From the Experts: Top Tips for Conducting Interviews

Adding more structure when you are conducting interviews can help you evaluate candidates more efficiently and effectively–and help you eliminate feedback bias. One of the best ways to do that? Prepare your interviewers. 

That’s what we learned last week on America Back to Work—a series that explores current labor trends and hiring in America. 

Through weekly articles and interviews with industry experts across recruiting, hiring, and HR, we’re dreaming up a future where companies are thriving, employees enjoy their jobs, and America is back to work. 

Conducting Interviews Like a CIA Agent 

Last week, our co-founder and chief strategy officer (and former U.S. Secret Service agent), Arnette Heintze, sat down with decorated former CIA intelligence officer, Carmen Amato, for another episode of America Back to Work. 

During her career in the CIA, Amato held positions of increasing responsibility in the areas of intelligence collection program management, strategic communications, and international partnerships. Recognized for multiple innovations leading to enhanced U.S. intelligence capabilities, she is a recipient of both the National Intelligence Award and the Career Intelligence Medal. 

Now retired, Amato shared that “over the course of 30 years,” she’s been around the globe twice, and she’s experienced some form of deception everywhere she’s traveled. She’s interested in the “why” behind lying—the mechanics of deception and what makes a lie stick–and she’s published her learnings in 17 (yes, 17) books. 

In this episode, Amato shares her top tips for conducting interviews–so that you can better prepare your hiring teams and train your interviewers to spot the behaviors linked to lying. She encourages employers to leverage their high-performing employees to recruit other candidates since they’re often the best at recruiting quality, honest talent.  

Learn more about this and so much more: click here to listen to or watch the recording! 

Get Help Through the Holidays—And Beyond

To reinforce your interview practices and techniques, S2Verify offers a suite of pre-employment background screening services to help you make the right hire, more consistently. From criminal background checks to employment verifications, we’re here to “double-check” the work you do in your interviews and other evaluations–to help you spot the lies. 

But, we know that our product is only good as the people who back it up. 

That’s why we invest in our award-winning customer support team so that our tools are doing what they’re meant to helping you consistently deliver an efficient, easy, transparent hiring process. 

In the next America Back to Work expert interview (airing next week!), Jen Sanning, VP, CMO Executive Partner at Forrester–an industry leader in customer service–shares the importance of customer service and human touch when it comes to partnering up with pre-employment solutions, like S2Verify. 

Heading into the holidays—with candidate engagement waning and limited employee availability for interviews/feedback—make sure you’re set up for success with technology and services that don’t slow you down. 

Sanning is known for inspiring and operationalizing customer experience best practices across diverse industries as a growth CMO, consultant, and agency leader. Her experience ranges from leading B2C and B2B companies in retail, hospitality, healthcare, financial services, and professional services to advising early-stage technology startups.

She’s sure to provide a unique take on customer support in the context of employment screening solutions! Listen to that and more expert advice by subscribing to America Back to Work: Expert Interview Series by clicking here.