The Great Resignation has uncovered many new challenges for hiring managers. While finding candidates is easier than it's ever been, qualifying, interviewing, and checking references in an efficient and equitable way is more difficult than ever.

In this post, we'll talk about interviewing tips for managers, interviewer preparation before the interview, and interview techniques to identify top performers.

Let's face it, interviews can be tough on everyone.

Going into an interview, the hiring manager and candidate may be meeting each other for the first time and breaking the ice can feel awkward.

Interviewing via Zoom with varying internet speeds, communication styles, and faltering connections can make us feel like we're interrupting, talking over one another, or worse, completely missing parts of the conversation.

Which is why setting a candidate at ease should be the first priority for any interviewer. If the hiring manager comes into the interview late or stressed, the natural tendency will be to rush the process and project their stress onto the candidate.

If a candidate feels that the interviewer is tense or stressed, it might lead to a negative impression of the company, resulting in the candidate exiting the process and perhaps even urging others not to apply.

This is why a great interview actually starts long before the interview itself.

Check out our Ultimate Interview Checklist to start the hiring process on the right foot!

So, we've established that preparation is critical to nailing the interview. This means being clear about what the role entails, what skills and qualities are required, and knowing the company's story, culture, and team inside and out are imperatives.

Next, work with your team to develop a list of questions that will help you assess whether or not the candidate is a good fit for the role. This can speed up the screening process and get you a pool of qualified candidates. Here are 5 Tips to Screen Candidates More Efficiently.

Naturally, it's just as crucial to know what not to ask in an interview. Bad questions can come off as insensitive, unprofessional, or even offensive. This can upset the candidate and derail the interview process. Here's a list of questions you should never ask in an interview.

Once you have a list of "must-haves", these items may be compiled into a semi-structured list of questions that you can ask during your interview. These questions will help the interviewer stay focused and achieve better interview outcomes. The more prepared you are, the calmer and more confident you'll be, which will help put your candidate at ease.

Adding an interview intelligence software can help you turn these questions into a hiring process that increases your effectiveness and speeds up the process without putting pressure on candidates.

Interview Guide for Hiring Managers

Most of us didn't have a class called "interviewing 101 for managers." We had to figure it out through trial and error. Which meant we had to learn from our own mistakes; often by hiring the wrong people. 

If you're new to hiring or just looking for a refresher, this interview guide for hiring managers will help you learn the ropes and avoid some of the common mistakes we made early on in our careers.

We all know that humans are dynamic. So when it comes to candidate assessment, there are three main types of questions you should ask:
*Behavioral questions
*Situational questions
*Competency questions

Here are some examples of each question:

‍Behavioral Questions:
*"Give an example of when you have had to deal with a difficult customer- how did you help them achieve a positive outcome?"
*"Tell me about when you have had to handle a difficult or challenging situation at work- how did you handle it and describe the outcome?"
*"How do you deal with stress while working? Give an example of a time when you were under a lot of pressure."

‍Situational Questions:
*"If a customer expressed that they were extremely unhappy with our product, what would you do?"
*"You're working on a project and your team is not meeting the deadlines, what do you do?"
*"Think back to the last time you were feeling overwhelmed with your workload, how did you handle feeling overwhelmed?"

‍Competency Questions:
*"Can you give an example of when you had to manage multiple tasks at once? How did you manage time to accomplish all the necessary tasks?"
*"What would you do if you received a complaint from a customer? How would you resolve it?"
*"Tell me about a time when you had to handle a difficult customer service issue. How did you resolve it?"

The manner in which a candidate answers these questions may assist you in determining their grasp of "hard" and "soft" skills.

The hard skills required are often quite simple. For example, if you're looking for a web developer, they should know how to code in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. If you're looking for an accountant, they should be able to use accounting software like Quickbooks. And, if you're hiring a sales person they should be able to run an effective demo.

The soft skills are more difficult to assess as they are often intangible. For example, qualities like "team player"  or "attention to detail." Soft skills are often just as important as hard skills and will likely have a bigger impact on job performance, culture fit, and employee satisfaction.

An interview intelligence software can simplify this entire process and help you make effective, unbiased hiring decisions so that you get the best candidates. Pillar's interview intelligence platform allows organizations to center hiring decisions on objective reality rather than subjective opinions.