3 Tips to Improve your Interviewing in 2023

Talent Practice Co-Director, Celine Floyd recently spoke to CIPD magazine about best practice for selection and interviewing.  Here she shares some of her top insights.

Interviews have become the go-to-method for assessing talent, and although they are good for being face to face with someone, they are also loaded with the risk of bias, whilst the quality of interview often relies on the skill of the interviewer.

Competency-based interviews present a challenge because they rely on the assumption that past experience will be predictive of future performance, which isn’t always the case.  This method of assessing a candidate’s suitability for a job is also hugely restrictive to people with different socioeconomic backgrounds, and early career talent who face a catch 22 situation – they can’t get a job without experience, and they can’t get experience without a job!

So, how can you improve your talent selection in 2023 to ensure you’re hiring people with the potential you’re looking for.

1. Be clear about the skills for success at your organization

It sounds obvious, right? – But actually, understanding what the indicators of success are for a role now and in the future, is something that doesn’t get as much attention as it should.  Take the role of a lawyer for example, as a junior lawyer the indicators of success might be a clear and thorough understanding of the legal system, problem-solving and a good eye for detail.

If that person was to stay at the company, to grow in their role and take on more responsibility, they might need other skills too.  Job descriptions become outdated very quickly, so it’s vitally important that you can identify the attributes needed for high performance within specific roles at your organisation to allow for future skills needs.

If you’re looking for a solution to help identify the attributes of success, to grow a strong and sustainable talent pipeline, take a look at Futuremark for analysis of the attributes needed to ensure a better predictor of performance.

1. Assess candidates based on their strengths, and not their past experience

Hiring talent based on their strengths, rather than what they’ve done in previous roles ensures you are hiring people who are passionate about their work and who have the potential to succeed.

Strengths are the things we are naturally good at and enjoy doing.  It’s not enough to look at someone’s competency, you must consider their engagement and motivation to do the job too.  Done well, interviewing for strengths can lead to better candidate/ role matching, improved wellbeing and less absences from work.

If you’d like to learn more about strengths, you can find out via our Strengths Profile website, where you can also take your own free Strengths Profile to understand more about your own strengths.

Our Talent Practice have also compiled a list of the top 8 Altitude leadership strengths required for success, following a period of detailed research with c-suite leadership teams.

1. Remember interviewing is a two-way street

Any interview or selection process is as much about you assessing the candidate’s suitability for the job as it is about the candidate working out if your organization is the right fit for them.  So, try to create opportunities for candidates to experience your organization’s culture too.  This could be an office walk around, an opportunity to speak with existing employees in the team during the hiring process or by using job simulation technology to provide insight into the role as well as the company.

We know from our own research with YouGov, that 80% of candidates want to understand the culture of the organization they are considering joining, prior to accepting an offer.  Therefore, the ability to learn more about the culture and values of an organization during the hiring process is vital.

Job simulation has delivered fantastic results for our global clients, because it provides the opportunity to present realistic work scenarios and in-tray exercises to provide better insight into each candidate’s abilities and strengths.  If you’d like to learn more about the benefits job simulation could have for your business, please get in touch with us today.

You can request a copy of the full article from the CIPD here.