- greeting the interviewee
- breaking the ice
- the warm-up
Contrast these two examples:
In the first, the candidate at a recruitment interview is kept waiting in a bare room, stomach churning over with nerves, with nothing to take her mind off the forthcoming interview. She is then called by a secretary who tells her where to go but does not accompany her. She enters the recruiter's office while he is talking on the telephone and is shown to a seat by a wave of his hand. She then has to wait long minutes until he has finished his conversation.
In the second, the candidate is given something to read, preferably information about the company he is hoping to join, while he waits in the comfortably furnished waiting room. He is met either by the recruiter or by another responsible individual and is taken to the interview room. There he is greeted with a friendly smile and a firm handshake, is thanked for coming and, most important, is addressed correctly by name by the interviewer, who then introduces himself. The candidate will feel positive not only towards the interviewer and the company, but towards the interview itself.
In the first case, the candidate will receive the unmistakable impression that she is an unwelcome intrusion in the busy life of the recruiter, who will have to spend far more time getting into the interview, simply because he has made so little effort to establish any kind of rapport with her. In the second example, the interviewer will be able to move immediately into the interview and progress at a brisk and businesslike pace because rapport has been created before the interview has begun.
Even an interview in which the two participants know each other tends to be sharper and more clearly focused if the interviewer establishes a good relationship with the interviewee at the start. If you happen to be on the telephone when your interviewee arrives, get off it immediately and in such a way as to convey the message that the interview is more important than the call.
As we know when we meet people for the first time, impressions are formed very quickly. We take in their appearance, posture, expressions and, above all, their attitude towards us. At the same time, their social antennae are picking up signals from us, and on this flimsy basis we decide how we shall behave towards each other.
In interviews the same thing happens, but because interviewees are in a subordinate position to us, they will adapt their behavior to what they perceive our mood to be rather than the other way round.
We should want interviewees to see us as polite, friendly, businesslike and purposeful. Moreover, they should feel that they are in the confident and reassuring presence of someone who knows what they are doing. Nothing is likely to make interviewees more anxious than to feel that the interviewer is as nervous and as uncertain as they are.
Breaking the ice
Depending on how you handle it, this can be 'make or break' time. Some interviewers feel that to put interviewees at ease they have to come over as friends. This is not necessary.
Friendly, yes, but you are not their pals, and it is ill-advised as well as unfair to pretend that you are, because they may either overstep the mark and try to return your friendship - which you will resent - or become embarrassed and reject your overtures. Either way proper rapport will not be established and instead a chill may set in which you will have difficulty in overcoming.
Jokes, good, bad or indifferent, should be avoided. You are not a salesperson trying to persuade the interviewees to love you or your company. If you are friendly to your interviewees, they will respond in like manner. Treat them in an off-hand way and they will either withdraw into themselves or turn hostile.
Avoid all personal references, no matter how innocuous they seem to you as a way of relaxing the interviewee. 'That's a nice tie/bracelet/ring' may seem to you a perfectly innocent remark, but the interviewee might waste the first ten minutes of the interview trying to figure out whether you are being serious or sarcastic.
Stay off politics. Interviews are to seek information, not to engage in discussion or, worse still, argument. You do not, nor should you need to, know what your interviewee's politics are, so you cannot be sure that a seemingly innocent remark may not upset or irritate them. It may also put them off wanting to join your company if they think that your politics are diametrically opposed to their own.
What, then, you may ask, can one talk about to break the ice that is safe and harmless? Well, in Britain, there is always the weather, but if you find this too boring, don't bother. Travel (but without criticism of government investment in the railways) and parking are reasonably safe.
Sport is fine, but only if you are genuinely interested and, more to the point, they are too. How many interviews start with the interviewer launching into a discussion on the latest cricket/football/rugby score, which stops only when the interviewee admits to knowing nothing about the game? Do not assume because you like a game that they will, too.
Ice-breaking should be kept short - sometimes only as long as it takes to bring the interviewee from the waiting room to your office. If the interview is with someone you work with, it should last no more than a minute or two. If you do not feel comfortable with chit-chat or you think it is inappropriate, dispense with it; but remember that often you also need to relax into the interview, so it helps you as much as your interviewees.
The warm-up
'Would you describe yourself as a happy person?' was the first question put in a practice recruitment interview by a student of mine, and it has stayed in my mind as a good example of how not to start an interview, especially as it was followed by, 'How would you define happiness?'
What is wrong with these two questions?
If you said that they are too general, too abstract and, frankly, too difficult for most interviewees to answer satisfactorily, you would be right. They are also probably irrelevant and would take too long to answer. How do you define 'happiness', and how many people, if asked, would be able to say right off whether or not they were happy, especially if they were about to begin a recruiting interview upon which their future could depend?
Just as you will have a more relaxed trip and a more enthusiastic passenger if you tell him or her where you are going and how you are going to get there, so you will have a more positive and less anxious interviewee if you explain the purpose of the interview and how you intend to conduct it.
The explanation should be kept brief enough to bridge the gap that exists between you by putting the interviewee in the picture.
