Perfman HR Blog
Recruiting People
Crafting a Salary Offer – Welcome Aboard
You’ve narrowed down your candidate database, created a short-list, interviewed the most promising prospects, invited them back for followup meetings, discussed all the possibilities with your team, decided on an employee, and checked his or her references. Now, it’s time to make the offer and welcome your new team member. The conversations you have during the hiring period and decisions you subsequently make set in motion a cycle of goal setting and performance management that will help keep your new employee motivated and growing and making positive contributions to your business for years to come.
Job Simulations
With hiring costs escalating, employers need more assurance that a candidate can perform in actual work situations. In light of that,applicants are frequently asked to engage in office simulations. A managerial simulation right include fielding phone calls from suppliers, employee conferences, sending and receiving constant e-mails, and other pressure situations, which allow employers to see first hand how well a candidate copes.
Follow-Up Interviews
If you’ve narrowed down your search to a few strong candidates, you might want them to be interviewed by others in your group. In addition to managers, include peers and subordinates in this process—to eliminate candidates who snub those lower in the pecking order. Be aware that each interviewer will probably view the individual differently, not only because the candidate may demonstrate a different level of energy and preparedness with different people, but because of the interviewers’ varying points of view. As a manager, you need to decide which of these reactions are valid and which might be biased.
INTERVIEWING AND HIRING AS A TEAM
Most businesses prefer having at least three different people interview a job candidate, so they can base their decision on several opinions. A team approach allows tasks such as screening, formulating effective questions, and checking references to be shared or delegated.
According to Rama Dev Jager and Ortiz Rafael, authors of In the Company of Giants: Candid Conversations with the Visionaries of the Digital World, candidates for jobs at Apple Computers talk to at least a dozen people in several areas of the company. When making a final decision, consensus is the goal: a candidate is rejected if even one out of 10 interviewers questions the fit. At Google, candidates talk to half a dozen interviewers, both managers and potential colleagues. At a Microsoft interview, a candidate might spend a day shuttling from office to office on the Redmond campus while the interviewers share their opinions and impressions with each other in e-mails.
Types of Interviews
Every company has evolved its own method of conducting job interviews, although interview protocols vary based on the responsibilities of the job to be filled. It’s not necessary for all interviews to follow the standard scenario in which the hiring manager sits on one side of his desk and the candidate on the other. If you’re looking for candidates who can think outside the box, it might be helpful to interview them outside the box. Non-traditional interviews can also highlight whether the candidate possesses the qualities you’re looking for—the ability to roll with new concepts, for instance.
If you want candidates to open up, create an interview forum that’s relaxed and casual: sit at a round table, or on the same side of the desk; meet in the company cafeteria, or even outside under a tree! Offer the candidate a cola or coffee, and begin with some light conversation. Make your questions tactful and sensitive, never challenging. When interviewing a potential coworker rather than a potential staff member, this more casual approach may encourage candidates to express themselves freely and reveal their less formal side.
If, on the other hand, you want to measure a candidate’s ability to deal with stress, the interview could in fact simulate a high-pressure situation. Try sitting at the opposite end of a conference table or on the other side of a large desk. Start with a series of difficult questions, and don’t supply the candidate with positive feedback. Maintain the pressure by following up on every answer with a challenge, forcing the candidate to show her mettle.
Few people work in a vacuum, so it’s important to discover how candidates deal with groups of people with different personalities. With this in mind, a group interview might be your next step. Gather several people with various personality traits, give each of them your list of questions, and have everyone jump in and fi re away. A one-on-one interview may follow, where you can discuss the candidate’s reactions to the various staff members.
Interviewing Entry-Level Candidates
The basic techniques of interviewing are the same no matter what the position. It’s likely, however, that you will spend less time with applicants who are new to the job market— perhaps just half an hour—and that you will spend more time fi nding out about their personal qualities and character rather than skills and experience. When interviewing college graduates, ask them to tell you about something they’ve done that they’re proud of—such as completing a biking race for charity — or about a recent accomplishment that exceeded their expectations. You will quickly determine whether the applicant is the kind of person who gives 110 percent or the type who merely gets by. In addition, ask about any tasks or projects they’ve completed that required skills comparable to those that they would need on the job.
