My new book, Success for Hire (ASTD Press) features employee recruitment and retention practices that a lot of people think they know but in reality, don’t put into practice.  One of those practices is effective in-person interviewing, which can ensure that you hire the right candidate the first time around.  The next time you speak with a job candidate:

• DO look for candidates who are different from you and will add variety to your team.  Recognize that human beings have the tendency to gravitate to people like themselves, but your goal should be to hire people who will complement your strengths, not duplicate them.

• DO spend at least 45 minutes with every interviewee. Managers who think they can size someone up in 5 or 10 minutes are wrong, pure and simple.  All of the advance preparation in the world won’t help you if you rush to judgment on a candidate.

• DO focus on the big picture.  Steel yourself against the seduction of star quality. A candidate might be amazing in one area, but if his skill set isn’t a good match for the whole job, you should probably keep looking.

• DO move on to a new question if you see that a candidate is visibly uncomfortable.  The candidate may be nervous, so give her the benefit of the doubt.  Once things are back on track, you can either rephrase it or ask for the same information in a different way. 

• DO look for red flags that could indicate a potential problem, and probe for explanations.  Be on the alert for blushing, sudden loss of eye contact, sudden twitching, stammering, or fidgeting, a significant change in the pace of speaking, heavy perspiring, or inconsistency between nonverbal behavior and words.

• DO assess the likelihood of retention.  It costs a lot of time and money to hire someone, so you want to be sure he’s going to stick around a while.

• DO look for patterns.  Does a candidate have a history of making lateral moves?  If so, you may be hiring someone who will want a different job in your company in a few months.  Does she complain that all of her previous companies were too bureaucratic?  If that’s the case, then she’s likely to come to the same conclusion about yours.

• DO permit the occasional pause.  We all hate silence during a conversation, but resist the urge to jump in and help the candidate with her answer. 

Stay tuned next week for the DON’Ts!