Crucially, whilst making sure you're controlling an interview so you get what you want out of it (the ability to ask the questions you need, to elicit the information you require to make informed an decision), you should always remember that (generally) a candidate will never intend to derail the process. However, they may be nervous and the feedback they get from you during the course of the interview, if it is going awry, might be making that nervousness even worse, which can all contribute to an interview going wrong. If that happens, then it's not just bad for the candidate - it can mean you don't see all they have to offer, with the result that you may end up not employing the best candidate.
What all this means is that keeping control of proceedings is as vital as any other aspect to making sure you employ the best person you can. The good news is that it is easy to bring an interview back on track - as long as you are able to recognise that you are losing control of it.
So, what situations can arise that could derail the information gathering process?
Too Much Information:
One of my employees, in many ways an absolutely exemplary member of staff, would always provide me with the whole 'back-story' to any information I ask about, and only then tell me what I needed to know. Bluntly, it was frustrating, but over time we worked out an effective communication process to resolve the issue.
Many candidates will be similar and, understandably, seek to impart as much information as possible. They might feel it will help make themselves look good, or it might just be their nature to provide lots of information that they feel is relevant. It doesn’t mean they won't be able to do the job (although you may want to satisfy yourself about their likely productivity and ability to stay focused on one task if they continually ramble). However, in an interview you neither have the time to work out a sensible modus operandi to get over this kind of problem, nor to listen to a lot of rambling about a topic that isn't telling you anything you need to know.
If you feel a candidate is saying too much about nothing, you must firstly be clear in your own mind that that is what's occurring and secondly then be assertive and interrupt the candidate to bring them back on track. To do this, simply interrupt with a new question or re-frame the original question so they provide the information that you are specifically looking for.
Quite possibly, you might be at least partially at fault in not asking a sufficiently specific question - it's easily done. If you've made the mistake of asking a general question such as "Can you please talk me through your career to date?" and in response the candidate has just spent five minutes discussing a job they've done which has no relevance to the role you're interviewing for, step in with something along the lines of “Sorry, my question wasn’t specific enough. Could you talk about your specific experience doing XXX at YYY company please?”
Too Little Information:
On the other hand, short answers can be equally detrimental to an interview. You end up having to think quickly for the next question which puts you under pressure, and you may not be obtaining enough information to decide whether the candidate can carry out your role.
Experience has taught me that candidates want to provide the information necessary to ensure they are offered the role. That's why they're there! Therefore, if you find you're only getting short answers back, it's most likely to be down to poor questions.
If this is the case, then for future reference you'll need to re-visit how you're framing questions. You may well find you are asking closed questions which can only be answered yes or no with a sentence or so in addition.
However, on the day, if you find yourself only getting brief responses, then you have do something to address the problem there and then to draw the candidate out. These are some follow-on questions and techniques that can help you:
- Reply with “Good, and?” Then just be silent and look at them enquiringly.
- Just be silent and leave the candidate to fill in the gaps.
- Ask the candidate: "Please elaborate".
- Ask a specific follow-up question which will require a more detailed answer like “so when you did xxx how did you do it?” or “Take me through the steps you took to carry out this task?”
- Q - How are you today?
- A – Fine.
- Q – What do you mean by fine?
- Q – What did you think of the football last night?
- A – It was good.
- Q – What did you think was good?
You will find that as your questions become more effective the short uninformative answers happen less often. When you do need more information, an open follow-up question about the too-brief answer will generally help you out of the cul-de-sac.
Tangents:
You ask a question and the conversation shifts to an area you were not expecting or planning to discuss. (My wife is good at this!) My advice is that if the information is useful allow the conversation to proceed, probe in greater detail and ask for examples. Assuming all the candidates turn out to be of a similar calibre, this additional information could be a differentiator.
However, if the tangent is not producing useful information, or even if it is but the question you wanted answering is being avoided, then you could start to lose control. In these instances, politely cut the point they are making short and re-focus the candidate on your question. Ask the same question again and be more specific about the piece of information you want to obtain in the same way as you would if you were being provided with too much information.
Next Time
Dealing with candidates who don’t tell the truth, who avoid answering your questions and who seek to take credit for work they did not carry out.
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