Hiring Your Team with Cindy Mayer

1 of 5Building an Interview Plan

Building an Interview PlanA simple three-column grid can be created to organize the interview plan. To build the basic interview plan, follow the steps below.

1. In the left column, enter the competencies (knowledge, skills, abilities) that will be assessed.

2. In the center column, enter the behavioral interview questions that the interviewer(s) will ask each applicant.

3. In the column on the right, enter the name of the person who will interview for those skills.

Interview Plan – (position name)

Competency Behavioral Questions Interviewer

Additional columns can be added to the interview plan. If you would like the interviewers to rate the applicant on a 1 to 5 scale, a column can be added for the interviewer to enter the rating they would apply for the candidate on the particular competency. Note that if ratings are requested, a description of what is a good or bad response should be provided.

As an example, here are two interview plans, one for Applicant A and one for Applicant B, with ratings from the interviewers.

Applicant: Manager:

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2 of 5Building an Interview Plan

Interview Plan – Social Media Manager

Competency Behavioral Questions Interviewer Rating

Online Analytics Describe for me how you determined which online ana-lytics tools you used at your last company, how you set them up, and what insights you were able to glean from the data generated.

Martin: Marketing 4

Communication Describe the most difficult one-on-one meeting you have had with a supervisor or subordinate. What specific actions did you take? How did you bring the situation to successful closure?

Sandy: HR Manager 3

Sales Process Tell me about your experience working with a sales organi-zation. Describe the process they used and how your work supported their efforts.

Kathy: Director of Sales 5

Total Score 12

Interview Plan – Social Media Manager

Competency Behavioral Questions Interviewer Rating

Online Analytics Describe for me how you determined which online ana-lytics tools you used at your last company, how you set them up, and what insights you were able to glean from the data generated.

Martin: Marketing 4

Communication Describe the most difficult one-on-one meeting you have had with a supervisor or subordinate. What specific actions did you take? How did you bring the situation to successful closure?

Sandy: HR Manager 5

Sales Process Tell me about your experience working with a sales organi-zation. Describe the process they used and how your work supported their efforts.

Kathy: Director of Sales 3

Total Score 12

As you can see, both applicants had a total score of 12.

Applicant: Manager:

Applicant: Manager:

A

B

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3 of 5Building an Interview Plan

In this example, it could be helpful to have the more critical competencies weighted more heavily. This can be done with a weighted rubric, which will be explained next.

Creating a Weighted Rubric A weighted rubric is a method for attributing more value or weight to certain factors being evaluated than others. To create the weighting in your grid, add two additional columns. The first is the weight column, where you would indicate how you want each competency to be weighted, and the second is the score column, which could be set up to calculate out the final rating by multiplying the interviewer’s rating with the weight assigned to the competency.

Interview Plan – (position name)

Competency Behavioral Questions Interviewer Rating Weight Score

Total Score for Applicant

For example, for a Social Media Manager, the weighting for three competencies required might be:

• Expert level knowledge of online analytics

• Mid-level communication skills

• Basic knowledge of sales process

Since the online analytics skills are considered more important, that competency will be weighted more heavily than the communications skills, which would be weighted more heavily than the sales process knowledge.

Numbers are used to weight the competencies. An easy method is to assume that “one” is the starting average weight for each competency. For competencies that are considered more important that average, assign a number above one; for any competency that is considered less important than average, assign a number less than one. (Note that other numeric methodologies may be used.)

Applicant: Manager:

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4 of 5Building an Interview Plan

Because multiplication becomes an issue with zero’s or negative numbers, the numbers above one and below one are usually represented fractionally. In our example, if online analytics skills were considered more important than communication skills, and sales process knowledge is considered less important than communication skills, you might have your weighting set up as:

• Communication skills = 1

• Online analytics skills = 1.5

• Sales process knowledge = .75

These weightings will be used for each candidate that is assessed.

Let’s see how this would play out with your applicants.

Interview Plan – Social Media Manager

Competency Behavioral Questions Interviewer Rating Weight Score

Online Analytics Describe for me how you determined which online analytics tools you used at your last company, how you set them up, and what insights you were able to glean from the data generated.

Martin: Marketing 4 1.5 6

Communication Describe the most difficult one-on-one meeting you have had with a supervisor or subordinate. What specific actions did you take? How did you bring the situation to successful closure?

Sandy: HR Manager 3 1 3

Sales Process Tell me about your experience working with a sales organization. Describe the process they used and how your work supported their efforts.

Kathy: Director of Sales 5 0.75 3.75

Total Score for Applicant 12.75

The first applicant, Applicant A, would now have a total score of 12.75. And, as you can see below, Applicant B now has a total score of 13.25.

Applicant: Manager: A

Hiring Your Team with Cindy Mayer

5 of 5Building an Interview Plan

Interview Plan – Social Media Manager

Competency Behavioral Questions Interviewer Rating Weight Score

Online Analytics Describe for me how you determined which online analytics tools you used at your last company, how you set them up, and what insights you were able to glean from the data generated.

Martin: Marketing 4 1.5 6

Communication Describe the most difficult one-on-one meeting you have had with a supervisor or subordinate. What specific actions did you take? How did you bring the situation to successful closure?

Sandy: HR Manager 5 1 5

Sales Process Tell me about your experience working with a sales organization. Describe the process they used and how your work supported their efforts.

Kathy: Director of Sales 3 0.75 2.25

Total Score for Applicant 13.25

When creating a weighted rubric, it is critical to weight the competencies accurately based on the requirements of the job. This guide provides information on how to create a weighted rubric, but it is recommended that you utilize the services of an industrial organizational psychologist to ensure that you have weighted the competencies appropriately.

Applicant: Manager: B