How To Conduct an Interview (for the Noob)

I remember when I had to make my first hire and conduct an interview for the first time. Our product was growing like crazy and I was at a limit on what I could do quickly to service our users. I was late into the night doing something I was terrible at — cutting art. I could do it but very very very slow. That’s when I knew I needed to hire someone.

I created a Craigslist ad and went to schedule the interviews. Each interview was no more than 10 minutes. And I fumbled through each one asking each one basically the same two questions:

Have you done something like this (cutting art) before?

Can you do something like this (cutting art)?

I obviously didn’t learn anything to help me make a good hiring decision through these questions. Suffice to say I (and the org) have come a long way from this after hundreds of interviews, here is how you conduct an interview if for the n00b (newbie), broken up into three chunks.

Before : Do the prep work.

Be familiar with the job (description). You may be interviewing someone who is not your functional expertise, but at least be able to tell the candidate what the job entails and how you hope to interact with them.
Know if the interview process before posting. Some positions need several rounds, other positions need just one round. Some positions need several people interviewing them —if several people are interviewing the candidate, for the love of God, please coordinate beforehand on what you are looking for and who is going to ask what questions.
Review the candidate before the interview. This means look at their resume, online profile as well as any professional work they put out — like a blog or website. I would steer clear of looking into their Facebook or personal stuff — you don’t want to come across as a stalker 😉
Prepare some key questions. If you have done #1 and #3, this should be easy.

During : Be present.

This is the best advice I can give in such a distracted world, and face to face time becomes valuable. There is a lot of time and energy just to get to this point from both the organization and the candidate. Both is the operative word because:

You are selling the candidate as much as the candidate is selling you!

Smile and greet the person. Yes, I know this is a no brainer, but candidates get the first impression of you and the org this way. You are selling them as much as they are selling you. Bonus: offer the candidate either a drink or if he or she needs to use the bathroom.
Put your cell phone to the side. I’m okay having cell phones in the interview, but find it incredibly a waste of time if either party is going to be on it during a large portion of the interview. If you cannot be “present” during that time, re-schedule.
Tell the candidate a little about your role and the company. This not only gives the candidate context but it helps get the interview going in a casual but professional way. First few seconds is a little awkward.
Ask the question how (s)he heard about the job and why (s)he is interested . This gives feedback on your recruiting channels as well as getting a sense of their motivation. This also is a really good transition question to the nitty gritty questions about their experience as well as fit.
Ask open ended questions. The largest problems with the two questions above were the candidate needed to answer a “Yes” or a “No” and that was the end of it. My favorite type of open ended questions are behavioral ones. They usually start out with “Tell me about a time…”
Ask follow up questions. It would have been better if after they answered Yes, I could have followed up with “Can you tell me more about that?”
Allow time for any follow up questions from the candidate. This helps you see where the candidate is at in their decision making process and motivations in their job search, because remember:

You are selling the candidate as much as the candidate is selling you!

After : Follow up.

Make a decision and communicate it.

It is okay if the answer is NO, that the recruiter tells the candidate. In this situation it is best to let them decline for you. If you do not have the luxury of having a recruiter, it is best to tell them NO and be short, but courteous, and timely. Email is okay. It makes no sense to go into long detailed reasons as oftentimes there isn’t a good reason and you both may work together again in a different capacity.

If it is YES, then communicate to the candidate and then give them all the information necessary for the next step.

2. Reference Check. I am often surprised how many hiring managers do not do this. If you have great positive feelings about the candidate, it gives you great indication how to be a better manager. If you are on the fence about the person it will give you a chance to hear from other managers how the candidate performed day to day. Yes, this actually matters more when you are a small startup as it’s an intense environment and you want to see how the person operates in your environment. You get to short circuit so much by doing this one step.

3. Close. Oftentimes people make the mistake of going into “sell mode”. It should be a continuous sell throughout the process. If it starts out with the mindset of You are selling them as much as they are selling you, then this part should be easy. Use everything you learned about them in the process, hi lighting things of interest to them in the package. Stay in continual communication with them until they show up on their first day. Pro Tip: We’ve sent care bombs to our candidates welcoming them to the organization before they have started. Because, remember:

You are selling the candidate as much as the candidate is selling you!

☞ If you would like to hear more tales, hit the Follow button below.

☞ If you are interested in a particular topic to do with our journey that you think is “important shit”, please leave a response below!

☞ Follow me on Twitter @hollyhliu

I am the co-founder and Chief Development Officer of Kabam, these perspectives are my own and do not necessarily represent Kabam.