Get personal. The third part of the interview process is what I call breaking off track. Usually, that’s at the end of the interview, and it’s when everybody’s relaxed. You just start finding out what kind of person they are. Do they follow sports? Are they involved in hobbies? In that part of the conversation is where you get the true sense of a person, where you get to know a little bit about their personality. Usually during that I always try to explain to the person our culture as a company.
The worst question you can ask is a question that you’re not allowed to ask by law. In this part, where it’s kind of relaxed and we’re no longer in an interview-like mindset, those are the times where you might [ask], ‘Hey, are you married? Do you have kids? Where are you from?’ You’re technically not allowed to ask those questions, but in that type of discussion, sometimes you might accidentally say something. So you have to be very careful when you’re trying to get a feeling if they’ll fit into your culture or they’re your kind of person.
Step out of the box. As a company, we do not have a standard list of questions. [It’d be a mistake to] do an interview out of a box, to have a list of questions that you ask everybody and always do every interview the same way. We have a core set of questions like, ‘Why’d you leave your last job?’ but for the most part, it’s like each interview evolves.
We make the interview process with the different people individual. So I’ll meet with them, the manager below me will meet with them, Paul will meet with them. After the candidates leave, we have a meeting amongst ourselves and discuss: What did you talk to them about? What were their answers? Did you like them? Somebody will bring to the table something that they learned about the candidate that maybe I didn’t learn or I didn’t ask about. Then I’ll tell them something I learned about that they didn’t learn about and we’ll talk about that aspect.
At the end of the day, it’s a vote. It has to be unanimous. If one person feels strongly that it’s a no, we will move on to the next candidate.
How to reach: KW Property Management & Consulting LLC, (305) 476-9188 or www.kwpropertymanagement.com
