Behaviour-Based Interviewing Skills for the Selection Interview
Duration: 2 Days
Objectives
After this session, participants will be able to:
- Identify the characteristics of an effective behaviour-based interview
- Ask appropriate behaviour-based questions and listen skilfully to answers
- Structure the interview for optimum data collection in a minimum time
- Open and close interviews effectively
- Stay in charge of the interview and refocus difficult interviewees
- Deal appropriately with human rights issues
- Follow up on the interview
Outline
- Part I: Introduction
- Participant roles and goals and expectations
- Aims of the behaviour-based interviewer
- Professionalism in the interviewer's role
- Part II: Behaviour-based Interviewing
- The key principle of behaviour-based interviewing: Past behaviour predicts future behaviour
- How to make our questions behaviour-based
- Sequencing, flow and funneling
- How to put an interviewee at ease
- Beyond gut-feel: Strategies for eliminating our biases and staying objective
- Part III: Questioning Skills for the Behaviour-based Interviewer
- The right tool for our purpose: Two categories of interview questions (open, closed)
- Distinguishing between directive and non-directive questions
- How to introduce a topic with a behaviour-based question
- How to avoid letting hypothetical questions creep in
- How to avoid telegraphing our expected answer
- An important question skill: following up on initial questions till we get an answer
- Avoiding defensiveness: Suggestions for softening over-direct questions
- How to take charge of a dominant interviewee with questioning
- Sample behaviour-based questions for various interview topics
- Practicum
- Part IV: Active Listening Skills for the Behaviour-based Interviewer
- Distinguishing between paraphrasing and summarizing
- Observing and interpreting the interviewee's non-verbal behaviour
- Attentive listening: signals that reduce defensiveness and encourage elaboration
- Red-flagging questionable answers
- How to interrupt without offending our interviewee
- Using high-impact and low-impact approaches
- Practicum
- Part V: Structuring the Interview
- Planning and preparing for the interview
- The screening interview
- How the interview structure differs with more than one interviewer
- Planning the questions
- Using the interviewee's documentation as reference when preparing
- What to cover in the opening
- How to handle the body of the interview
- How to handle the issue of note-taking
- When to deal with compensation issues
- Closing the interview
- When to complete the paperwork
- Practicum
- Part VI: Human Rights Issues in the Behaviour-based Interview
- What we may legally ask and not ask, and why
- Legal but inappropriate questions
- The importance of the resume
- What to do when an interviewee claims violation of rights
- Part VII: Following Up on the Interview
- How to handle references (use them!) and referees
- What we may and may not ask a referee
- Organizing notes for multiple interviews
- Point comparisons of interview scores
- Documentation and notification
- Personal Action Plan for the Behaviour-based Interviewer
- Course Closure and Evaluation