Five Alternative Ways to Conduct an Interview

The interview process generally isn’t enjoyable for either party. The interviewee will inevitably be nervous, and the person asking the questions knows that many of the answers they’re getting will pre-rehearsed and not representative of the individual. In order to get the best results out of candidates, you’ll need to think outside the box.

Here are five alternative ways to conduct an interview.

Giving a Presentation

When interviewing someone you ideally want them to do most of the talking, but you’ll want to be able to check that they aren’t all mouth and no trousers – can they deliver what they say that can deliver? One of the best ways you can do this is to ask them to prepare a presentation for the meeting. Since this is only being done in front of one person, there’s a lower risk of stage fright and you’ll be able to get a better understanding of their quality of work.

Ditching the Office

Rather than conducting the interview in the spare room of the office, why not take it outside or, if your office is city-based and central, even to a nearby coffee shop. Offices are traditionally serious working environments so here are some examples of where you take the interviewee to help them open up and enable you to get better understanding of their real personality.

Test Their Comfort Zones

Most interviews feature the same questions, often based around what the candidate thinks they could contribute to the role and what their past experiences has taught them. Asking your individual questions like “What color is your personality?” or questions that will test their verbal or numerical reasoning like “How much money do you think a typical London taxi driver earns in a day?” can give you a better understanding of the person’s thought process and whether or not they’re a right fit for the team.

Through the Web

Job interviews over platforms like Skype have increased tremendously over the past several years. These are predominantly used for times when you’re interviewing someone who currently lives overseas, but they can still be useful for someone who lives locally. Traveling to London from other parts of the country can be expensive so you’ll widen your potential search significantly by offering an online interview.

Have a Conversation

Finally, one of the most productive ways to conduct an interview is to ditch the traditional question and answer format and just focus on having a conversation with each other. This will eliminate the pre-planned answers so many interviewees have. You can still have some notes prepared yourself, but try to use them to springboard new topics rather than restrict the flow of the conversation.

Have any unique interview experiences to share? Let us know in the comments below.