HOW TO PREPARE A

CANDIDATE
 INTRODUCTION
Let’s face it, most hiring managers aren’t great interviewers. They tend

to base their judgments about candidate competency on first impressions,

intuition, and some level of skills and experience. The best recruiters know

that many errors are made during an interview. They minimize them by

coaching their candidates and hiring manager clients through the

assessment process. One sure way to improve your odds is to prep your

candidates to deal with untrained interviewers. This will insure that they

can cope with whatever questions or circumstances arise. If you handle the

candidate prep well enough, you can also prep your clients without them

even knowing it.

KEY POINTS TO PREPARE A CANDIDATE
1) Make sure they know their own
strengths and weaknesses.
2) Learn the “universal answer.”
3) Write up the two most significant
accomplishments.
4) Ask the “universal question.” S: make an opening
5) Ask for the job. Statement
A: Amplify that
A: Amplify that
statement
F: provide a Few
examples
W: Wrap it up
Tips for preparation:
• Make sure all the participants are well rested.
• If a person intends to conduct an interview based
on the competence, the primary focus will be on the
competences interrelated to the position a person
requested. The person must offer real examples of
the condition in which they had to contract with the
specific expertise.
• Reflect on a person’s qualities and areas of
development.
• Try to reflect on the event of a person’s career.
What were the pivotal moments, the developments?
 Prepping is important. Well-prepped candidates
are more confident and provide more through
answers. If they know how to give complete answers,
they worry less and are able to ask better questions.
All of this improves the odds that they will be
assessed fairly, especially if the focus of the interview
is on detailed discussions about the candidate’s
major accomplishments. The best recruiters know
how to coach and advise both their clients and
candidates. The best candidates are rarely the best
interviewees, and most managers are just adequate
interviewers.
Under these conditions, you have two choices:
1) keep on looking for more candidates until one
sticks, or
2) find a few great candidates and make sure the
interviewing processes doesn’t get in the way of
the best hiring decision.