Well, the job interview starts in 15 minutes. Your heart starts to race. You’re breathing faster. Hands go cold and clammy. Sweat appears. You feel dry in the mouth, and maybe even a little dizzy.
Sound familiar?
Here’s what’s crazy about this scenario. If anyone should be sweating before an interview, it should be the person conducting it. After all, in the next hour, that person could be making a fateful decision — a brilliant hire, or a painful and expensive mistake, or anything in between.
Talk about pressure!
The biggest mistake in job interviews is that the person being interviewed is more nervous than the person doing the interview, rather than the other way around.
Look at all the risks that go into your next hire. There is a chance you will miss a hidden gem, a superstar who emerges too late to help you. There is the chance you could hire someone whose personality destroys office chemistry. Or you could make a mediocre hire, someone who shows up, does the work, and goes home without any commitment or passion.
Hiring is hard.
So what can you do if you’re doing the interview? Here’s an excerpt from a Business News Daily article. It helps explain why so many hires go bad.
“A study by Leadership IQ found that failures exhibited by new employees may result from flawed interview processes,” the article says. “Eighty-two percent of the 5,000 managers surveyed reported that the interviewers were too focused on other issues, too pressed for time or lacked the confidence in their interviewing abilities to pay attention to red flags.
“According to Leadership IQ CEO Mark Murphy, this is because the job interview process focuses on making sure new hires are technically competent, whereas other factors that are just as important to employee success – like coachability, emotional intelligence, temperament and motivation – are often overlooked.”
For an employer, the job interview should involve respect for the gravity of the moment. Any interview is a fork in the road for your company — and for you!
So if you’re hiring, the job interview is not something you just fit into your busy schedule. It’s the most important thing you’ll do all day.