Often when we think of mistakes being made in the interview process we assume that the candidate is the only one capable of botching an interview. On the contrary, many employers have proven themselves fully capable of making a whole slew of errors here as well. To help these individuals avoid such unnecessary complications in the future, here is a look at the most common interview mistakes employers make, as they have been collected by executive search firms.
- Often enough many interviewers will interpret a candidate’s poor communication skills and shyness as a lack of knowhow and ability on the individuals part. One issue that employers must come to understand is that, this is not an accurate correlation. Just as good communication skills do not mean that an individual possess the skills and experience necessary to fill a position, neither does poor communication indicate that they do not have these qualifications. Here, when interviewers recognize that a candidate appears uncomfortable, rather than pass them off, they should instead help these individuals to relax and take them through the process gently.
- It has become common practice today for candidates have taken time to carefully consider and rehearse their responses to all of those most generic interview questions. Therefore, it has become exceedingly vital that interviewers not only rely on the important scripted material, but that they should take the interview down alternate lines of questioning as well with a series of follow up questions with the express purpose of taking the candidate out of their rehearsed comfort zone. Here, when a candidate answers a question, rather than quickly moving on, interviewers should ask for the how, why, and when to draw out the candidate and get them to open up and share more information about themselves and their qualifications.
- In every interview process there is an expected amount of salesmanship that occurs; the candidate selling their qualifications, and the employer selling the company and position. However, when these proceedings get out of hand on the interviewer’s part, they can create complications. When it comes to selling candidates on the organizations in question, those interviewers who are exceedingly happy with their company can have a tendency to take things a bit too far, going into detail when describing potential future opportunities and expansions which may mean further career opportunities. Not only could this represent as future plans are being discussed with individuals who are, as of yet, not hired, but these sales pitches can often be interpreted as a promise by candidates. Instead of allowing this sharing of too much information, employers should stick to discussing only typical career opportunities.
- While group interviews can be an exceedingly valuable tool to interviewers in allowing them to more fully assess an individual’s qualifications and compatibility, this technique should be reserved for later in the executive search and interview process, once the candidate pool has been significantly reduced. However, far too often, interviewers will use this as an easy out, passing of the responsibility of this matter to other within the company to conduct the interview for them. So, while these methods should certainly be used effectively, jumping the gun and doing so with warning the candidate beforehand will only cause unnecessary complications.
