Hiring Quality Afterschool Staff: The Interview
Hiring Part 1: The Application
Hiring Part 3: The Interview
Think about your interview process for your potential group leaders. Is it just you asking your interviewee about their experience working with children? If so, it is time to make some changes. In his book Topgrading, hiring expert Bradford Smart teaches top business executives how and why it is necessary to conduct structured, in-depth interviews to hire the very best people for their company. Stop thinking of your program as an “organization” and start thinking of your Afterschool Program as your business. Think about what kind of people you want working for your company and what kind of service you want to provide to your customers. I’m thinking that you want the very best group leaders so you can provide the very best service to your students.
With that in mind, here are some ideas on how to structure your interviews.
After your applicants pass your entrance exam, send them directly on to the interview. This saves them another trip and you can spend just the one day (or evening) testing and interviewing instead of disrupting two days.
If you have a 30 minute test and you schedule your applicants to arrive every 15 minutes, you will have a pretty steady stream of people starting the test, finishing the test, and moving on to the interview. (Remember that some people will be late and some will not pass the test.)
Have at least two managers conducting every interview. It is best to have two view points as one person may think to ask something the other did not or may notice something the other missed. Having two people conducting the interview is very helpful when you have an applicant come in that is borderline, it gives you two opinions to consider in making the final decision.
Ask questions about the person’s goals and reasons for being there. You might be surprised by what people say.
Ask practical questions. Think of common situations that happen during your program and ask how the person would handle that situation. This will give you some insight into their thinking process. The answer may not fit your program perfectly, but you can train for specifics if they are thinking along the right path.
Include a practical exam. In our interviews, we had applicants read aloud to us. We would give them a few minutes to read the book to themselves and then they had to read the book to us as if we were their students. We checked for all the things we wanted: an introduction to the book, good grammar, proper pronunciation of the words, a good speaking voice, and their ability to adapt to a surprise situation.
If you are so inclined like I am, you can even work out a scoring system for your interviews. 20 points for the math test, 20 points for the reading test, 20 possible points for the read aloud and a specific number of possible points on each question from each interviewer. If you get those to total 100, you can have a score at the end that should give you a good indicator of how qualified each potential group leader is.
I hope this is helpful for you. For the next and final post in this series, I’ll discuss how to make the decision on who to hire.
