Best Way to Understand Other Points of View and Sources During an Interview



The combined analysis of the supervisor and the employee, while better than taking only the supervisor’s point of view, may still lack valuable perspectives. Depending upon the job involved, it may be important to see the job through the eyes of other people in the company who, though not the employee’s supervisors, are either consumers of the employee’s services or coworkers. Where the employee has significant contacts outside of the company, with suppliers, customers, or others, it may be worth seeking those points of view, as well. By combining all of these perspectives, the employer can begin to assemble the most complete picture possible of the job.

Uh-oh, what’s this “begin to assemble”? Does that mean there is more to this process? Alas, yes.

Employees Views during interviewing1 Best Way to Understand Other Points of View and Sources During an Interview

First of all, there are other sources of information you should look at. Review the performance-evaluation forms your company uses to assess people in this job. This may suggest additional characteristics you should consider. Presumably the characteristics you are looking for in a candidate are those being evaluated by the company in its performance reviews. If not, something’s wrong. You may need to change your performance evaluation criteria.

Another source you should look to in developing and refining job characteristics is the profiles of those who either have been highly successful or have failed at your company. By looking at the characteristics that those who succeeded or failed possessed (or failed to possess), you should be able to better assess what characteristics are necessary to perform the job. You may analyze the characteristics of successful and unsuccessful people at the company either by reviewing performance-evaluation files, through interviews with those people or those who supervise them, or through some combination of the two. What you are looking for is those characteristics that distinguish outstanding performers from average or below-average performers. And the answers you get may surprise you.

One final source to look at is the characteristics necessary for successful performance by the employee at a higher level in the company. To the extent that you are hiring people for career positions, you should consider the prospects for them progressing over time. To determine the characteristics they will need, follow the same procedures you used to determine the characteristics for the current job.



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