Chloe Spillane breaks down what separates good interviewers from bad ones. Good ones lead the conversation, discuss salary upfront, and welcome hard questions. Bad ones stick to scripts, dodge salary talk, ghost candidates, and get defensive when challenged.
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Something I don't talk enough about is, is how to tell a good interviewer from a bad interviewer. Yeah, we're about to get a bit spicy. A good interviewer is going to lead the conversation and keep it flowing because it is their job to do that. A bad interviewer is going to ask you very scripted questions and will leave you sitting in silence and feeling awkward. A good interviewer is going to give you opportunities to ask questions more than 5 minutes at the end of the conversation because they actually care about you and your opinion and what you're going to bring to the table. A bad interviewer is going to give you maybe 3 to 5 minutes at the end of an interview to ask any questions. A good interviewer is going to talk about salary in the very first conversation because they know that you are not there to waste your time or theirs. A bad interviewer is going to really block the conversation around salary, is going to really push you to share your number first, and it's just going to be a bit of a dick about having that whole conversation around what kind of money they can pay you. A good interviewer is going to give you genuine feedback and actually call you after the interview. And if they're not the ones that are gonna call you, the recruiter that is running the process will. A bad interviewer is someone that completely ghosts you and just doesn't care to give you any kind of feedback. An employer might look at this and go, well, I don't have time to call back all the people that come through our interview processes. And as someone who has built recruitment functions, I'm just gonna tell you that you need a better system. It's not that hard. A good interviewer will welcome challenging questions. A bad interviewer is going to get defensive and feel offended and intimidated by you if you dare to challenge the status quo. I've been coached on how to interview people. It was part of my job. And one of the biggest things my manager at the time, and she was the best manager I've ever had, ever had. The biggest thing she told me was that if you don't get enough information out of that candidate, when you interview them, you haven't done your job. If you don't ask enough questions, you haven't done your job. If you don't probe and get what you need out of that conversation, you haven't done your job. So for every single person looking at this going, I never feel that I'm giving them enough information. It's not your job to do that. It's the interviewer's job to get the information out of you.
