How To Select The Right Candidates And Avoid Expensive Mistakes

Robert Kilpatrick, Managing Director of Kilpatrick Executive Search and Selection, specialists in recruitment for the construction and engineering sector, gives some tips on how to improve interview performance.

Whether you’re recruiting for a project director, construction manager or any other key position selecting candidates is not only crucial but difficult and time consuming. Missing a project deadline, overrunning on the budget or failing to observe safety guidelines can be disastrous. It can be avoided through choosing the right people using systematic interview techniques. Careful preparation and a plan of action will maximise your chances of being successful.

Interviewing must be one of the most time and energy-intensive tasks related to running a construction business. To add to that, it is also one of the most vital to get right the first time. The difference between making an excellent choice and a costly error can depend on just one thing - your interview technique.

Planning in advance is key. Start by creating a clear job description and an accurate person specification, but do not be too confined by this. Be prepared to be flexible in your approach.

Work out how the interview will proceed. Determine its length, location and format: will there be one interviewer, a panel of two, or a group of three or four? Will it be a straight question-and-answer session, or will there be other tests involved, such as a problem for the interviewee to solve or the delivery of a pre-agreed presentation? Determine, too, the stages of the interview, its timescale and the nature of any feedback you intend to give. And all this before a single application has arrived on your desk.

Once you start to receive CVs, make sure you become properly familiar with each one. Look for gaps in the chronology, check the details of the qualifications, try to see any oddities. If you do perceive any weaknesses, consider how they might affect the business. However, don’t just be wary of any negatives, also try to focus on the positives.

When you meet the candidate, you need to make them feel as relaxed as possible as quickly as possible. To get the best out of people, you have to make them feel at ease and that they can talk to you.

First, make sure the interview is conducted in a pleasant environment. The room should be tidy and organised, and generally look professional. It should also be light, airy and quiet. How the furniture is arranged makes a difference. Chairs around a coffee table are preferable to facing each other across a desk, it is less threatening. To settle a candidate, explain exactly what the interview will involve and what the process will be afterwards. Above all project a sense of being approachable. Be friendly and informal. Ask direct questions, certainly, but do so in a way that is not aggressive. It’s not an interrogation; it’s a sharing of information.

So, exactly what sort of questions should you ask? It depends on the situation. There is no set list, as each position requires a different set of skills and these vary enormously from one company to another. But, whatever the job, you will have to ask each candidate about their core competencies, how they got to where they are now, why they want the job and where they want their career to go in the future.

Interview experts point to two different types of question that can be used. Open questions, which demand more than just a straight yes or no answer, are clearly the best if you want to elicit as much information as possible from the interviewee. An example would be, “What would you say is your best achievement in the last year?”

Such questions are designed to encourage the interviewee to open up and talk about themselves, but to be of real use they should always be followed by a more probing question, aimed at narrowing down the subject area and finding out more about the interviewee’s involvement in particular achievements. An example would be, “What contribution did you make to the project?”

Closed questions, which do require a simple yes or no answer, should generally be used to check specific facts, for example, “Did you win that contract?” or “Were you paid in full for the contract?” Open and closed questions are fine, but leading questions, designed to encourage a particular answer, should be avoided. They are unlikely to give you an honest view because the interviewee can guess the answer that is expected of them.

Ultimately, try to paint a complete picture of the person in front of you. To this extent, it is usually helpful to ask the following questions:

In analysing the candidate’s responses, try to identify certain qualities they might have. These qualities might include an ability to persuade, good negotiating skills and a desire to work as a team.

Of course, a good interview is not just about asking questions and assessing the answers. It is not just an opportunity for the candidate to sell themselves to you, it’s also a chance for you to sell the company to them. In today’s highly competitive marketplace, high-calibre individuals can afford to be selective about where they are employed, so you will need to deliver a mini sales-pitch about your organisation.

Interviewing is a two-way process, conducted in a somewhat artificial environment. Getting it right will add significant value to your construction business.

Call us on +44 (0)1442 863254 or Email us at enquiry@kilpatrick.uk.com