Recruitment Starter Pack #3: We love an interview?

Number 3 of the series looking at hiring a new employee. We've looked at the importance of creating a great place to work, to keep people in your team, and the time and effort you need to take to get the right people on the bus. 

The CVs will have come in, you've got some ideas, you've recognised your potential bias as you start your selection process. Then we generally end up in an interview process. 

Back to the wise human resources contacts of mine…...

"It's important to understand that interviewing is one part of the picture and, according to research, not the best predictor of candidate success. Interviews need to be robust, which means having a clear idea of what you want to check with the person – is it a personal characteristic or leadership trait, compassion, team player-ness or experience in a particular area?" (Thank you Gil). 

"Interview and assess for broader skills than clinical.....and generate a mix of people profiles in the team." (Thank you, Don). 

Suggestions from my HR gurus included a presentation on a topic key to the role and considering sending the interview questions in advance to the candidate. The advice was strong that a stand-alone interview often isn't enough and interviewing is not the only way to recruit. Consider an assessment centre or an informal 1:1 interview. I have recently been involved in this style of recruitment and it changed the flavour completely and gave a different dynamic to the recruitment that had real value. The feedback from the candidates was that the 1:1 interview was more relaxed and they were able to be more themselves. 

Psychometric testing can be used, particularly for senior roles and meeting with the team they will be joining may also be appropriate.

As you can tell I reached out to people who I consider experts in this field to help me with these emails. I want to thank them and urge you to do the same. Your human resources and organisational development teams are an amazing resource for you. 

I was recruiting recently for a role and I met with my HR manager to help me form the interview questions. I went into the meeting with my stock questions and a plan for them to review what I had, and tweak them a bit. I was pulled right up and back to the start. We spent a really useful hour digging into what I wanted from the role and the person I was looking for. Understanding this helped me frame the questions to uncover what I needed, not complete a tick box exercise. The people here to support you in healthcare are gold and you need to use them to help you get your best team on board. 

Your questions need to be framed to draw out examples of the skills, values and strengths of the person in front of you. This article will give you a starting point.