A PERSONNEL MANAGER SPEAKS

Mr. David Smyth, the Personnel Manager of Europe Assistance, a major European insurance company, answers some questions about the way he interviews and selects candidates.

QUESTION: Which is the most important thing when interviewing a candidate?
PERSONNEL MANAGER: His character, his ability to react, his intelligence and his suitability for the position for which he ís being interviewed.

Q: And to what extent does the person's appearance influence your decision?
PM: It doesn't influence the decision, but it does have some bearing on the decision, if you can take the difference between the two. It is important that the person is well presented, neat and tidy, and that he has a good manner because that shows a lot about his personality.

Q: Do you expect the candidate to be prepared in any way for the interview, or how should he prepare himself for the interview?
PM: Well, it's not a question of preparing himself. In the position in which I am, normally the candidate's had at least one or maybe two interviews with other rnembers, more junior members of staff before he gets to my level., unless the particular candidate is going to report directly to me, and in which case I expect the person concerned to have a fairly good knowledge of: (1) what the company does; (2) what he's going to be expected to do, and (3) who's he going to report to. Those things, those three items are very important and if the candidate does not give an impression of either understanding one of those three items, then obviously then he gets marked down accordingly.

Q: How does a candidate go wrong?

PM: The major way a candidate goes wrong is by basically becoming a yes-man or a yes-woman and agreeing with everything you say. One of the most important things about interviewing a candidate is the chemistry between the two people in that interview. He has to have a spark, you have to feel as though that guy is going to contribute, that guy's going to be good and you're going to get something out of that person and he has to show himself to be not just "Yes sir, thank you very much. Yes I agree with. that. I agree with that, I agree with that." Sometimes I lay dummy questions, in which I want a "'no" answer and if he continues to say "yes" then he goes down.

Q: What would your advice be to a candidate going to an interview. How would you advise him?

PM: The first thing I would say to him is, first of all to listen, secondly, to ask the right questions, and thirdly, perhaps the most important, is to create the right kind of relationship which is, I guess is what you call an adult-to-adult relationship with the interviewee or the interviewer. lt is very important and what I said before is when you get a "yesman" in front of you, or a "yes-wornan", then that person is obviously not creating an adult-to-adult conversation, he's creating an adult-to-a-child conversation, and in most cases, managers are not, if they're good and they know what they want, they're not going to be interested in employing a child.

Q: Which are the stages of a typical interview?

PM: The interview normally takes place by me being informed either by the secretary or the telephonist that the candidate has arrived, in which case, I leave my office and go and greet him in the reception area and bring him personally into my office and sit him down across the desk, or across my office desk to me, and we proceed from there ... Since the candidate's been probably through two or three other interviews previously, I normally start by telling him what the job is... what he's being expected to do, just to make sure that he understands fully.
Then I ask him to tell me a little bit about the company that we're working for, that I'm working for anyway, so that he's at least understood exactly what we do or the basics of what we do. Then I normally review his CV, and in particular, either his previous employment or current employment which is very important. Basically this is done to try and draw the candidate out, see how good he is at expressing hirnself, and to see what kind of character he is. Then I normally give him my view of what the position is that we're recruiting for and also my view about the company; then I usually give him a period of 5 or 10 minutes to ask some questions. Then I go back to him and just talk about him, and maybe then when he's fully relaxed, or more relaxed, put in one or two of the trick questions: "What do you consider to be your strenghts and weaknesses?" or "When did you last lose your temper?".

SOURCE: First Certificate Avenues (Cambridge University Press)