Top Five HR and Interviewing No-No's

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of lists talking about what an interviewee should do if they want to nail the interview and get that job. There are far fewer lists about what the company should do while interviewing. Because of that, here are some things to remember not to do if you plan on interviewing a prospective hire any time soon.

1. Don’t act disinterested

This should be simple and easy to remember, but it is important nonetheless. Don’t act disinterested or downright miserable while you’re interviewing someone new. If you seem miserable throughout the interviewing process, the message you send across to all potential employees is that they are going to have a miserable time working for the company. It’s a simple but effective thing to remember. As an interviewer, you are often the first face for your company in the hiring process, don’t make that face a miserable one

2. Appear arrogant

Even though you are the one interviewing, it’s important to remember that you were the one who was once in that interviewee’s chair, hoping to get an awesome job. Humility goes a long way to people who may want to work for you, so acting like you’re several steps above your prospective hires is a major turn off to them. It’s okay to talk about how much you had to work to get where you are, it’s not okay to think that the work you did has made you all-powerful.

3. Talk negatively about past employees

Going along with the idea of showing off a job to be miserable, talking negatively about people who have worked for you in the past is an immediate way to make sure that person you just interviewed is never returning to your building. Often when an interviewee hears all of the negativity that occurs in an office, their reaction is to run as far away as possible as something had to spark that negativity. Furthermore, it also implants the idea in the head of the interviewee that, within a few months, they could be the past employee that’s negatively ranted about to a new interviewee. Just don’t do it.

4. Answer your phone

It works for interviewees as well as interviewers. It goes along with the idea of acting disinterested, but it’s important for you to remember as well. Answering your phone in the middle of an interview that you are conducting is not only a way to make sure your prospective employee will not respect you, but also a way to anger them. They’ve taken time out of their schedule to set up an appointment that works for you, but you can’t resist answering your phone? It’s hypocritical and will turn off almost any prospective hires.

5. Be uniformed about their role

There is nothing that will turn off a prospective hire more than if they were to ask a question about what their role in the company would be, and only receiving a stuttering half-truth as a response. People like to know what they are doing before they accept any responsibility, and if you cannot answer any question about their role in the company then they will not work for you. Furthermore a lack of knowledge shows a major disconnect between departments of a company if the HR department has no idea what the accounting department is doing and vice versa. Nobody wants to work for a disjointed company.

Your job as an interviewer is to make a position at the company as wanted as possible, to entice someone who’s skilled enough to want to make a career there. You’re the last line of defense against possible negativity in the office space. Good luck hiring.