Are Traditional Interviews Relevant Today!

Whether you need to recruit new members of staff or you have a promotion opportunity, the traditional course of action is to interview a selection of candidates for the role. However, will you get the best candidate for the position by using this method for recruitment or promotion?

Interviews alone for new recruits are not great predictions of how your selected candidate will perform. This is because interviews tend to be subjective, with candidates practising answers to the obvious questions, so do you really get to know that person and their capabilities?

Job Interviews tend to favour confidence over competence and for those who are shy, introvert or, like myself, find it hard to present oneself well, then this process does not reflect the future performance of all those going for the position. In recent surveys in the UK it showed that 92.5% of people lie on their CV (2018 CV-Library survey), 81% of people lie during their job interview and 71.6% of those that lied getting the job as a result. With this in mind, there must be a better way that encourages candidates to be truthful and is a fairer way to show that they are right for the job.

Companies that interview when a promotion becomes available have the opportunity, unlike with new recruits, to look at each person’s performance to ascertain their suitability for the job role. However, this does not always happen with some companies only using the interview process to promote staff. By not looking at past performance those that keep their heads down are usually at a disadvantage and can sometimes be overlooked.

Therefore, the interview process for both recruitment and promotion needs to be re-thought. Instead of using outdated and impractical questions, or not looking at past performances, interview should be more of a two-way conversation so that you get to know each other. I have always found that the more informal the interview process the better I have done. Having conducted interviews myself the best candidates are those that engage in conversation with enthusiasm, providing you with a sense of how they would fit within the organisations values, how they will engage with the company’s strategy and how they will perform. This would give everyone the opportunity to showcase they are right for the position.

Have you looked at your recruitment process lately……………….

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