Candidates invited for interview will have spent some time preparing, including reviewing your website, marketing material etc. Your TPP consultant would have briefed the short-listed candidates on your organisation and the nature of your working environment and thus by this stage they will be excited by the prospect of joining your organisation. However, an interview is a two way street and thus it is equally important that you are selling your organisation as they will be selling themselves.
Competency based interview questioning is useful with assessing relevant experience, behavior, personality and most importantly, how well they would fit into your team / organisation. These questions are typically based on the core competencies of the Person Specification, to ensure the candidate has the skills they have stated on their CV. You may also find a presentation / task useful in the interview, especially if the successful person will be managing an important project or are customer / client facing.
In most cases it is beneficial to have more than one person interviewing the candidate/s in order to gain an alternative perspective and to remain unbiased. This is particularly useful in note taking so that questioning can be focused and flow more easily.
Candidates should also be given the opportunity to ask questions they may have about the role and where possible shown their potential working area and team, to give them a feel for who they will be working with and the organisation they’re buying into. This is particularly important if they will be managing staff directly.
Giving candidates an idea of timescales after the interview is useful, especially if they are attending other interviews or have already received an offer of employment. Providing candidate interview feedback to your TPP consultant in a proactive and timely manner will allow candidates interest in the position to be maintained more effective and help manage the expectations of rejected candidates. Consultants will also be in touch with the candidate after the interview, to obtain their feedback.
The offer stage is a critical part of any successful appointment and we can offer our expertise to the process gained through our extensive experience. As required, we will assist in making the formal offer to the successful candidate; this includes advising on salary through to supporting the successful candidate through their resignation. Managing the rejection process of unsuccessful candidates is also an important element of finalising a recruitment campaign and thus constructive feedback should be provide to us in a timely and structured manner (this not only maintains and improves the reputation of you as an employer but is beneficial to candidates in helping them when attending future interviews).
