This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "High Output Management" by Andrew S. Grove. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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Are you a hiring manager looking for tips on how to interview someone? What is the best way to conduct an interview?
There are endless tips on how to interview someone, but if you’re a manager or HR personnel, simple is better. Your job is to predict how an applicant will do at the job and these tips help you do that.
Keep reading for tips on how to interview someone.
Tips on How to Interview Someone
The goal of interviewing is to predict how an applicant would do at your company based on her self-assessment of her own abilities. In order to be a good interviewer, you’ll probably need tips on how to interview someone. There’s no way to avoid using self-assessment at the interview stage because you don’t have access to objective measures of skills, performance, and other factors. However, even though self-assessments can be inaccurate, they can still provide good information if, as the interviewer, you’re blunt and direct, because this usually inspires similar directness in the applicant.
Here are some tips on how to interview someone.
Tip #1: Aim to learn the following types of information:
- Technical skill level. This is one of the important tips on how to interview someone. Ask her to describe a project she’s completed or about her skills weaknesses. This will tell you if she’ll be able to do the job you’re hiring for.
- Ability to apply skills. Ask questions about previous successes and failures to determine if the applicant knows how to actually apply her skills.
- Discrepancy between knowledge and actions. If a person is capable but didn’t perform, find out why. Ask about issues at her current job and what she’s learned from past mistakes.
- Values. Ask why she wants a new job and why she feels your company is a good fit. Her values will tell you how she will approach the job. (Shortform example: If you run a non-profit that rescues animals, and the applicant values humane treatment of animals, she’ll likely approach her job with a lot of passion and motivation.)
Tip #2: Listen. The applicant should talk for 80% of the time so you can learn as much about them as possible.
Tip #3: If the applicant gets off topic, interrupt her and tell her you’d like to change the subject. You only have an hour or two—use it wisely.
Tip #4: Use the same language and make sure you both understand the meaning of any jargon you use.
Tip #5: Ask the applicant to consider a hypothetical situation. For example, when Grove was interviewing an accountant, he asked him to determine the cost of a finished wafer. Grove explained the wafer manufacturing process and answered questions about the process, since the accountant didn’t know how it worked, and the accountant worked out how to determine the price.
Tip #6: Ask the applicant if she has questions. This will show you if she prepared for the interview, if she researched the company, and what she’s looking for in a company. Tip #7: Don’t use tricks—for example, giving applicants a broken chair and then seeing how they react when they fall. Instead, give a realistic first impression of yourself and the company because it takes first impressions a long time to fade, and encountering tricks during an interview suggests there will be tricks and traps on the job too.
You can use these tips on how to interview someone to hire the best candidate for the job.
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Like what you just read? Read the rest of the world's best book summary and analysis of Andrew S. Grove's "High Output Management" at Shortform .
Here's what you'll find in our full High Output Management summary :
- How to increase your managerial output and productivity
- The 11 activities that offer a higher impact on output
- How meetings can be used as a time management tool
