Most of us feel an element of nervousness when we first meet someone new, whether that’s a friend, partner or colleague. We want to make a good impression, and we’re keen for the other person to like us.
Those feelings multiply several times over when you attend an interview or an assessment centre, as there is a real desire to impress.
How do you see past the nerves to the person underneath?
We were conducting a recruitment drive recently and had a full day of interviews with lots of very strong candidates. At Curium we like to think of ourselves as people’s people, and do everything we can to put people at ease so that we can see the ‘real’ individual.
So we did the general chat of ‘How was your journey’, ‘Did you find us ok’, then we launched straight into the deep and meaningful.
- Red or Blue (football connotations for that one)?
- Lager or bitter?
- Red or white wine?
One of the quieter candidates became so relaxed they said “Are you serious? Well it’s a bit early but if you’re asking I’ll have a glass of red please”.
We thought Bingo! They’re now relaxed and showing us who they really are rather than who they think we want to see. The rest of the session went brilliantly from here – the nerves had gone so we got some great responses.
It just goes to prove that by working on building a relationship first, you’ll get far more from your people, whether in an interview, on a client site, at conferences, etc. It’s all about the people…
