Employee Evaluation and Selection

Some Do's and Don'ts

Do

  • Have as much privacy as possible
  • Call applicant by name when calling him into the office
  • Ensure the applicant knows your name
  • Greet applicant courteously and sincerely
  • Make the applicant feel that you are pleased with his interest in the position
  • Establish an informal but business like atmosphere
  • Make the applicant feel important
  • Talk to the applicant as though you were the only contact he would ever have with the company
  • Compliment a good employment record
  • Interrupt the conversation to keep interview on track
  • Use active listening
  • Relax and the applicant will relax
  • Keep information given, confidential
  • Remember the applicant's time is valuable
  • Investigate applicant's work record / performance thoroughly
  • Watch for gaps in work record
  • Check job records and references
  • Use application blanks and other data in planning the interview
  • Make an outline in advance, of the main items of information you want to obtain during the interview
  • Plan the time required for the interview

Don't

  • Interview when worried, upset, ill or under stress
  • Hold an interview in a noisy place
  • Keep applicants waiting unnecessarily
  • Give the impression of being abrupt or harsh
  • Allow outside interruptions
  • Seek information you already have
  • Antagonize the applicant
  • Show emotion at any physical handicap
  • Hurt the applicant's feelings or destroy his faith in himself
  • Forget applicant is sensitive to every word the interviewer speaks
  • Appear to lose interest in the interview
  • Dominate the interview
  • Pry into personal lives
  • Break or delay an appointment
  • Fall into a set pattern of interviewing
  • Waste time on a long interview if the applicant is clearly not suitable
  • Conduct the interview in a haphazard manner
Opening the evaluation process

Do

  • Open the interview with handshake and clear introduction
  • Smile and be pleasant
  • Open the interview with some topic of common interest
  • Create atmosphere in which the applicant feels confident and at ease

Don't

  • Flounder for a cue when opening the conversation
  • Appear ill at ease
  • Give an impression of being harried or brusque
Obtaining information and assisting the employee / applicant

Do

  • Give the interviewee time to think
  • Give the interviewee time to answer one question before asking another
  • Stimulate interviewee to do most of the talking
  • Encourage interviewee to talk about his work experiences
  • Try to bring out attitudes, experience capacities and opinions
  • Elicit facts about abilities, interests, health and motivation
  • Use simple why, what, where, and how questions

Don't

  • Make the interviewee speak up to you
  • Use trick questions
  • Cross examine
  • Crowd interviewee for answers
  • Ask 'yes' or 'no' questions unless necessary
  • Phrase questions to indicate desired answers
  • Let interview wander
Giving the interviewee information

Do

  • Know and give information on job requirements
  • Talk about your division, products and services
  • Answer all questions
  • Talk in lay terms
  • Provide sufficient information in order for the applicant to give a considered decision
  • Explain opportunities for advancement

Don't

  • Oversell the job
  • Talk too much
  • Sell the job to the applicant
  • Use jargon
  • Knowingly misrepresent the facts
  • Offer unsolicited advice
  • Tell the applicant your troubles or your successes
  • Commit yourself as to religion, politics or other beliefs
  • Encourage unsuitable applicants to fit into the organization
Observing the interviewee

Do

  • Carefully note appearance, attitude, impressions, ability, knowledge
  • Watch every action, word and pause with respect to the position
  • Watch voice inflection, facial expression, posture, gestures, eyes and general behavior to supplement the spoken word
  • Appraise temperament and qualifications in terms of success on the job
  • Be thorough in your explanation of the duties of the job, then ask the applicant if he is interested and capable. Watch the reaction.

Don't

  • Hire applicants for jobs where their limitations would not suit
  • Make the applicant self conscious by being too intent in observation
  • Be ostentatious in recording observations or information obtained
Evaluating the interviewee

Do

  • Keep the job in mind during the interview
  • Keep the applicants future potential in mind
  • Be objective
  • Remember, it is better to make a mistake and not hire a good applicant than to be in doubt and hire a bad one
  • Have a reliable grading system and grade the applicant
  • Look at yourself - are you a credit to your company

Don't

  • Hire merely because there is not a suitable applicant
  • Buy a hard luck story
  • Be influenced to overlook an applicants shortcomings
  • Make decision until you have grounds
  • Hire applicants whose past work history lacks creditability
  • Commit yourself to employ the applicant until you have covered every phase in the applicant's background
  • Accept previous experience as an absolute guarantee of ability
Closing the interview

Do

  • Close the interview in a friendly constructive manner
  • Ask the applicant if he has any further questions

Don't

  • Fail to tell the applicant if you plan to hire someone else
  • Offer excuses or put blame for not hiring upon another department or individual