If you’ve been reading my leadership training blogs, you’ve probably picked up on the many benefits of using Active Listening when communicating with employees, resolving conflicts and seeking solutions to problems. But what about the benefits of employing those same skills when interviewing to fill critical roles in your organization?
Before citing these benefits, let’s once again define what Active Listening is: It is the process by which the receiver (listener) acknowledges through verbal and non verbal communication what s/he is hearing from the sender. These signals include eye contact, nodding of the head as a sign of understanding, and feeding back what the sender is saying in the listeners own words.
So how can Active Listening prove to be a benefit in the interview process?
1. It establishes immediate rapport between you, the interviewer and the interviewee. This places the nervous candidate almost immediately at ease, as he/she feels more comfortable talking about himself/herself and answering your questions. In other words, you get to see the real person – the one you’ll see three months from now, and you’ll be able to sense if he or she will fit within your culture.
2. The Active Listening process encourages the candidate to talk more and more so that you may get into the depths of his or her background, character, philosophies, etc. Where the typical interview is an “I ask, you answer” interrogation, Active Listening turns the interview into a mutually insightful conversation between two (hopefully) intelligent people. This is especially useful when you wish to dig deeper into specific experiences such as:
• How the candidate tackles challenges
• How he/she got along with colleagues in previous roles
• Why he/she is interested in working for your company
• Why he/she is looking, or is no longer with his/her employer
• Why he/she is looking for a new job
• Why he/she feels he/she would be a good fit in your organization
• …and anything else you would like to learn
Sometimes referred to as “peeling back the onion” the goal is to discover strengths and weaknesses for the benefit of making the best hiring decision. Better to uncover idiosyncrasies now than three months into the hire.
3. Through Active Listening, you will be able to determine if you have a good chemistry with the person you are interviewing. And the same goes for the candidate. He or she may have all the skills you are looking for, but if the chemistry doesn’t exist, the relationship will quickly deteriorate until there is a parting of ways. This usually occurs when either you or the candidate feels a sense of apprehension or is trying to cover a weakness or evade difficult questions.
Aside from the three benefits mentioned above, if you are fortunate enough to be sitting across from the one who seems to be the ideal candidate who is very employable, you’ll have the edge when he or she is deciding on which leader to work for. After all, people don’t work for companies; they work for leaders.