Personnel Interviewing Tip
Here*
is a way to glean much more information about a job candidate during
the interview process.

If you are in a job
setting where a tour of your office or job site is possible, then
this tip is for you. You should always give your job candidate a
good look at your operation and a tour of your facility can serve
this purpose. Such a tour can also give you loads of
important information about the candidate that you cannot get from
the formal interview. This is because during the tour, the candidate
becomes involved in real-time interaction with the work environment
and other employees. You can observe the candidate actually
interacting with others and with the workplace itself. |
Before
you embark upon a tour, you need to have a plan and you need to
practice. You need to get it your head that you are NOT
giving a tour but rather, you are observing a person to whom you are
giving a tour. There's a subtle but big difference! Your tour needs
to be informative to the job candidate and should cover as many
areas in your workplace environment as are practical given your
particular time constraints. Try some of the following techniques to
learn more about the job candidate: |
- Introduce the candidate to a variety of people in
your organization as your tour progresses. Pick people that
would be considerably higher in the organization than the
candidate and pick some that would be considerably lower. Pick
some that are white collar and some that are blue collar. And be
sure to find the janitor if you can! Then evaluate the
following:
- Did you detect any difference in attitude of the
candidate towards employees s(he) met? Was there more
interest in talking with the VP of Operations than with the
Janitor?
- How did the candidate interact with the employees s(he)
met? Was it a ho-hum deal or did the candidate express
sincere interest in the employee and what they were doing?
- Pay attention to how your current employees are reacting
to the candidate. Do you see a theme of positive or negative
reactions?
- Pay particular attention to the answers to the "How
are you today?" question most of your current
employees will ask the candidate as they are being
introduced. You can get a good deal of information about
where the candidate falls on what we call the "optimist
vs. pessimist scale" An optimist will reply, "Great!",
or "Fine". A pessimist will reply, "Not to
bad". "Not too bad" is as good as it gets and
it goes down hill from there.
- Pay attention to any comments the candidates make about
the employees s(he) has met during the tour. Does the
candidate say "She seems nice", or "He has a
tough job". Does a theme of negativism or enthusiasm
emerge from these comments? Candidates that say nothing at
all may just be shy or quiet and that's OK. Other candidates
may have constructive positive comments to make and this
tells you lots about their team player orientation. Still
others have a tone of cynicism or negativism about them and
this is a red flag! For example, one candidate might observe
that "Sally has a tough job to do there" while
another might ask "Why does the company make Sally work
so hard?" Every single
reaction a candidate has to employees s(he) meets tells you
loads about the candidate. You just need to learn to look
and listen for the clues!
- Introduce the candidate to a variety of technologies
your company uses in its daily business. Show the candidates the
computers and computer rooms. Show him or her the cook stoves
and restrooms if you are a restaurant. Show them the rocket
motors and design tools. What ever your company uses in the way
of tools and parts to build products, show them to the candidate
(you should, of course, avoid sensitive or secret areas of your
company). Then evaluate the following:
- What comments and observations does the candidate make
along the way about what s(he) is observing? Do their
comments verify or deny any claims they may have made in the
interview or on their application about familiarity with
your business or products?
- Do their comments reflect a general orientation to
positive or negative thinking? One candidate might say, "You
sure have a lot of outdated equipment here!" and
another might say, "Your production looks great given
how old this equipment is!" One candidate might say "This
equipment looks pretty dirty to me." and another might
ask "Would this machine run faster if the grease were
cleaned away from the drive chain?"
- Does the candidate demonstrate an inquisitive, interested
nature by asking questions or making interesting
observations?
- Does the candidate demonstrate an ability to ask clarifying
questions? Every business will have technologies and tools
that most candidates will not fully understand. Look for
questions or comments from the candidate that help the
candidate clarify what s(he) is observing. This would
demonstrate the candidates skill level in sorting out issues
and in problem solving.
- Does the candidate spend his or her time telling YOU
everything they know about a subject, technology, or tool or
do they spend time listening and learning from you?
- Does the candidate just talk TOO much?
- Is the candidate "getting" what you are saying
or demonstrating?
- Does the candidate comment upon blatantly obvious safety
issues that are observed?
- Does the candidate actually ACT upon observations that
you would expect most employees to act upon? For example,
just purposely walk over a paper cup laying in an isle
someplace and see if the candidate picks it up to throw it
in the trash. Have an employee carrying a big load of boxes
trying to open a door and see if the candidate jumps in to
open the door for the struggling employee. While it may not
be important to you whether or not an employee picks up
trash inside the office, it is important to you as an
interviewer to understand the level of observation being
demonstrated by the candidate. Some candidates will never
even notice the paper cup in the aisle. Others will just not
care. Still others may care but be unsure whether to act or
not in the interview/tour setting and this is quite OK. The
point is, your tour will give you plenty of opportunities to
detect how observant the candidate is.
- Can you detect the level of common sense possessed by the
candidate as you tour the tools and technology of your
company? Pay close attention to his or her behavior and
observations and you should be able to assess this important
issue.
- Pay close attention to what candidates DO NOT
say. In every work environment, there are things to see or
experience that you would expect most people to make some
comment about. If your candidate is not making such
comments, perhaps they are very shy or perhaps they are just
not paying attention
- Listen for the candidate's overall impression of what
s(he) is seeing and experiencing. Some will express being
somewhat overwhelmed by it all because there is so much to
take in (a very good sign). Others will express a complete
understanding of what they are seeing or experiencing (not a
very good sign)..
- Use the tour to assess the me/we/they orientation of
the candidate. Some people are self absorbed and others are team
players. Some see the game of employment as "us" (the
employees) against "them" (the employer). Others see
it as a more cooperative effort. Pay attention to the following
on this issue:
- How does the candidate phrase his or her observations? Do
they say "We used to do it this way." or "I
used to do it this way."?
- Does the candidate ask "Why does the company
only pay overtime after 10 hours in a day?" or "Why
do you only pay overtime after 10 hours in a day?"?
In the first instance, the candidate is separating him or
herself from the company and in the second they are not
making that distinction.
- During the tour, does the candidate make a subtle or even
obvious shift from talking and thinking about the company as
an outsider to one of and insider? Many candidates who are
very comfortable with the job environment they are viewing
will begin to say things like "If we did this,
that result would happen". instead of "If you
did this, that result would happen". Pay very close
attention to this important clue! It will happen
inadvertently with candidates who strongly identify with you
and what your company is doing. It most often indicates a
candidate who is an excellent team player. In some cases it
indicates someone who is cocky and thinks they already have
the job. The other clues detected along the tour route will
help you tell the difference.
Finally, be cautious
about quickly drawing conclusions with candidates that make very few
comments. Some are quiet and are good listeners but don't make many
observations. Others just don't get it! But you often cannot tell
the difference with quiet candidates.

We could go on
forever here. But you get the idea. Take your job candidates on a
tour and then pay close attention to the candidate. You can vary the
themes discussed here endlessly to suit your own business.
There are very few situations where a tour of the facilities or
work environment is not practical. The photograph on the left
depicts one of the few we thought of. So, take the time and take
your candidate around for a walk. You'll be surprised what you will
learn!
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