Ok, I thought it was time for a bit of fun… When you have interviewed as many people as I have over the years, you are bound to run into some interesting people and funny situations.

I was recently asked by a student that was looking for a co-op placement if it was ok to bring their Mom to the interview. I said absolutely not. It is perfectly fine for Mom to drive you to the interview, but Mom needs to stay in the car. This reminded me of my next story.

Let me share my story with you. Years ago I was interviewing candidates with a co-worker for an IT related position. The interview room was directly inside the front door where coincidently the Administrative Assistant and waiting room were positioned (literally a small love seat couch directly in front of the Administrative Assistant desk). The rest of this story is pieced together between our direct experience and the feedback from the Administrative Assistant outside of the interview door at her desk.

While we were finishing up interviewing a candidate, the next candidate came through the building door into the waiting room. Interestingly enough, he was not alone. His wife came with him and introduced him as an interview candidate to “Sue” (name changed) – the Administrative Assistant and told her that “George” (name has obviously been changed) was here for an interview. George (and his wife) were told to have a seat and we would be with him shortly. During this time, George’s wife proceeded to groom him. She combed his hair, she touched it up by licking her hand and tapping some out of place hairs, straightened his collar…etc. This all directly in front of Sue – about 6 feet away while sitting on the love seat. All of the sudden George’s wife jumped up and said “OH! I need to get something from the car!” Out she went – at the same time my co-worker and I opened the door to say good bye to our candidate and to call George in for his interview. George’s wife then came through the front door and immediately stopped dead in her tracks…her face turning white. She said, “Where did George go?!” Sue said “Well, he went in for his interview”. George’s wife then said “OH! Can I go in with him?” It was then that Sue politely told her “No…this is something George has to do on his own….”

Unfortunately George did not do well at all during the interview, to the point where about half of the interview questions were skipped and George was quickly back to his wife.

So hopefully you got the humour in this story. If you are applying to a job, the company is looking to possibly hire YOU…not your Mom or your spouse….they are looking to hire YOU. So, it is important to do the interview on your own. 🙂

So you have been trying to recruit for a stellar candidate and you are having challenges.  I get it – you are getting hundreds of resumes BUT they don’t have what you are looking for right?  You are doing all the right things, you are using social media, advertising on various job boards, your job description and ads are top notch  – you are even targeting passive candidates too!  It is a pain that is all too familiar to many companies these days.

The good companies are getting smarter, they are learning to keep their talent by working on their internal systems and the overall employee experience.  These good companies hold good people.  So you could keep plugging away or you could look at things a little differently.  There are still a lot of great candidates out there who have the potential to be even better with some guidance, mentoring and training to fit your job description completely.  So why not look at keeping an open mind and tap into this talent?  This is a tough concept to “get” as we all want that perfect fit when we are hiring.  Sure, this is ideal, but as I just described above, it is getting tougher to secure this talent easily.

If I have managed to sway your thinking slightly….let’s look at what the things you will want to look for in great candidates to make this happen!

1.  A love of learning.  Look in the resume for a track record of recent and on-going training, courses, seminars.  Look to ask about this in an interview.  You need someone with a desire and commitment to continue to learn and grow, thus growing into the position you are hiring for.

2.  A Positive and “can do” attitude.  You will want to question the candidate with some behavioural and situational questions to assess these traits.  Look for people that want to dig in, stay positive and work to get the job done with an attitude that is contagious.

3.  Desire to grow.  A desire to grow will propel these individuals to do what is necessary to gain the skills to be able to not only fit into the role that they have been hired for, but also to continue to grow with your company.

Absolutely the candidate needs the basics to be successful in the position you are hiring for – I am not suggesting you attempt to make a square peg fit into a round hole – look for the “must haves” and then look for the ability to train the others with the traits listed above.

If you are having challenges recruiting the right person, I encourage you to think outside of the box, keep the above in mind and bring in talent that you can be proud of, that is grateful for the opportunity to learn and to contribute back to your goals and objectives.  Committing to their success in turn creates commitment to you and your bottom line.

Some businesses are built around coaching job seekers on interview best practices – ours included!  Many candidates dread the interview process and become a pile of nerves as soon as their name is called.  Interviewers know this and are used to this.  We know that for most people, the interview is an uncomfortable time.  We have given and will continue to give you lots of tips around interviewing best practices and thought for this article we would concentrate on some general tips that should be kept in mind when answering each question.

1.  Do your preparation ahead of time.  Look for the common interview questions and have lots of answers prepared.

2.  Ensure to work your top accomplishments and impressive items into your answers.

3.  Stick to the point.  Often we see interview candidates go off on tangents and even ask to have the question repeated after they have been talking for a solid 5 minutes.

4.  Don’t hog the interview, if the interviewer has stopped making notes, they probably have what they are looking for – they will ask you for more examples if they need them.

5.  Wrap up your answers.  Think about your answer like a very short story.  A story starts with a quick intro, the points and then wraps up by rounding off the question.

Think about being on the other side of the table.  You are there to find out if the candidate is indeed the best fit for the role.  You want to have a positive experience with the candidate, be engaged and see a natural fit.  Ensure you now -as the candidate- show the interview that you are this fit.

Practice, practice, practice.  Be positive, smile when you answer and give eye contact.  You can do it!