When you're the one asking the questions

Interviewing job applicants:
What you should know

With Ann Humphries, ETICON

Second in a two-part series: Last week, the job applicant's concerns. This week, the view from the other side of the desk.

(CNN) -- You're reading our reports. Unilever has just announced that 8,000 jobs will become acquisition fodder as the Britain-based company integrates with Bestfoods.

Before that, it was Robbie Stephens, cutting 200 jobs.

Before that, Jupiter Media Metrix said it would chop its staff by some 18 percent.

QUICK VOTE
	Has a bad interviewer ever turned you off to a job? Yeah. I've thrown jobs back because of bad interviews. Hasn't happened but could: Interviews are good indicators of what's to come if you're hired. No. I'd never let a weak interview wave me off a job I wanted. View Results

VeritcalNet was talking 25 percent.

And before them ... Corning, Webvan, Moulinex, Disney, JDS Uniphase.

So last week in Corporate Class, the focus was on job interviews from the standpoint of careerists who suddenly find themselves back in the job market. If you missed that one, it's right here.

CNN: This week, we've asked etiquette specialist Ann Humphries -- herself a hire-fire exec with her own firm, ETICON -- to switch her perspective for us, swing around to the other side of the desk and talk a bit about the interviewer at work in a time of heavy turnover.

Ann Humphries: The first thing to remember is that not all businesses are big ones. Large corporate structures might have training in place for their interviewers. But smaller businesses -- 100 employees or fewer -- frequently are fielding untrained interviewers.

This doesn't mean, by the way, that the bigger corporations are necessarily doing the job well.

You often see the large companies shoot themselves in the feet by putting very weak "screeners" out there. These aren't full-level interviewers, but the "next .... next, please ... next" people they put out there to weed out the good candidates from the others. This can be a problem when the screeners are so bad that they're chasing away good applicants.

The bad ones treat people as if they're numbers and are overt about screening -- you can tell you're not really being interviewed, just pre-scanned. These companies need to work the quality game, not the numbers game.

Another pet peeve of mine in the big companies -- which have plenty of resources for doing this right -- is not acknowledging your response to an ad. They advertise positions they have open, then don't get back to you to say they've gotten your response. What's so hard about a postcard that says, "We've received your resumé" and so on?

But beyond the bigger companies are all those smaller ones. And here are some of the things interviewers there need to look out for.

•   Know who you're interviewing -- go over the resumé before the applicant comes in and have it with you as you talk with him or her.

•   Don't make people wait too long for their interviews.

•   Don't take phone calls during your talk if you can possibly help it.

•   Don't mispronounce an applicant's name. If you don't know the correct way to say it, ask. And remember it.

•   Make sure there's a place for your applicant to sit. I've actually walked into an interview being held in somebody's office, only to have them have to shift a lot of stuff off a chair. Don't be caught unprepared like that -- especially if you want someone good filling the job you have open.

•   Don't run the same ad for a job over and over, never filling it or filling it, and never telling your existing staffers (who might be applying for it). Keep people informed.

•   Don't make an ad so general that you get a cattle-call response. Focus it.

•   Watch out for premature advertising, too. If you hold a position open too long, you can lose your best candidates.

•   On the other hand, don't jump at the first person who walks in the door. Hiring in desperation is always a big mistake, you miss your best candidates. Company officials say, "We're growing so fast that we have to hire fast." Well, hire too fast, and you'll grow badly.

•   Don't take the "You'd be lucky to work for us" attitude. If you really want good people, don't drive them away with corporate conceit.

•   On the other hand, don't tell an applicant, "If I were you, I wouldn't be applying here." You do represent your company as its applicant interviewer -- do your job.

•   Real references are hard to come by these days -- many companies forbid their people to give appraisals of former employees for fear of litigation. But a good interviewer will check a resumé's dates, the companies listed -- anything you can check, check.

•   Find out what's legal to ask and what isn't. If you don't have a human-resources department able to give you this information, get it elsewhere. (The Society for Human Resource Management is a good place to start.)

•   Don't gang up on your applicants. The panel interview is awful. You put a defendant in front of a court. Forget it. Interview candidates one-on-one.

YOUR WITNESS
	It's not a trial and the interviewer isn't the prosecutor. If such topics as interviewing and being interviewed for jobs interest you, chances are you know a few more things worth covering here in Corporate Class. Click here to use our handy submission form to talk to us. And thanks for reading us.

Finally, don't oversell the job or yourself or your company. Just get credible information.

You won't go wrong if you just take a moment before each interview to remember what it's like: what it's like to be out of work, what it's like to need or want a job (or not be sure) -- what it's like to be interviewed.

Next week: You were a big fish in your pond. But you were laid off. Now you've gotten another job -- suddenly you're "the new one" again. How to cope. And the following week: For employers -- how to handle your new hires.

South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges has named Ann Humphries, founder and president of ETICON Inc., one of seven South Carolina Women of Achievement. Humphries, who's based in Columbia, is a Certified Professional Consultant to Management. Her clients have included several Fortune 500 companies. She's been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Fortune and Money, and on CNN, CBS and Lifetime TV. You can contact her at www.eticon.com.

Selling yourself again: The job interview revisited
April 19, 2001
Disengaged: When good employees go bad
April 17, 2001
Job cuts circle the globe
April 17, 2001
A drama-free workplace: Keep your cool
April 13, 2001
When your buddy becomes your boss
April 9, 2001
Saying the unsayable to your co-worker
March 26, 2001
Meeting morass: Time to adjourn
March 1, 2001
Medical manners: The cure is killing you
February 22, 2001
You want service? Take a number
February 15, 2001
Road etiquette: Careerists at large
February 8, 2001
Colleagues and cultures: Mark your calendar
February 2, 2001
Listen to your co-workers
January 25, 2001
When bad things happen to co-workers
January 18, 2001
Surviving the sick-outs, and managing your cold
January 11, 2001
Write your thank-you notes
January 4, 2001
Working your way into the real millennium: Out with the old
December 28, 2000
Charitable solicitations at work: 'I gave at the office' -- and gave and gave
December 21, 2000
Gift exchanges in the workplace: The business of gifts
December 14, 2000
What not to do at the business party: Survive it with your career intact
December 7, 2000
What to do at the business party: Working the room
December 1, 2000
How to handle the business RSVP
November 23, 2000
Who are you covering for today? Playing hooky
November 15, 2000
Get a grip: Electoral etiquette at work
November 9, 2000
Cellular phones in the workplace: We've got your number
November 6, 2000
We've got your number
November 6, 2000
Or my name isn't ...
October 26, 2000
The job interview: Being on the mark when you're on the spot
October 24, 2000
What not to say in an interview
October 24, 2000
The halls are alive
October 19, 2000
Debatable
October 12, 2000
'A.M.' does not stand for 'ambush'
October 5, 2000
E-mail for careerists: Care enough to send the very best
September 29, 2000

ETICON
Society for Human Resource Management

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.