Employment Screening - Is it possible to know good applicants from bad ones from the interview?

The interview is just a small part of the long process of employment screening. But although you cannot entirely depend on interviews for assessing applicants, these can provide a venue for determining which applicants are good and which ones are bad.

In order to do that, you need to conduct the interview effectively. Listen very carefully to what the applicants are saying and pay special attention to their nonverbal actions, which reveal more about people’s real attitude and character.

You have to allow the interviewee to do more of the talking so you will be able to know more about the applicant. Take notes during the interview because it will be hard to do an effective comparison of applicants if you hardly remember what they said. It is difficult to memorize everything after you have interviewed a lot of people.

Observe how the interviewee acts and behaves during the interview. Remember that a good applicant will arrive on time or even earlier, will dress up properly for the interview and will take notes. A good applicant will also ask relevant and intelligent questions and will answer your queries straight to the point.

Moreover, a good applicant will be honest about his or her background and will not attempt to embellish information about him or her just to get your approval. A good applicant is someone who appears confident, gives an aura of positive attitude and looks enthusiastic and upbeat.

Of course, at the end of the day, you still need to verify the information you gathered from the interview with an employee background check that will reveal information about a person’s background such as education records, employment history, criminal records, former and current residences, character references, medical records, military records, professional licenses, incarceration records, drug testing records, vehicle registration, driving records, and many others.