HIRING · LEADERSHIP · PEOPLE MANAGEMENT
Before You Interview a Candidate, Know What You’re Hiring Them to Do
By Dr. Amarjeet Singh @ AJ
A candidate spends Sunday evening reading about your company, studying the job description and preparing examples of what they have achieved. On Monday morning, they sit across from an interviewer who opens their résumé for the first time.
“Tell me about yourself.”
It can be a good opening question. But if the next hour is spent repeating information already on the page, the interviewer still has to decide whether the person can do the job.
Start on time. Put your phone away. Introduce the panel. Give the candidate your attention. That is professional courtesy. Interview competence takes preparation, role-specific questions and the ability to assess the answers.
1. Start with the job description
Before reading the first résumé, sit down with the hiring manager and ask what the person will actually have to deliver. “Manage operations” could mean spending weekends on the floor, improving staffing across multiple locations or leading a department through a major redevelopment. Each requires different evidence.
Outcomes
What should the person deliver in the first six months?Decisions
What problems will they handle, and what can they approve?Competencies
Which skills are essential from day one, and which can be developed?If the owner wants a salesperson, the hiring manager wants a strategist and HR is screening for an administrator, the panel will spend the interview assessing three different jobs.
2. Read the résumé for the story behind the achievement
Suppose a candidate writes, “Increased group bookings by 20%.” Prepare questions that help you understand their contribution.
- What period did you compare, and how did you measure the increase?
- Which part of the work did you lead personally?
- What changed in how the team approached agents or corporate clients?
- Did the additional bookings improve margins? How did you track that?
- What would you do differently if you had to repeat that result here?
One candidate may have rebuilt an inactive agent network. Another may have handled additional enquiries after a new attraction opened. Both experiences matter. They demonstrate different capabilities. Look past job titles in the same way by asking about team size, budgets and decisions the person made independently.
3. Match the interview to the level of responsibility
Imagine a visitor attraction with a long queue and a ticketing counter that has gone down. The same incident gives you a different interview question for each level.
| Role level | Competency | Question or exercise |
|---|---|---|
| Frontline or rank-and-file | Service, accuracy and escalation | A guest says they paid online, but you cannot find the booking. Show how you would handle the conversation and what you would check first. |
| Supervisor or team leader | Prioritising and deploying staff | One counter is down, two staff members are new and a school group is arriving in ten minutes. How would you deploy the team and keep guests informed? |
| Manager or head of department | Diagnosing problems and improving processes | Weekend queues keep generating complaints. Review the arrival, staffing and transaction figures. What would you investigate and change first? |
| General manager or senior leader | Commercial judgement and accountability | How would you weigh staffing, technology and layout changes with a limited budget? What would you approve, and how would you measure its impact? |
For specialist roles, include someone who understands the work well enough to challenge an answer and recognise sound reasoning.
4. Give each interview stage a purpose
01 · Initial screening
Confirm the basics, including relevant experience, availability, shifts or travel. Give the candidate enough information to decide whether the role suits them.02 · Competency interview
Ask the same core questions for the role. Use résumé-specific follow-ups to understand what each candidate did, why they did it and what happened.03 · Practical assessment
Give the candidate a realistic task and ask them to explain how they approached it.04 · Final discussion
Resolve any remaining hiring questions. For senior roles, discuss decision-making authority, available resources and how the owner or board will measure success.Some roles need only one session for screening, questioning and a short exercise. Add another round when there is a specific decision it will help you make.
5. Test the work they’ll actually do
Sales coordinator
Rank several sample enquiries and draft a response to the most urgent one.Operations supervisor
Rework a shift roster with two absences before the busiest period.Marketing manager
Review sample campaign figures and explain what to investigate before approving more spend.Use fictional or anonymised material. Give candidates the same brief, time and information. Explain what you will assess, and decide in advance what a strong response looks like. In the ticketing exercise, for example, look for an accurate booking check, a clear explanation to the guest and timely escalation.
Give people time to think. A candidate who asks two good clarifying questions before acting may show better judgement than someone who answers immediately. Keep the exercise proportionate. A full marketing strategy for your actual business is a consulting assignment.
6. Score the evidence before discussing the candidate
Ask each interviewer to record their scores and the examples behind them before the panel compares notes. It is easier to form an independent judgement before the most senior person in the room says, “I liked that one.”
Leave time for the candidate’s questions, explain the next step and follow up when you said you would. The interview may be their first look at how you manage.
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