being “expert”. Sum up the total score and it becomes much easier to compare candidates on an apples-to-apples basis. You can also use weighted scores if one or two skills are vastly more (or less) important than others.

Doctor Jackson, that is a fabulous idea. I will definitely do that. Also, thanks to everyone else, I am taking in all your suggestions. The asking pointed but “legal” questions to references is also a good one I need to remember. Luckily someone actually listened about the absurdity of me doing this alone, and a department head got assigned to partner with me, so I’m feeling a lot better about it.

Not good. Some companies will not rehire you if you’ve taken voluntary redundancy.

This would really be way outside of the OPs role to call the former (current) employer of an applicant. Usually the HR group handles all of the reference checking, background check, etc.