Tips for a first time interviewer?

[elrohwen]

Tomorrow I'm interviewing a candidate and wanted to see if any experienced interviewers had some tips!

I'm not a manager and I'm not making any hiring decisions - the reason my boss asked me to interview this guy is that I'm young, relatively new to the industry, and have the same degree. My role is primarily to explain what I do every day and how our major applies to the position.

Of course, I still want to ask him questions to see if he'll be a good fit for the group - I just don't want to focus too much on the "typical" questions ("tell me a time when you did X ...") because I'm sure the managers he interviews with will ask those things (he'll have at least 6-7 interviewers). I'm having a hard time coming up with good questions though.

What kinds of questions would you ask someone right out of college if you weren't the hiring manager? If it helps, it's for an engineering position in a high tech manufacturing environment.

Thanks for the help in advance!

 

[Haven]

How will you know whether he is a good fit for the group--what are the specific characteristics, experiences, or abilities you're hoping to see in him?

Once you determine a few key things he should possess, consider how those characteristics would translate into concrete behaviors or choices. These behaviors and choices will be what you're looking for in his responses tomorrow, so you should ask questions that give him the opportunity to showcase the specific things you're looking for him to have.

FOR EXAMPLE:

Characteristics
Among other things, want my fellow reading specialists to be
a) teacher-researchers,
b) student-centered, and
c) skilled at identifying, assessing, diagnosing, and treating reading needs in students.

Concrete Behaviors
a) Teacher researchers are up-to-date with current research trends and findings
b) Student-centered educators base their decisions on what is best for the students
c) Specialists who can identify, assess, diagnose, and treat reading needs can take a student profile and craft an effective intervention for that student using current best-practices and research findings

SO, my interview questions might be:
a) What is a current research finding that has changed the way you plan your instruction? Or, what current research has supported an instructional choice you already make? (The answer will tell me whether she knows of any current research, as well as give me insight into her pedagogical philosophy.)
b) What drives your decision to make changes to your instructional practices?
c) (I'd give a short case study and ask her to describe her initial intervention plan for the student.)

I just realized a wrote a lot! Sorry--I got carried away with my examples.

 

[yennyfire]

I might ask him how he handles conflict within a team/group, as that's always important no matter what your position. I'd also ask him what he thinks his strenghts and weaknesses are and what he thinks he'll like/dislike about the job...that may give you an idea if you think he's a good fit for the position. Obviously ask him if he has any questions for you...

Good luck!

 

[elrohwen]

Haven, thank you for your help!! I will absolutely sit down and think about what everyone in my department has in common and try to make a concrete list. Two off the top of my head are independence (in decision making) and ability to work with others - I can come up with some questions to get at those.

Another question though - how would you modify your approach for someone just out of school? I assume he has some work experience (internship or something) but at this point he doesn't have enough for me to focus on things I'd like in a fellow experienced professional. I think this is where I'm struggling the most, because my question ideas are too specific to the actual job, when his experience might be in something completely different (research rather than manufacturing, or in a different industry, etc)

Can you tell I haven't seen his resume yet? I'm sure that will help me get ideas once my boss sends it to me.

 

[elrohwen]

I might ask him how he handles conflict within a team/group, as that's always important no matter what your position. I'd also ask him what he thinks his strenghts and weaknesses are and what he thinks he'll like/dislike about the job...that may give you an idea if you think he's a good fit for the position. Obviously ask him if he has any questions for you...

Good luck!

I'm hoping he has a lot of questions for me, honestly, but I'm afraid that after he's done 4 other interviews he'll be all out of obvious questions (I know I was at that point). I want to have things prepared that will help conversation flow - give him something to share and maybe inspire more questions from him, if that makes sense.

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[Haven]

Phew. I'm glad my novella of a response didn't annoy you. (I've been talking about creating authentic assessments of students' ability all day--can you tell? )

As for interviewing a recent grad--I would assume that he's completed group projects and been in other situations where he had to work with others in school, so I would encourage him to use his academic experiences to answer your questions. I could be totally off, though--I know NOTHING about engineering programs, so maybe it is all independent work. If that's the case--I'll have to get back to you on that one!

