A Blind Spot in the Hiring Process
Faced with waves of upheaval, from a global epidemic to the great resignation and a widening skills-gap, talent acquisition and human resources managers struggle to reach recruiting targets. At the same time, the applicant interview, the most typical component of the recruiting process, continues to be a source of inconsistency, inefficiency, and incorrect data.
While most individuals are well-intentioned, once you leave the ranks of talent acquisition professionals, interviewers often lack the expertise to obtain information that is indicative of a candidate’s chances of success on the job. They frequently neglect to examine the most significant themes. They aren’t taught in a consistent process on how to grade an applicant in a dependable and accurate way.
Another important difficulty is just human nature. Unconscious prejudUnconscious Biasa candidate’s work experience, appearance, or demography frequently enters into competence judgments, further lowering the efficiency of the interview.
“Humans are subject to more than 180 recognized cognitive biases.”
This lack of expertise and training on the side of interviewers raises the chance of losing strong applicants in today’s fast-paced market as well as the possibility of poor employee retention when competent prospects are recruited.
6 Problems with Today’s Job Interview Process
Most firms concentrate on assessing applicants’ performance in the interviews to choose the best personnel. But who is assessing interviewers and ensuring they are performing high-quality interviews? What if they are not asking pertinent questions? What if they aren’t ranking a candidate accurately? What if they have prejudices toward a candidate?
In reality, individuals are prone to more than 180 identified cognitive biases in standard recruiting methods. So how can we know whether interviewers are offering fair and trustworthy judgments of candidates they interview? Without training, a structured interview framework, and frequent feedback on their interview abilities, how is it feasible to overcome these obstacles?
Here are six of the key difficulties we’ve noticed with today’s interview process for job hopefuls.
- Lack of Training for Interviewers
Interviewers typically lack interviewing skills and the means to develop. - Lack of Organization
Interviews should follow a specified structure, not merely a predetermined set of questions. - Lack of Rapport Building
Interviewers should obtain job-related information from an applicant via appropriate discourse. - Lack of Emphasis
Interviewers should emphasize the significance of the job inside the company. - Unconscious Bias
Interviews are not as neutral and fair as they might be. - A Bad Candidate Experience
Good applicants might be lost due of poor interviewers.
Goals for a Better Interviewing Process
Overcoming these hurdles in the interview process can only increase the efficiency and efficacy of the recruiting process. It should be a priority in today’s difficult talent market. Creating interview frameworks that are fair, reproducible, and extremely accurate in their evaluation of applicants. Implementing mechanisms to decrease unconscious bias. Deploying an approach that not only helps teach, but delivers a constant feedback analysis of an interviewer’s performance.
“LISTEN!”
Ensuring your firm has fair applicant interviewing methods will dramatically boost the likelihood of acquiring excellent personnel.
Simple Steps to Improve Your Interview Process
The interview is the most typical evaluation for the job applicants your talent acquisition team has recruited. If a candidate has reached the interview phase in the recruiting process, don’t squander the chance.
Provide interviewers with whatever training is feasible. Give them an interview structure to follow. Ensure they’ve studied a candidate’s résumé or CV. Give your interviewers some basic questions to get a discussion started with the applicant.
“Make the interview a conversation, not an interrogation.”
Recognize that most applicants are anxious. Do everything you can to put the applicant at ease. Interviewers will acquire deeper insights into a candidate when the individual is comfortable.
Listen. Pay attention to the candidate. Follow up their replies with questions focused on their remarks. Make it a discussion, not an interrogation, and respectfully keep the conversation on topic and relevant to the employment opportunity.
Training interviewers is merely the first step to reforming and increasing the efficacy of the interview process. But it is a big first step.
Struggling with the Screening and Interviewing Process
The HCL talent acquisition and HR departments were processing hundreds of applications per week. They were challenging to find excellent prospects amid the overwhelming amount of applications. Simply managing applicants, scheduling, and early screenings had become burdensome.
Read how Talview’s Hiring Solution assisted the team at HCL America in our case study.