Questions You Can’t Ask
Certain questions are legally off limits during a job interview, and it’s critical to know which ones to stay away from. In general, if a question does not relate directly to the individual’s job history or his or her performance of the job, don’t ask it. Avoid any questions that could leave you open to a charge of discrimination. Questions about activities, interests, or hobbies may inadvertently open the door to a discussion of religious or political beliefs, which the law forbids during employment interviews. To avoid charges of sexual discrimination, never ask a women about her marital status, her plans to have children, or her child-care or senior-care arrangements. If you’re concerned about any of these issues, ask a performance-based question on the subject instead. For instance, if you fear that caring for an ailing parent might cause the candidate to miss work, ask how often she has been absent from her current or past job.
Don’t ask questions about any disabilities, about citizenship, about a past history of filing workers’ compensation claims, where a person grew up, or when he or she graduated from high school or college. Be careful not to say anything that a candidate can later use as ammunition.
Assessing Attitude
Many employers believe that people can be taught skills—but that their character is fixed. Thus, they specifically look for people with the attitude or personality that will mesh with their organization’s culture. To weed out candidates who might have the experience for the job but not the right stuff, a technique called behaviour-based interviewing was developed. In this approach, candidates are asked to give examples of how they performed or behaved in the past in specific situations. For example, to assess leadership ability, you might ask, “Can you tell me about a time when you had to persuade someone to do something that he or she did not want to do? What did you say to them and what was the result?” In behaviour based interviews, all questions attempt to elicit examples of how the candidate has handled situations in the past that demonstrate particular desirable qualities.
ASKING CANDIDATES TO BE CANDID
Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch believed that by far the most important questions to ask in an interview are, “Why did you leave your last job? And the one before that? And the one before that? Was it the environment? The boss? Theteam?”
Here are some other key interview questions recommended by Martin E. Davis in his book Managing a Small Business Made Easy:
• What were your job responsibilities?
• What is it you like most—and least— about past jobs and your current job?
• What is your present compensation and benefits package?
• Why are you considering changing jobs?
• Are you aware of the responsibilities of the job you’re applying for?
• What is the greatest strength you would bring to this position?
• What things do you find appealing about our company?
• What do you think is your greatest challenge as a candidate for this position?
• What was your beginning compensation in your current job?
• What specific training have you had that might increase your ability to perform our job?
• In which school subjects were you most successful?
• Which subjects in school did you find the most difficult?
• Can you provide the names of coworkers who can vouch for your technical abilities? What are their positions? • What are you looking for in terms of a new position? When deciding whether or not to join us, which factors would be most important to you: Compensation? Benefits? Working hours? Opportunities to advance?
Standard Interview Questions
Open your interview with an informal icebreaker to establish rapport and then offer some background information about the company and the position. You might start by telling the candidate your own history there and what the opportunities are in general at your fi rm. Then start asking questions. Keep your questions open-ended, which will not only encourage candidates to talk, but will also demonstrate how well they think on their feet, something “yes” or “no” questions do not reveal. Avoid leading questions, or those that suggest what you want to hear. Be responsive and say things such as “I see,” or “Tell me more,” to urge the candidate to expand on answers. Paraphrase some answers to make sure you understand what the candidate is saying. But as a rule, you should allow the candidate to do most of the talking. You can start by asking the candidate to say more about work experience and responsibilities listed on the resume and to give specifics: What was the most difficult part of the job? How much teamwork was required? What were the drawbacks of managing a small staff? What were the advantages? General questions such as these will usually yield fairly detailed descriptions. Then move on to questions designed to reveal personality traits or specific qualities that you consider to be requirements for the job. If you need someone who can deal with stress, ask the candidate to discuss one or two work crises they handled in the past. Note how quickly, directly, and thoroughly the applicant answers. Finally, ask questions to gauge how well the applicant would fit into the company. Try to get a sense of the attitude and work habits the person would bring to your team. It’s critical to find out whether the person you are considering has an employment contract at her current job that puts limitations on future employment, either permanently or for a specifi ed period of time. For example, if the candidate’s employer is in a similar business to yours, and her contract has a “no competition” clause, she might be prohibited from working for your company.
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