How to Avoid the Four Biggest Interviewing Mistakes

As the labor pool continues to shrink, the competition to hook top candidates grows more intense by the day.

Yet many interviewers don't realize they are fishing the same pool as everyone else. Thanks to significant — but avoidable — mistakes, they let trophy–quality candidates slip through their fingers and into nets slung by competitors.

It takes a lot of skill and strength of character to land the best recruits. Start stocking your company with keepers by avoiding the four worst interviewing mistakes.

Talking too much

Here's a true story. A woman went into a job interview. The interviewer, a gregarious, personable chap, immediately started nattering. He told her about the company, about himself, about the beefs he had with the company, about the people his co–workers and about his family.

He eventually asked her three or four cursory questions. Then he rose, smiled broadly and genuinely, and thanked her for such a delightful interview.

She never heard back from him.

While few interviewers talk as much as the motormouth described above, overly talkative interviewers repeatedly ruin perfectly good opportunities to hire intelligently.

When interviewing job candidates, muzzle yourself. The more you talk, the less you learn about the person sitting in front of you. A good rule is to let the interviewee talk at least 80% of the time.

Be genial — and appear to agree with the candidate's answers, even when they contradict one another. When you're opaque, interviewees usually reveal more of themselves — including workplace skittiness and personal skeletons.

Favoring people who are just like you

Hiring those who are cut from the same cloth as you is a tempting thing to do, has never been more dangerous. There's the obvious legal danger in hiring or promoting mostly white people or mostly men. But there's also the threat to your organization's very existence that comes when the workforce views the world through glasses of all the same color. You need to be able to focus on all different shapes and colors to perceive the changes erupting around workplaces today.

This does not apply only to physical traits, either. You will tend to like those who share your personality traits, and you'll have doubts about the rest. For example, silent types don't trust the talkative. Optimists dislike pessimists. And athletes scorn couch potatoes.


Sometimes, however, hiring someone like you is the right thing to do. A manager of a reservations desk, for example, wants people who mirror his or her own best work traits: unflappable, upbeat, attentive to detail.

More often, though, you work against yourself when interviewing those unlike you. Say you're the outgoing, big picture type, screening candidates for an accounting position. You may dismiss, out of hand, the classic cloistered bean counter — someone who could contribute just the complement of skills you need if given a chance.

In the long run, it doesn't matter what kind of physical or personality characteristics you have. Just be aware that by seeking others like you, you may color an interview to your detriment. The antidote is to talk little, empathize with the person before you and ask probing questions designed to do one thing: uncover fitness for a particular job.

Rejecting the strong

It happens so often it's a cliché: mediocre managers surround themselves with weaklings who are no threat to their power or self–esteem.

Some people think strong performers will upstage them and earn the greater loyalty of co–workers. Or they fear that a capable employee will take away their jobs.They're right. A department starved for leadership will embrace any spirited, competent employee. But that doesn't mean hiring the nonthreatening will save your job. Good senior executives never hesitate to get out the Roto Rooter whenever the system gets clogged.Take a hint from steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. He amassed great power and wealth by hiring those he considered better than himself. That's a modus operandi that can jet you to the top.

Considering yourself to be sole judge and jury

We all like to think of ourselves as wise when it comes to sizing up other people. But very few of us really are—especially upon first meeting someone as you do in an interview.

Hiring on instinct is a terrible way to build a strong, vibrant company. Acknowledge what your gut tells you about a candidate. But always back up your intuition with facts and hard–edged analysis. And it is usually worth the time and effort to have others in the company meet with job candidates who pass your original sniff test.

Veteran business writer Hardy Caldwell, the author of The Agile Manager's Guide to Hiring Excellence, owns a business in New England.

Provided by HROne.com. Copyright © 2001, HROne.com.

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