Top Tips for Interviewers

Just a couple of years ago, Bob Knight, vice president of Paul Homes in Cape Coral, was lucky to receive eight résumés when a position opened up. The building market was so hot then that there was always a chance that, after training, the new guy would move on to another job for a bit more money.

Now, when the rare position opens in his "leaner and meaner" business, or when he’s looking for a subcontractor, Knight gets as many as 50 applications and the chance to be very picky.

"In some industries, such as development and real estate, it’s definitely an employer’s market," says Cheryl Lynn Dratler of Resource Innovations Inc., a human resources and employee relations consulting firm in Fort Myers.

Dratler believes employers should look at the abundance of applications as an opportunity to find a great fit.

The key for employers is to ask the right interview questions. Gone are the days of, "Tell me your strengths and weaknesses." Now it’s all about the behavioral interview: asking open-ended questions that show how a candidate’s experience and behavior relate to the skills and character traits the employer is looking for.

"The only way you can predict how someone will work in your environment is to get information about what they did in the past," says Libby Anderson of EDA Human Resource Services in Fort Myers. "Humans repeat behaviors."