Why Employers Need to Learn How to Conduct an Interview

If employers learn how to conduct an interview, the impact on their organizations will go far beyond what they invest. Better hiring decisions, better employees. More fruitful hiring process. Bold statements but these are the most important reasons why investing in these skills will make your company money and save time/resources.

Saving Money

These days, with margins so tight, hiring the wrong person can sink a company or set them back months. These hiring decisions become increasingly more important and significant. The cost of a bad hire can be 3x to 5x the cost of an annual salary. One or 2 bad hires could be the end of the line for some small companies.

Compound that with the following information, it is human nature to want to be correct in your judgment about who you hire. When people make decisions on who they hire, there is often an investment of one's own self made into that decision. Hiring managers don't want to believe they may have been mistaken in their selection. The result is a tenancy to hang on to under performing employees they hired longer than ones they inherited.

This costs a company both money and resources. First the under performer is not holding their own so either important tasks go undone or others spend time trying to bring that person up to speed or worse yet do their job while neglecting parts of their own. Also there is the time and distraction it causes the hiring manager trying to make something work that they are invested in.

Even if the decision comes quickly to replace that person the damage is already done. Now, the recruiting, interview and hiring process must start over. The person who is under performing must be let go. This means there are HR costs of time and money. The list goes on and it is easy to see that this situation is a huge distraction and costs the company money.

Less Time & Better Hiring Decisions

An effective hiring process is about two things, locating top candidates and making accurate selections. The interview process if done inefficiently can consume or waste significant time and resources. If it results in an excellent hire, it 'may' be a worth it. That is a big if and if it is average or bad , it can be a disaster. If it is bad over and over it can cause morale problems or works.

Knowing what to do and how to do it because there is a formal process that has been show to product results gives everyone confidence and the process itself creates efficiency. It takes less time to select the best candidates. Wouldn't that be better to take less time and resource, with a repeatable great hire track record? Knowing how to conduct an interview can deliver that result.

Consistently Hire Top Performers

Flip that around the scenario where bad hires cost money. What if every hire was productive and made your company money? Wouldn't that make a company a better company having more effective top performing employees and getting results. It's the dream of every employer.

Asking the right interview questions, knowing a good answer from evasive or dishonest one. Knowing how to follow up. Documenting results and selecting the right candidate. This is the world when you know how to interview. This is the single biggest reason that any company should spend resources on interviewing is to make decisions that result in hiring top performers.

Next Steps – The How

There are a number of ways to learn how to interview better. If you have any kind of budget, the fastest and best way is to hire a consultant. Have them do an evaluation of your current system and make recommendation on improvements. Be sure that there is training included and a process to train others that can be replicated. While it may be more up front to do this, it saves money in the end as you won't have to call the trainer every time you need to break in a new interviewer.

Slightly less expensive than a consultant and a little outside the box would be to hire a recruiter you trust to teach you how to interview and screen people. Look for an executive search consultant who is certified and consistently produces the best candidates. Ask them to teach you how they do their interview process.

It may take some convincing if you are currently working with them because they may fear losing a client. Just communicate that you are not replacing their service because they still are the source for candidates, you just want them to help you make faster better decisions by learning how to interview better.

Finally, if you don't have a big budget, there are a couple of suggestions, you could go to a bookstore and find books but your best bet is to find on line resources that can help you learn how to conduct an interview more effectively. The time invested will pay dividents multiple times over for years to come.