Interviewing effectively: an expert’s guide

Michael Simonyi Davison

Interviewing effectively is understanding what candidates have achieved in past roles, and compare those achievements against the requirements of your position, to determine a “fit” that’s based on performance.

Most of us have fronted up to an interview without having prepped properly or struggled to work out what we should ask to uncover the information we really need to know.

So, we resort to “where do you see yourself in five years?” or “tell me about yourself” and hope it’ll somehow work out.

Let me give you a template to get you on the right track to interviewing effectively, regardless of the position you’re recruiting for.

Firstly, a caveat. You need a clear understanding of the key performance requirements of the role you’re interviewing for. You must know “what success looks like” – what that person will have actually achieved in the first 12 months of their employment to be considered successful – before interviewing.

Once that’s nailed down, interviewing effectively is understanding what candidates have achieved in past roles, and compare those achievements against the requirements of your position, to determine a “fit” that’s based on performance (as opposed to experience – they are very different things).

We ask ‘SMARTE’ questions, which require candidates to describe their most significant achievements in detail. For example:

  1. Overview: can you briefly describe to me your greatest accomplishment in your position at XYZ?

Thanks. I‘d like to understand that better, please.

  1. Specific task: Can you describe the task/challenge in detail? (We want to know specifically what the person had to do)
  1. Measurable: How was your performance in completing the task/challenge measured? (We want to know how they were measured – ‘what success looked like’)
  1. Action: What did you actually do, at a practical level, to achieve the required outcome? (As in, “in my first three months I… and then I…”). If it was a group/team task/challenge, what was your specific role in that team? (Were they a key contributor, or the coffee-maker?)
  1. Result: What was the actual result achieved? How did that compare against the required outcome? (Remember, it’s about performance, not experience)
  1. Timeframe: How long ago did this take place? How long did the task/challenge take to complete? (Was it so long ago it’s no longer relevant e.g. technology has changed the landscape? Is the timeframe they completed it in aligned to your role?)
  1. Environment: Describe the environment – what resources were available, what hurdles or obstacles you faced, your relationship with your manager and colleagues. (Compare this with what they’ll experience in your business e.g. people moving to SMEs from corporates often struggle with the lack of resources and systems they encounter, compared to what they’ve experienced in multinationals).

Using this line of questioning into the specifics of roles held over the past decade or so, then comparing that experience and performance against your job’s requirements, will pretty quickly tell you whether there’s a potential fit.

This also helps negate the unconscious biases we all take into interviews, because we now base our judgment on performance, not issues that aren’t proven predictors of success (e.g. age, education level).

In 13 years’ of recruiting sales positions for small businesses, I’ve found it also removes the influence of “charismatic’ candidates” – those who interview well and make a great impression, without having real substance behind the façade.