Most of us are aware of how stressful it can be to give an interview. What most people do not realize is that taking an interview is just as stressful. The interviewee coming in for the meeting wants to make sure that they leave a good impression so that they get the job. The interviewer must ensure that they evaluate the candidate properly and in assessing either he will be a good fit for the organization or not? The interviewer has limited time with the candidate and must assess a lot of things in a short time. That is why many interviewers now prefer to record interviews.
Recording and transcribing interviews help in recording the answers to the most crucial questions during the whole discussion. Instead of merely relying on your memory, you can check the notes and add information to your assessment as you forward it to the relevant authority in the organization. Recording and transcribing the interview possess its own challenges. How do you ensure that you can quickly transcribe a lot of conversations and summarize them accurately? What is the best way to record and store videos? Read on for a guide to the basics of conducting, recording, and transcribing interviews.
Conducting the Interview
The easiest way to ensure that you conduct a thorough interview is to write down important questions that require answers by each candidate. You need to look at the information which is vital and needs to be addressed during the whole conversation. The most obvious is making sure that the candidate has the technical knowledge required for the job. Make sure you have a few questions that will help gauge the technical expertise of the interviewee.
Technical knowledge is the most vital part in evaluating the technical skill set of a potential employee. You also need someone who has a positive attitude, and must be a team player. This isn’t something you can ask the candidate directly, but in order to determine the degree of such qualities- to need to ask appropriate questions. Ask the candidate about a previous experience they have had in helping a colleague with a problem. You can also ask them to talk about their favourite manager so far and ask them why they liked the manager. This will highlight the organizational values the interview candidate cares about and exhibits.
The advantage of open-ended questions is that they allow a candidate to express themselves genuinely. However, always remember that some people are just shy or nervous, which does not necessarily imply that they will be bad employees.
Recording the Interview
There are two main approaches to conducting the interview. Either you will conduct an in-person interview or an online interview. Both require different strategies for recording.
Home-based Interviews
Many organizations now prefer to hold meetings over video conferencing software because it makes the process more convenient for both, i.e., interviewer and interviewee. This approach is also beneficial if the interviewee and interviewer are in separate cities. Most video conferencing software has built-in recording features. Skype is one of the most popular applications for interviews with an outstanding video recorder feature as well. It automatically notifies each member that the call is being recorded, which ensures that ethical obligations are being met.
Office Interviews
You can also record conversations that take place in-person. Many recruiters deliberately point the camera directly at the candidate with the aim for recording. This might distract the candidate from concentrating on the conversation itself, and might be thinking about- whether they should be making eye contact with the interviewer or the camera? The whole setup is discomforting and results in poor interviews.
Create a more natural feel by placing the camera on the side, so it captures the interviewer as well. This puts the interview candidate at ease and results in portraying themselves naturally. Lighting is crucial for video recording. Make sure that you use soft lighting during interviews for the best video effects. You can purchase any special camera for recording interviews, or you can use any phone camera or webcam you may already have.
Transcribing the Interview
Manually transcribing interviews is not a sustainable practice unless you can afford to hire someone dedicated to transcription. If you have ever had to transcribe any speech, it generally requires twice the time to complete the whole process. This means that an hour-long interview will require two hours to transcribe if you work constantly. Thanks to technology, we do have some excellent news for you – you do not need to manually transcribe the interviews at all.
There are many tools and solutions which automatically turn speech into text. You can use the transcribe feature on your phone. Simply open a document and click on the speech icon on your phone’s keyboard. It will automatically start writing down everything it hears. There are many specialized solutions available as well. These solutions deliver higher accuracy and many additional transcription features. You can use the IBM text to speech demo website to transcribe recorded audio files for free. You can also use the live transcribe app by Microsoft to transcribe everything automatically.
The most significant advantage of specialized transcription services is that they automatically add timestamps and can also detect multiple speakers. Instead of spending hours transcribing interviews, you can focus on summarizing them and presenting them to upper management.
Think Creatively to Hire the Right Candidate
Conducting a good interview is just one of the many things you can do to hire the right candidate. You can ask the candidate to solve a problem your business has faced to see what their solution will be. You can also ask for a dissertation proposal services to assess their communication skills. It also helps to get multiple people involved in the interview process to ensure that the bias of one interviewer does not end up tainting the process in any way. Having a written record of the interview will enable management to go through the answers of the candidates at their leisure and make the best possible decision under the given possibilities.
