There are many areas you must consider to help you be fully prepared for each interview. This preparation will enable you to be in total control of the interview and any situations that may come up.

The first and possibly the most important first step is to define the role

1. Define the role.

Key #1 - Define the Role

Know matter what your experience in interviewing or formal training you have received for interview skills training. You don't want to hire a person (or several people) without knowing what their specific role within the team will be. The better you define the role, the better you will be able to manage your new staff member. Why? Because they will know before they start the job exactly what is expected of them.

In management of people there is a saying:

Tell them what's expected

Let them have a go

Tell them how they are doing

Well the truth is that in order to tell them or show them what is expected you have to be extremely clear about the definition of their role.

Of course I accept in some smaller organizations everyone has to muck in and do a bit of everything and that is fine, but candidates who are being interviewed by you have the right to have a clear understanding of the definition of the role they have applied for and also what is expected of them

There is nothing more discouraging to a new employee than doing a job that isn't what he thought it would be. And there is nothing more discouraging for a leader to have hired someone who wasn't right for the job.

If the role is not defined clearly from the beginning, it will cost the organization money and time. In our Recruitment interviewing skills training course we believe this is a must before even advertising for the job, let alone before interviewing candidates. To define the role of the new position, identify the answers to these seven important questions:

1. What does the job entail?

2. What are the primary duties of this job?

3. What are the secondary duties of this job?

4. What are the responsibilities of this job?

5. What are the authorities of this job?

6. What are the reporting structures for this job?

7. What are the core competencies needed to perform the job?

If you enter into a recruitment interview and do not know the answers to these questions, it will not matter how good your skills are at recruitment interviewing or whether indeed you have received formal recruitment interviewing skills training, you will have less than a 50% chance of choosing the right candidate.