This course is targeted at anyone involved in assessing candidates prior to hiring. It is of particular benefit to line managers involved in interviewing candidates for vacancies in their respective functions. The course is ideal for professionals in human resources, especially those working within the functions of recruitment, selection and workforce planning. 

This course is designed to mitigate all the common mistakes untrained interviewers commit when meeting with job candidates. The workshop aims at highlighting why interviews have a high impact on hiring decisions and the steps that can be put in place to increase their reliability while ensuring legally defensible levels of fairness and consistency. Despite the various advancements in human psychology and assessment of talent and competence, such as psychometrics and multi-rater evaluation, interviews retain the preferred method of ‘getting to know’ a candidate. Having said that, most interviews fail to achieve their intended level of reliability due to poor pre-interview preparation, improper questioning or the infamous reliance on first impressions and gut feelings. 

•  Define the importance of interviewing as a method of selection, brainstorm common mistakes untrained interviewers  commit and define ways to overcome them
•  List main types of selection interviews and when and how to use each one of them
•  Design a competency-based interview guide using competencies and values and use it to collect ‘code-able’ data from interviewees
•  Conduct a probing interview designed to uncover behavioural characteristics of applicants
•  Use data collected from interviews to complete a gap analysis and decide on the most suitable candidate

The course is a workshop-based. A small percentage of the time is used to debunk some of the common myths related to interviewing and the rest is dedicated to activities and exercises aimed at ‘test-driving’ the skill of competency-based interviewing. The workshop relies on the use of role-plays and scenario interviews to ensure the translation of knowledge to skill is at maximum levels.

Module 1: The Interview as a Method of Selection

•  Prevalence of the interview as a selection method
•  Reliability and validity of interviews
•  Reliability of CVs, resumés, and biodatas
•  Why interviews remain the most reliable
•  Problems with typical interviews: before, during and after

Module 2: Types of selection interviews

•  Screening and biographical interviews
•  Biographical interviews
•  Stress interviews and why they are unethical
•  Panel interviews

                (a) Rules for conducting a panel interview

Module 3: Competency-Based Interviews (CBI)

•  Pre-interview steps
•  Preparing a CBI guide
•  Using competencies and values for building the guide
•  Standardizing questions
•  Organizing venue and material
•  The need for consistency and ethical implications

Module 4: Structure of a CBI

•  Introduction techniques
•  Opening statements
•  Conducting the interview/questions

                 (a) Open and closed questions

                 (b) Hypothetical questions: when and how

                 (c) Leading questions and how they should be used

                 (d) STAR funnelling technique

                 (e) FACT funnelling technique

                 (f) Disallowed questions

•  Closing the interview

Module 5: Post interview steps

•  Classifying and evaluating captured data
•  Linking data with a competency guide
•  The legal and ethical aspects of translating data to reports
•  Producing interview reports
•  Selection decision

                      (a) Using decision matrixes (in the absence of a competency framework)

                      (b) Using gap analyses - Compensatory and Non-Compensatory methods