Selection | How to effectively set challenges as part of the interview process

Competency based interviewing isn’t new, but it has been used more frequently in recent years. The high level redundancies which followed the recession meant more highly qualified candidates were available, making it very difficult for employers to reduce the number of applicants.

A result of the fall-out was employers shifting towards risk mitigation. They looked for reasons not to hire people and needed evidence to demonstrate they had carried out their due diligence before making an offer. Since then, a competency based interview has become standard; yet there is almost no evidence which demonstrates this method leads to more successful hires. There is also a danger of it being so overused that skilled interviewees can rehearse ‘good answers’, concealing specific behaviours or character traits.

So how can you improve the interview selection process? By way of inspiration, I’ve outlined below three different approaches I’ve seen successfully built into the interview process:

Work based tasks. Consider the challenges that your new hire may face and present them with a situational task. A financial services brand recruits roles where understanding data was a non-negotiable skill (combined with consumer finance experience). The scarcity of this skill had meant that, over the years, the candidate pool had diminished. The company acknowledged that they needed to broaden their expectations to look at individuals with less work experience but where analysis still formed part of their responsibilities. They now welcome applications from a broader pool but ask candidates to undertake a task analysing data. This is done prior to interview so doesn’t take up any additional time, but it has opened up a new pool of candidates with the aptitude they require, indirectly creating a team that is able to offer its clients new solutions rather than ‘same old’ ways of thinking.