Interviewing

[DarkHorse]

I work far too hard' date=' and my boss agrees, so she's given me finance to hire a P/T assistant. The past couple of days I've been interviewing people at work - what a bunch of misfits! One of the candidates (who looked the best on paper) couldn't string a sentence together! and another girl turned up for her interview in a dirty chav tracksuit, and then sat with her legs spread as wide as possible for the whole interview! I'm a complete virgin when it comes to interviewing / Hiring folk and am finding the whole process rather scary.

Anyone else have any experience of hiring/firing? Got any tips for me?

Also anyone looking for a P/T job (16-20 Hours/week) - 6.41/hour Excel & Access experience preferred send us your CV because I'm definately not hiring any of the applicants I've interviewed so far.

Man, I'm stressed out! o_O[/quote']

Firstly analyse the job you are recruiting for. Note the aims and relationships of the role.

From this create a job description. The recruitment and selection 'seven point plan' (A Rodger) is a good model to start with (look up "seven point plan recruitment" on the web). Form your ad from this. Place it in the media which covers your target audience.

Personally I don't apply for jobs where a salary / wage isn't stated but I see you state a wage.

Think about your firm, are there any unique selling points which might attract particularly commited motivated people? Try and include this in the ad to attract decent applicants.

Create a structure for the interview so you and the person you are interviewing with can get most out of the interview.

Scan their CV before they come in the nterview room.

Start off with an ice-breaker. Ask them if they had an OK trip in to the interview. Ask them about any hobbies or interests that you share. Sometimes people bullshit on their CVs even with interests. This is a good test for sincerity.

After breaking the ice advise them of the structure of the interview. State at this time your preferred time for their questions - throughout the interview or at the end.

A good candidate will say "I'll take notes" and never "can I take notes?".

Ask them if they know anything about the firm. Discuss the firm, where it's going, where the role fits into the current firm and it's future.

Ask them to tell you a little about themselves.

Ask them specific direct non-leading questions about experience of theirs that is relevant to your company.

Ask them at the end if they have any questions. Shuffle your papers at the end to close or you'll be there all day.

Remember .... SMILE

If you require competency in, say an application perhaps set a technical test to test their level of competencey. Set a few questions on paper leave them to do it. For excel for example give them a table of raw purchase data ask them to create a purchase ledger spreadsheet or a pivot table.

Ensure no interuptions to any interviews, delegate your responsibilities to others.

Allow up to one hour for each interview, half an hour may suffice in the interview but you may want to make notes after.

What I look for in candidates is firstly that they are pro-active and have done some research and secondly that they have effective interpersonal skills. It's easier to have someone with good interpersonal skills and basic technical skills working for me than a technical wizard who can't string a sentence together.

They will perhaps have a presentation or overhead slides on a pertinent topic. They will certainly be quite buzzword efficient in the parlance used in the job description I have sent out. They will probably have a copy of the annual report of the company and refer to it during the interview. In general they will demonstrate an interest in working for the company. They will also have gone through the job description in detail and addressed most of the key points at the covering letter stage.

[trippinoneastereggs]

Calm down folks.

Yeah I did an Art Degree cause I wanted to be an artist. At the moment im trying to decide what I want to do with it. Ideally work as an artist and make money of that, at the moment I'm looking for jobs in Galleries, or arts organisations and working out the plan of setting up a gallery with a mate of mine.

Phew.

[Bass Cadet]

Firstly analyse the job you are recruiting for. Note the aims and relationships of the .............

................. of the key points at the covering letter stage.

Wow - everything I should of known a fortnight ago condensed into a few paragraphs! Managed to get through it though - a short sharp learning curve and some common sense is a wonderful thing. I'll be better at it next time no doubt

[Spoonie]

DarkHorse aludes to the creatino of a person specification at the beginning wich is basically a description of the type of person you are looking for and will allow you to select a person based on pre-defined criteria. glad you've found someone tho.

/x