Smooth flow between parties signals a successful interview
Recently, I have been promoted to a management position. As part of my new responsibilities, I will be interviewing applicants for positions in our department. I work for a small manufacturing company and the payroll/human resources representative has offered to help me in conducting interviews. I have not interviewed anyone for a job before and I need some guidance.
I have always believed a good job interview is a good conversation where the discussion flows smoothly both ways. The interviewer and the person being interviewed need to communicate their needs, expectations, and hopes for the position being filled. New managers are sometimes so concerned with doing everything right that they lose the ability to really connect with the person they are interviewing. Getting a solid sense of the person in front of you and a feel for how they match your needs is as important as their qualifications.
Remember the applicant is probably as nervous, if not more, as you are and will probably not notice you are new at this. By making the person you are interviewing feel comfortable with some initial chit-chat, you will indirectly achieve a greater level of comfort for yourself. For example, starting off with a phrase like, ''Did you have any trouble finding us?" or ''How did you make out in this snow storm?" helps to open the conversation and establish personal interest.
In your particular situation, you have an advantage in being able to get some assistance from the human resources representative. Ask for her guidance and for any written guidelines she may have on good questions to ask. Also emphasize to her your need to know about questions to avoid to conduct an interview that does not discriminate or appear to discriminate. This point is essential and should not be overlooked.
Prohibited interview topics generally include questions based on the candidate's race, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, veteran status, pregnancy, and disability. The simple way to interview legally is to stick to questions that relate to the job itself and how the applicant could perform its functions.
If you have a job description or an outline of the main responsibilities, it can help you focus your inquiries. If your company does not have job descriptions, create a mini one for your own use. From it you can develop a list of core questions you will ask all applicants to ensure that you cover required topics.
Remember to ask for real examples of the experiences the candidate says he or she has had. It is always interesting for me to observe how an applicant responds to deeper inquiries into their actual work behaviors that caused a situation or a project to fail. You can get valuable data when comparing the problem story explanation with the description of the one that brought the person success. Noticing their contrasting styles in describing themselves in such different experiences is quite beneficial to your overall assessment of applicants. This is also a helpful tool when comparing the finalists for a job.
Like other skills we want to master at work, interviewing takes practice. Don't hesitate to rehearse or even role-play approaches to questioning and engaging applicants. Ask friends and colleagues for ideas about what approaches have been effective for them and what has not worked.
When I have been responsible for training interviewers, I always accompanied them during their first few interviews. The new interviewer explained to the applicant that I was observing and asked for their permission to have me join them. After each interview we debriefed and critiqued the interview until a level of comfort and competence was reached. In addition the new interviewer knew they could call upon me anytime to coach them through an unexpected or difficult interviewing experience. You can recreate this coaching opportunity in your own company by asking for the assistance of a member of your company's HR department or a seasoned supervisor who has experience hiring a good team of employees.
Performance problem needs documentation
I have an employee who has worked for me for two years whose work has been deteriorating for about a year. I have told her about it and she improves a little but then the problem continues. I want her to leave because I need a reliable person in that job. My dilemma is that yesterday she told me that she is pregnant. I know that I can't fire her now, but I have a very small business and I cannot afford to have such an unproductive person on my payroll. Do you have any suggestions?
We all know this but it needs to be repeated. When it comes to an employee performance problem, the longer you wait the harder it gets.
Performance issues usually show up very early in someone's employment, and too often we try to be the generous and kind manager who lets it go or tries to correct the problem with a mild statement here and there.
The bad news is that you have a more difficult problem today than you would have had six months or a year ago. The good news, if we can call it that, is that there is no law that prohibits you from terminating a pregnant woman.
Under the federal Civil Rights Act and certain state antidiscrimination laws, there are lists of ''protected classes" of employees. Pregnancy is clearly a protected class as is race, sex, religion, national origin, and the like.
Although there is no law that can stop you from terminating an employee on any of these lists of protected categories, there are serious cautions that must be taken to do it legally and without prejudice.
The key to effectively handling a challenging performance problem is documentation. It will give the employee a full and honest chance to understand the problem as you see it and offer them an opportunity to change their behavior. This documentation will also serve to prove all of the efforts you have made to deal with the situation in an effort to improve the employee's performance.
Without a thorough and timely documentation and follow-up on each conversation and meeting that you have with the employee, termination might prove to be very problematic. Even if it turns out that you are too late to effect a change now, you can begin the documentation process to be in a stronger position later if, or when, she returns to work and her performance after her maternity leave continues to be unsatisfactory.
If things do not get resolved and you choose to move forward with a termination, it will be highly advisable to consult an employment lawyer. The lawyer is necessary to make sure that you have covered all the necessary steps and that your documentation is sound and will hold up if you are challenged with a claim of discrimination.
Answer ethics queries clearly and concisely
The job interviews I have had sometimes include questions about how honest I am: Would I return change to a cashier who me me too much money back or how do I feel about a person who blows the whistle on an improper event at work? I consider myself a very honest person and I have not had a problem at work with an ethical matter. Is it considered better to indicate that it depends on the circumstances or do interviewers expect specific answers?
After the catastrophic scandals of corporations like
Although there are several theories on how to answer this type of question, my approach is to play it very straight. Be clear and keep it short. Don't try to kid about the topic or tell some story about finding a $10 bill in the playground when you were in elementary school. The interviewer wants to cover this subject and move on as soon as they don't see any red flags to keep them digging deeper. Be honest, be on point, and don't arouse suspicion. The important thing is to convey to the interviewer that you have a clear set of ethical principles including honesty and that you abide by those principles in both your work and your private life.
E-mail questions to jobdoc@globe.com or mail to Job Doc, The Boston Globe, Box 55819, Boston, MA 02205-5819. Linda Lerner is a Boston executive coach and a human resources consultant. 
