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Making Better Hiring Decisions

Using the Behavioral Interviewing

Method

Special Report From: EasySmallBusinessHR.com

If you’re like many hiring managers, the process of interviewing can be a

bit of a mystery and sometimes a little intimidating.

I performed a keyword search for the phrase “how to interview” on

Google, and found that in one month alone, 301,000 people searched the

Internet for more information on the topic. During the same period, 74,000

people searched for information on behavioral interviewing.

As a manager, your style of interviewing, including the types of questions

that you ask have a significant impact on whether or not you end up hiring

the most highly skilled and experienced person for your job.

Do you ever ask yourself these questions?

The person that I hired interviewed so well, I don’t understand why

she is having difficulty performing this job.

Why do I always have a problem finding the right people?

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Is there anyone out there who isn’t afraid of hard work!

I can’t find anyone with the experience that I need for my job.

When it comes to hiring the best person for your job opening, there are no

guarantees that you will make the right hiring decision every single time

you make a job offer. There are so many other factors unrelated to your

style of interviewing that will affect whether the person that you hire is

successful. But not asking the right type of interview questions will

increase the likelihood that you won’t make the best hiring decision.

It’s essential to ask the types of questions that will help you to understand

just how much experience your job applicant is bringing to the table. You

can accomplish this by asking questions that require the interviewee to

provide work related examples that support their responses to your

questions. This style of questioning is called behavioral interviewing.

By definition, behavioral interviewing is an interview technique that

requires the person being interviewed to provide specific examples that

support their answers.

Here’s an example of a behavioral interview question:

“Based on your resume, I see that you have previous experience with

project management and leading teams. Describe for me two

situations where you were directly responsible for managing a team

on a project. Share with me your approach to managing the team

through this project from beginning to end.”

As you can see, your “question” may actually be a series of questions.

This particular behavioral interview question requires the applicant to

share specific details of their actual work style or approach to project

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management and their ability to lead a team successfully. Armed with this

detailed information, you can better assess your job applicant’s ability to

perform the work required in your job based on their responses to your

questions.

The mistake that many hiring managers make is to ask questions that may

elicit a limited response. An example of this type of question might be:

“Do you have experience with project management and leading

teams?”

This type of question elicits a “yes” or “no” response, or a limited

response in many cases.

The next time that you are ready to interview, think about developing your

questions based on the behavioral interview style of questioning. You’ll

find that you’ll have a much better sense of an applicant’s experience and

his approach to work, and you’ll be well on your way to making better

hiring decisions.

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