A job interview is usually believed to be involving transfer of information from interviewee to interviewer for the purpose of evaluation but in reality it’s a two-way communication. The hiring organization and its interviewers also need to conduct themselves well, so that they can effectively sell their position as well as the organization. While there are lot of articles about how an interviewee should conduct himself (viz. proper dress, researching company beforehand, keeping phone silent), less importance is placed on interviewer etiquette.
Find below the list of some tips based on interviews that either I have taken myself or had a chance to observe others. By no means is this list exhaustive and I welcome readers to contribute to this via comments –
  1. Be on time- Like you would want an interviewee to be on time, make sure that you as an interviewer are on time as well. It’s so irritating as an interviewee to take time to travel to hiring organization’s office to find that the interviewer is either late or is in some ‘urgent’ meeting. Unlike an interviewer who is in his/her office working, the interviewee has taken off from his work for the interview and any time spent there is non-productive.
  2. Read the resume before interview- This one repeats itself every now and then and even the most senior folks in hiring organization tend to literally read the resumes first time during the interview. The first question of such interviewers is “Please tell about your work profile starting with most recent job”. Instead of a bland question like that, ask specific questions about interviewee’s experience.
  3. Introduce yourself- Unless you are from CIA/FBI/CID (aka the intelligence/investigative units), please introduce yourself with your name (at least!!), your role/designation and briefly what you do. Its part of basic courtesy, (remember even chatbots today have names!), and we are talking about human to human interaction.
  4. And greet too- Tied to previous point. No good human interaction begins without establishing an eye contact and saying “Hi” or “Hello”. The only exception to this could be a case where police arrests you for some crime. A basic greeting is so obvious but there are interviewers who just ignore this.
  5. Put your phone and laptops aside- Would you appreciate if your interviewee were to take phone calls and checks his emails during the meeting? If not, the same is applicable to you too. In one of the interview, I had to hear plumbing issues at interviewer’s house courtesy him taking a call in the same meeting room.
  6. Better planning and scheduling - If you are a HR guy helping coordinate interviews, make sure the interviewer(s) is/are adequately informed before time and is/are signed up to take the interview, all meeting rooms are adequately booked for the interviews and the anticipated interview duration is shared with interviewee beforehand.