Interviewing For Cultural Fit and Example Questions

It’s not enough to simply hire someone who has the skills and experience to fill your open position.

Smart employers must also satisfy themselves that the potential recruit will fit into the culture of the business and sign up to its vision and values. Read on to learn more about cultural fit, and some pointers for employers and candidates to look out for in an interview.

We’ll finish up with 10 example cultural fit interview questions.  Read more here: https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/employer/advice/cultural-fit-interviewing

How to Conduct an Exit Interview

When one of your employees leaves, you’ve one last chance to get something useful from them. Not the keys to their office desk, but their honest thoughts about your business and the lessons that you can learn from why they are leaving. 

In this article, we’ll explore how you can conduct a productive exit interview - https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/employer/advice/exit-interviewing

How To Conduct a Second Interview (For Employers)

Here's a great article from Simon on how employers can get the best out of second interviews - https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/employer/advice/second-interviewing.aspx

Five Top Tips for Value Based Interviewing (VBI)

Using value-based recruitment to find the right staff for your team.

Many sectors in the UK have started incorporating value-based interviewing (VBI) into their recruitment processes to ensure that they recruit people who match their organisational values. 

Particularly in organisations where client, customer or patient care is critical to success, value based interviewing can be a great way to gain insight into the way people think or may make decisions.

Over the last few years, both public and commercial organisations, such as the NHS and Nissan, have invested in value based methods of recruitment to find the right staff.

With this in mind, Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment have collated some essential tips for getting the most out of value based interviewing: https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/employer/advice/value-based-interviewing.aspx

1. Use VBI in the right situation

Some roles or sectors may require employees with a stricter set of values than other organisations. For example, workers in the healthcare industry may be expected to have a clearer set of ethics than the more commercial organisations, but similarly, employees working in HR or data protection would be better suited with values of integrity and honesty.

Use value-based interviewing in these situations to find staff who will fit both role and organisation.

2. Consider the values right for your organisation

Before interviewing, it’s important to consider the values that you need from your staff for them to reach their potential and perform well in your company or organization. Make a list of the values of your top performers in similar or parallel roles and use these to inform what you’re looking for from your next employee. 
Break down this list of values into ‘must-haves’ and ‘nice-to-haves’, which will help inform the evaluation process and your final decision between candidates.

3. Write interview questions with these values in mind

After creating your list of ‘must-have’ values for the role, structure the interview questions by trying to assess whether a candidate has the ethics you’re looking for. For example, if you’re looking for an employee with the value of determination, you could ask the interviewee: “Tell us about a mistake you’ve made? What did you do about it and what was the end result?”
Have a different question in mind for each of your ‘must-have’ values to really get a sense of how a candidate would perform in your organisation.

4. Use follow-up questions to delve deeper

Clever candidates can be coy in saying exactly what they think an employer will want to hear. In the case of a healthcare organisation, candidates could talk in great detail for their passion for caring for people, without providing any real examples of how they deal with real-life situations. It’s your role as the interviewer to probe deeper with follow-up questions that explore a candidate’s real background and values.

5. Be careful what you ask

When designing questions, ensure that they don’t cross an ethical line. With recent discriminatory legislation coming into the workplace, it can be easy to trip-up on questions which may initially appear innocent. Questions around age, nationality, marital or family status may seem like question ‘openers’ or friendly discussion, but can often cross the line and more often than not it's not your place as an employer to ask these type of questions.

If in doubt on interview questions, consult online guides on ‘interview questions you are not allowed to ask’ or government recruitment discrimination legislation. 

Do you have to work out your notice period?

We are regularly asked whether you have to work out your notice period.  Here are some pointers and advice on working through your notice period to ensure that 'bridges are not burnt' - https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/candidates/advice/working-out-your-notice

How Many Candidates Should You Interview?

You’ve created the perfect job description and been inundated with CVs from hundreds of potential recruits. But how many of them should you interview? 

Too many and you’ll be wasting your and their time, too few and you might miss out on the perfect candidate. 

Here, we’ll explore the interview options to help find your ideal new starters - https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/employer/advice/how-many-candidates-to-interview

Brief article on how to conduct a panel interview

A panel interview consists of two or more people sitting together to ask a candidate questions.

Typically, your panel might consist of someone from human resources, the hiring manager and an employee from the hiring department. But what are the benefits, and how do you lead a panel interview? Here, we’ll explain why it’s a useful tool in your recruitment armoury.

Read more here: https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/employer/advice/how-to-conduct-a-panel-interview

How To Answer The 'Tell Me About Yourself' Interview Question

‘Tell me about yourself’ is a question posed by nearly every interviewer, yet research from Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment suggests that it is a question that a vast amount of people struggle with: on average over 33,000 people in the UK search online each month for answers or guidance on answering the question (Google Keyword Planner, 2018)

With this in mind, sales recruitment agency, Aaron Wallis, has collated a series of hints and tips for getting the most out of the common interview question and performing to your best ability.
Be prepared 

As ‘tell me about yourself’ is such a common interview question, there’s nothing silly about writing down your answer and saying it in front of the mirror, or practicing your answer with someone you know. Whilst it can be good to have a rehearsed answer, it's also worth bearing in mind that you don’t want to sound like you’re reciting it from memory. Be prepared to appear confident but natural.

Structure your answer

The best answers to the question give a brief overview of you and your experience, without taking too much away from the later stages of the interview.

Begin by outlining your current or most recent role and describing the skills or attributes that you bring or brought to the position, ensuring these will be relevant to the job you’re going for. 
Finish up by saying while you’ve enjoyed your work, you’re excited for the fresh challenge this new opportunity brings, and why.

Consider what you want to get across

A common pitfall is mentioning too much about yourself that may either cause you to waste time during your interview or lose the natural flow of the conversation. Chances are that your interviewer has already studied your CV, so does not need to be told about every job you’ve ever had, or what your exam results were – even if they were straight As. 

Avoid the irrelevant or controversial

Similarly, although you might be a cycling fanatic or a keen cook, this can be totally irrelevant at the start of the opening stage of the interview. In the majority of job interviews, avoid talk of family, pets and politics.

Get ready for the following questions

If you’ve introduced yourself well, your interviewer is going to be impressed and keen to delve deeper. He or she will want to explore your experience, strengths and weaknesses further, but will do so under the impression you’re a good fit for the role. Make sure you can back up your initial answer with examples or anecdotes. So, if you said: “In my current role I have increased sales by broadening our customer base,” just make sure you’re ready to answer follow-up questions later in the interview like: “How much did you increase sales by?”, or “How many extra customers did you bring on board, and how did you find them?”

Robert Scott, Managing Director of Aaron Wallis said: “Often the simple questions can be the ones which are the most unnerving if you haven’t considered what you might say. Generally, it can be a good idea to plan out the interview in your head from the very start to the very finish. It’s never a bad thing to be overprepared!”

For a more detailed guide on answering the ‘tell me about yourself interview’ question,
please visit: https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/candidates/advice/answering-tell-me-about-yourself

References

1 Data from Google’s Keyword Planner, looking at average monthly searches for queries relating to ‘answering the tell me about yourself question’ from June 2017 - May 2018 in the United Kingdom