As boutique recruitment consultants it’s no surprise that we interview a lot of people and talk about job interviews a lot. One of the most frequent conversations we have with our clients is why someone is, or isn’t, right for a role. After over 30 years of these conversations with some of the most inspiring and insightful CEOs and hiring managers, we thought it was time to consolidate what we, and they, know and put together a quick-fire interview guide for anyone looking to hire a new employee.

Taking on a new employee is never something that should be entered into likely, if you’re working with a reputable recruitment agency then you can trust that the CVs they provide you with will belong to people who fit the requirements of the role. This saves you huge amounts of time advertising the role and sifting through CVs, meaning you can spend your time and energy on a thorough interview process. Keep reading below for our top tips on what to ask and what to do to make sure you hire the right person. And if you’re on the other side of the job hunt, this is a great insight into what your interviewer is really looking for!

1. Be creative.

Don’t reply on just asking standard interview questions, you want to be asking at least a few questions that the interviewee won’t be expecting, prompting them to think on their feet and answer in a creative and unrehearsed way. We asked our clients to give us examples of unusual questions, these were our two favourites.

What qualities of your parents do you like the most? Whether we like it or not, we are all influenced by our parents and this question can reveal a lot about the personality traits and qualities a candidate values in others. You can also ask how they try to replicate these qualities and in what ways that comes out in their daily life at home and work.

What is the biggest misconception people have about you? This question communicates a lot about a candidate’s level of self-awareness. Knowing how other people perceive you is hugely important as, on a practical level, it’s often a truer representation of who you are than how you feel yourself to be. Understanding how the way you act and behave affects those around you is the key to teamwork and good working relationships.

2. Ask your employees to interview the candidate too.

You might think you’re a great judge of character, but we all have unconscious biases and blind spots when it comes to how we perceive other people. The best way to get a rounded impression of someone is to ask a cross section of your workforce to interview them. Doing this will help ensure you hire a diverse range of people. Diversity matters for a lot of reasons, a crucial one is that it provides different perspectives for innovation, problem-solving and creativity. The last thing you want is a team of mini-mes, asking your employees to chat with potential hires and getting their opinions will help you hire a varied group of people with different backgrounds and ways of doing things. Ensuring your teams, and therefore the company, never become stagnant or out of touch.

3. Get out from behind the desk.

Some people are great at interviews, they know all the right things to say and are fantastic at answering questions. But this doesn’t mean that they will follow through on their promises. Things like treating everyone as an equal and valuing opinions are really important and a great way to get an impression of this is to take the person you are interviewing on a tour of the office and let them chat with the team. Look out for tell-tale signs such as, are they asking questions about what everyone does and how things work? Are they curious? Do they treat everyone they meet with respect, and show interest in what they do?

4. Give them an assignment to do.

Ultimately, the interview process is all about trying to work out what someone would be like to work with. The tips above are a great way to get to the heart of someone’s personality and soft skills but to understand how they perform under pressure, what their work style is, and how they might tackle the job it’s useful to ask them to complete some written work. If you’re hiring an EA, you might ask them to put together a travel itinerary for your next business trip or, if it’s an office manager you’re looking for, you could ask them to source a cost-efficient solution to an IT problem you’re having. By not setting a deadline for these tasks or being too prescriptive about what they entail you’ll also be able to get an impression of the applicant’s work ethic, how good they are at using their initiative and make a judgement on how promptly they get the task done.

The beauty of working with a recruitment agency is that we work with you throughout the entire job hunt, right from taking your brief to offering the successful candidate the role. This means we can help with all of the above and bring our years of experience and expertise to the process. We are also always happy to conduct interviews for you, this can be a good way to get an opinion from outside your company or can work well if the interview process is highly confidential. To chat about your hiring requirements get in touch with us via our contact page.