When you are interviewing people for a job, it is crucial to set the right interviewing environment and there are many things that can be done to achieve the right effect. The question is, do you want to challenge people or put them at ease? Whichever way you choose, you need to get the environment right and plan the interviews in advance, if you want to achieve a positive outcome. So, let’s take a look of what you need to do in order to create the best environment for your job interviews.

Making It Suitable For Interviewing People

In many situations when conducting job interviews, a collaborative and open interview process is preferred. This will enable the candidate to relax, communicate and open up, and a good layout of an interview room can have a huge impact on making this happen. The interview location can be governed by the culture of your business, the ethics you have incorporated and the sort of people you are trying to attract. For instance, if you are working in the creative sector of your company, or the cooperative, or the media, you will want to employ people who exhibit creative traits.

So, you may consider interviewing people in a lounge-style atmosphere that has soft seating, rather than in a small meeting room that has a table and two chairs. If you want to conduct a more confrontational style interview, if you are working in a sector that is very competitive and has an aggressive sales attitude and low margins, you can choose to conduct interviews in a traditionally set up office or meeting room, where you will place a table between you and the candidates.

Arranging the Interview Room

</br>We have presented you with a scenario of two extremes, and to prevent you from falling in between these two, let’s talk about the interview setting. First, you need to think about how the interviewee and interviewers will be seated by paying attention to the office setting and décor. If there are two interviewers, you can consider arranging seating into a triangle, so that the applicants can feel more included.

But, the downside is that the interviewee will have a hard time keeping eye contact with two interviewers; there will be a lot of head swiveling and it can get even worse if there are three interviewers. The goal to achieve when interviewing people is to ensure that the environment and atmosphere will help the candidate to communicate freely, and the things that may get in the way of achieving this should be improved upon.

Matching the Interview Room to the Role

</br>The role, or job position that is being filled can also have an influence on the environment that the interview will be conducted in. Even if the culture of your business is informal, inclusive and collaborative, you may have to hire a salesperson who will have to present themselves in formal meetings and to boards of traditional businessmen. So, with this in mind, you will want to know how that person will perform under pressure before you can consider them for the job position. You can organize a role-play or a presentation as one part of the interviewing process.

So, you can start the interview in a more informal setting, which will reflect the nature of your company and after that, follow up by putting candidates through a stricter scenario, like asking them to do a client pitch. Just remember, whatever set of tasks you choose when conducting an interview, you need to make sure that you inform the candidates about them in advance, so that they can be adequately prepared.

These are the best ways that will help you create an ideal environment for conducting job interviews. Follow them through and we are sure that both you and your candidates will be satisfied with the overall look and feel of the environment you have created.