Tips for Employers on How to Improve the Interview Process
The Great Resignation has exposed many reasons why workers quit their jobs in unprecedented numbers. Much of the media coverage about this phenomenon has focused on employee dissatisfaction with wages but a January 2022 study from MIT SMR/Glassdoor Culture 500 shows that corporate culture is a more reliable predictor of industry-adjusted attrition.
As an interview expert and an oral historian with more than 20 years experience and hundreds of hours spent conducting, observing, and analyzing interviews, I think often about how we miss a valuable opportunity to promote retention and minimize attrition during job interviews. According to recent research in the Journal of Occupational Psychology, most candidates make a decision about fit within the first 5 to 15 minutes of an interview.
First impressions are incredibly important and yet most interviewers from the employer side do not think about the downstream impacts of these early moments and interactions. This is precisely why this area of hiring needs improvement.
Given that the job interview is the crucial step in the job application process where a potential candidate learns about a company’s culture, how can employers maximize this valuable opportunity?
Let’s start by infusing more opportunities for generative exchange (a conversation with the potential to generate, originate, produce or reproduce good-will, ideas or even future opportunities) into the job interview, one of the first and most important points of contact for any job seeker. Here are some helpful tips:
#1 Improve your listening skills.
In her book Listening: The Forgotten Skill, Madelyn Burley-Allen—who holds a doctorate in Applied Psychology—describes listening as a skill that needs active/intentional development. She says most people confuse hearing as listening and therefore miss out on opportunities to improve this skill. Even with all my depth of experience as an interviewer, I still do not consider myself an expert listener, only a more practiced one. I am constantly learning new ways of improving my active listening skills. This includes asking constructive and non-judgmental follow-up questions that elicit real information which cut through practiced talking-points, identifying and tracking key phrases and ideas while a person is speaking, and interpreting body language. It is imperative for hiring managers to learn how to listen to understand––to get to know the person in front of them as a human being, not just a worker.
#2 Don’t get stuck on interview formulas.
Hiring managers and compliance officers have a difficult task - hiring the right candidates for every position while avoiding unconscious bias and respecting hiring laws. Using a standard interview format for all candidates will help decrease bias, but may not help in gaining knowledge about a candidate's leadership skills, emotional intelligence, and teamwork style. Many companies have different interviewing tiers with their own respective interview format. In addition to this, try to incorporate a casual exchange where the candidate feels acknowledged as a person. Perhaps a coffee or short walk around the block if it’s an in-person interview. Lunches or dinners with high profile candidates are normalized in law firms and other corporations. Why should this not be practiced with other types of employees? Entry level, service industry, blue collar, and pink collar workers are people too.
#3 Make the person sitting in front of you feel noteworthy.
Most employers forget the interview process includes how a candidate is made to feel. Research shows the first 15 minutes are crucial. It is when candidates begin to make observations and mental notes about the atmosphere and culture of the work environment. Fouzia Chaparro-Bencheikh, a Chicago-based learning designer for social impact and movement building, has interviewed candidates for positions in her department and also been a candidate for job opportunities. She says that most interviews make people feel like a “commodity and a product” which can feel demoralizing and reductive. She thinks employers have normalized this type of interview. To combat this, she continuously seeks out educational materials about how to create authentic dialogic exchange with candidates. She admits video conferencing portals contribute to the disconnect. “We need to try different strategies to build relationships because even if the candidate does not get the job, it would be great if they walk out of the interview feeling valued.”
#4 Make eye contact.
Research shows that eye contact triggers the limbic mirror system which conveys information about another person’s actions and intentions. Eye contact sends the message, “I am attending to you” to your brain which promotes effective communication and social interaction. In a virtual world where most interviews happen via video conferencing portals and eye contact might be difficult or awkward, try looking into the camera (not your computer screen) when the candidate is speaking to mimic real-world eye contact. Using non-verbal communication like a nod or a smile can also help acknowledge the person speaking. Try not to take notes on what the person is saying while they are speaking. This can be unnerving for most people and breaks up the already unreliable virtual connection you have established with the candidate. If you must take notes while they speak, warn your interviewee and find other ways to signal to them that you are indeed listening. In situations where eye contact might not be a recognized cultural exchange or if it does not fit their personality trait (think about introverts vs extroverts), try not to judge and ask open-ended questions about how they prefer to connect with people, and how it is rewarding.
#5 Interview for team potential, not just for the job.
One of the best job interviews I've ever had was with Andy Schaudt, current Chief of Staff and Interim Leader of the Motion and Context Analytics group at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. His process consists of two parts: a formal job interview and an informal conversation over lunch. In a recent conversation, I asked about his process. He said, “I want to get to know the person in a relaxed format—without the pressures of the interview—in order to gauge how they interact authentically, not just deliver talking points.” Andy says he looks for three things: whether a person is humble, hungry, and smart––concepts he learned from Patrick Lencioni, author of several books on business and team management. Andy goes on to explain, "The number two reason for the success or failure of a startup is the team dynamic, they end up dissolving because they weren’t all on the same page and they all have egos and no one listens to the founder so you have to have people on your team that are humble enough to accept guidance, have a hunger to learn and have a healthy level of people smarts and emotional intelligence.”
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The world has shifted dramatically in the recent past, and many people had the time and space during the pandemic to re-evaluate their present with an eye towards their future. As a result, The Great Resignation has turned into The Great Re-Evaluation with some workers returning to the job market with a better sense of how their employment should match their professional and personal values. Although we disregard feelings and emotions as non-data, they are most often what lingers in a person’s impressions of a job interview. Employers need to get comfortable with the job interview as an active form of hospitality. It’s the first step to connecting with candidates, and has the potential to create a feeling of ease and comfort that may pave the way for a more generative dialogic exchange.
It’s time for employers to rethink their approach to interviewing candidates if they want to attract people not just for the right set of skills–but also for their readiness and willingness to contribute to a company’s long-term success.
Fanny Julissa García
Fanny is an award winning Honduran-American oral historian contributing work to Central American Studies. She is a renowned public speaker on applied oral history, the art and craft of interviewing, and storytelling.
Connect with Fanny through her website.
