The Goal Of An Interview Is To Create A DECISION

You’ve surely heard lots of guidance about interviewing. A good interview is a conversation. A good interview is a two-way street. A good interview helps you understand the candidate. A good interview is a way to “get to know” the candidate.

But all of these miss the mark. They are useful in some ways. It is true that a good interviewer can ask questions in such a way that a candidate will feel that they’ve had a conversation with the interviewer. And understanding the candidate - insofar as one can in an hour - is certainly a good thing. Yet some of them - like interviewing is a two way street - are just plain wrong.

The goal of an interview is to cause the interviewer to make a DECISION about whether or not to hire the candidate. And if you don’t know this - if you simply have a conversation, or get to know the candidate, you are likely going to miss the real goal of interviewing - a decision.