Interview Skills Are What Makes A Good Interviewer 

A good interviewer can be described in much the same way as Potter Stewart’s definition of obscenity, “I know it, when I see it.”   It is easy to identify a good interviewer, but it can be much harder to describe what interview skills make them a good one.   Despite this challenge, we believe certain interview skills are more important than others and that they can be learned and improved upon.   We have included our list below of what we believe are essential interview skills:

1.       Social Personality

a.         Is the person warm and pleasant when meeting new people?

b.       Does he/she enjoy meeting new people and does this come across to the candidates in the interviews?

2.       Intelligence:

a.         Are people impressed with his/her ability to think on his/her feet?

b.       Can he/she quickly adapt to unforeseen circumstances?

c.         Does he/she give off the appearance of being smart?

3.       Company Experience:

a.         Is he/she thoroughly familiar with the inner-workings of his/her company so he/she can talk confidently about them?

b.       Does he/she have the ability to present this information to candidates in a way that is both conversational and interesting to them?

4.       Presence:

a.         Does he/she look the part of a powerful businessperson?

b.       Can he/she invoke a strong interest in the candidate to want to work with that specific interviewer on future projects?

5.       Professionalism:

a.         Do people come away believing he/she has his/her stuff together?

b.       Do they think he/she makes few mistakes?

6.       Interviewing Style:

a.         Is his/her interviewing style disarming and help put the candidates at ease?

b.       Does he/she have the ability to ask the tough questions without coming across as being cold and abrasive?

c.         Is he/she able to sell the position in a way that will appeal to the candidate’s needs and wants?

This is a core list of the interview skills needed for how to conduct an interview.   For the time being, it is a good idea to make an honest assessment of how you measure up in each of these areas.   In later articles, we will go into more detail regarding each of these specific interview skills and describe ways in which these skills can be improved.