If you are reading this, you will no doubt, have at one time or another interviewed candidates for a vacancy.

I’ve also no doubt that you will have extrapolated the behaviour you experience in an interview, into what that person is like to work with.

Sometimes it doesn’t even matter how brilliant the words are in their answer if the delivery raises red flags.

For example – those over-rehearsed robotic STAR answers, with all the personality of a Gymnopus Dryophilus. The words were right, a new employee they were not.

Perhaps you’ve also been on the other side of the interview table.

It’s a harder place to be for many!

Yet, while you may be hung up on the need for a job, detached from the outcome, or somewhere in between, part of you is whirring the same extrapolation engine.

You come out of the interview, for a job that looks great on paper.

You think back on your experiences.

How you struggled to find the location and parking.

An icy greeting from a receptionist who’d rather be playing Candy Crush than make you feel at ease.

An interviewer who traipses down the stairs 10 minutes late and calls you by the wrong name.

A one-way interrogation from someone who hasn’t even read your CV.

And a kick on the bum as you’re thrown out on the street.

How do you feel, when they are ‘delighted to invite you to the 2^nd interview’?

With poor communications and little notice.

Maybe it wasn’t the right role after all when all you have to go on is red flags.

If you’ve ever had a good candidate unexpectedly withdraw mid-interview process, have you reflected on what their experience of the interview was?

Every negative experience a candidate shares, or that you might have experienced once yourself, or that you have read about online – that’s an opportunity to do better:

• Instructions useable in any interview confirmation on the timing, nature, location and participants, answering in advance any questions they might have
• Receptionists prepped on giving candidates a warm first impression
• Ringfencing your time so that you have prepared and are on time
• A two-way interview that allows everyone to ask relevant questions and make an objective decision

(Not least for the reason that their questions often shed insight into their candidacy, and can be more memorable than their answers)

• A pat on the bum as they skip joyously out the front doo… (I’m joking, for the love of all that is good in this world, please never do this)
• Clear and timely communications on interviews, feedback, offer process
• Expectation management on unexpected changes
• Better preboarding and onboarding.

Every problem has a solution you can implement.

You can always use 5 Why if you struggle to get to the root of those problems.

And it always stems from the experiences your candidates have (click here and here for my opening salvos on the importance of candidate experience).

A better interview experience for them leads to a better experience for you too, with more engaged candidates, better performance, and fewer dropouts.

All the way through to more successful starts, if you continue to keep their experience front-and-centre of your approach.