It sounds like you know some of what you'd like to see in him, which is half the battle! You can't ask a good question if you don't know what you're trying to figure out. Once you see his resume you may see some experiences on there that will help you create some good questions, too.

 

[elrohwen]

Haven, it's hard to say how much he's worked with others in college. I know in my program our big senior year classes were done in teams, but not all schools work like that. All other classes were completely independent - most of us banded together just to get through the material, but it was possible to do it all by yourself if you were smart enough (which I totally was not! haha). I would like to ask him which classes were his favorite because that will get at whether he prefers the practical side of engineering or the theoretical (which tells me whether he might enjoy manufacturing or not)

I'm hoping he has some good work experience in the form of internships or co-ops because I can focus on those - though often in a 3 month internship you just follow people around and do their grunt work. And if his experience was in a completely different area I'll have to be more creative. The more experience he has (and the chattier he is) the easier it'll be on me though! I hope he makes it easy on me and we don't sit there staring at each other for the last 10 minutes

 

[aliciagirl]

I recently took over as interim manager at work and had to do interviews for the first time. My employer has a set list of things that would like us to ask - the standard "what would you do in X situation?" type questions - but I always made it a point to explain everything that happens in a typical day (good and bad) and ask the interviewee what they would like and dislike most about the day I've just described. I work in retail pharmacy and I've had a lot of people come for interviews who had no idea what a day was like (and one who said "That sounds absolutely terrifying!") so I have added it as something I will always ask. I don't know if you have a "typical day" - a lot of jobs do not - but it could be something if things get awkward!

DH is an engineer and I explained your situation to him and he said that at the start of a lot of his interviews right out of school he got asked a lot - "Why did you choose engineering?" or some form of that question. And he said that while he found annoying at the time, he now understands why they ask it - is it because you liked tinkering around with stuff as a kid, you love math and science, etc. It could show a lot about what kind approach someone takes to engineering (similar to your question of favorite courses).

 

[elrohwen]

Thank you for your ideas, Aliciagirl! I think I should definitely describe a typical day because I'm only 6 months into the same basic job he'll have - I can probably tell him about it better than any of the managers can. I hope he asks questions so we can have a conversation about it.

And your DH is definitely right - there are practical and theoretical sides to engineering and both types of people are good at very different jobs. Manufacturing isn't for everyone (there are people in my department who want to leave it as soon as possible) so I really want to figure out if it's something he'll enjoy, even if he has no experience in it and doesn't know what it's about yet.

 

[Haven]

How'd the interview go, Red?

 

[elrohwen]

It went really well, Moose! Thinking over traits I'd like to see first really helped - at least it helped me explain the job and the types of people who do well at it. I didn't ask him any hard hitting questions, just things like "Describe what you're doing at your current job" and he was all prepared with the answers to show how it was a good fit with what we do here.

He's actually working in my old industry right now, so we had a lot to talk about there and I certainly understood his reasons for leaving. I ended up being the last interview of the day, which sucks because he's just interviewed with 8 other people and probably wants to curl up for a nap (I know I did) but he managed to keep the conversation going and stay engaged.

I hope my boss hires him! I thought he'd be a good fit and pick things up quickly. I'm curious to see what my manager decides.

 

[Haven]

Great news! I'm glad to hear it went well.

P.S. I can't believe you (and he) had to interview with so many people in the same day! That's exhausting. I can't even imagine keeping my composure for that long.

 

[elrohwen]

Great news! I'm glad to hear it went well.

P.S. I can't believe you (and he) had to interview with so many people in the same day! That's exhausting. I can't even imagine keeping my composure for that long.

It's really, really hard! My last interview was a friend (who is a manager) and he said his purpose in interviewing me was to find out which job I wanted and then recommend me for that one It was nice to have a friend be the last one because I was hardly coherent by then and I could relax with him instead of trying to be "on". I tried to do the same for this guy and just let it be a relaxing conversation.