Every thriving business has to fill an open job position at one time or another. Some companies may need to fill only a few positions a year, while others fill job openings daily. Whether your company hires one or 100 new employees each year, successfully interviewing and selecting quality job candidates is a critical step to make sure your workforce, and in turn your company, operates professionally and productively.
Proactive recruiting activities can bring qualified job candidates to your door (see G&A’s previoius issue of “Spotlight”), but identifying the best candidate amid a host of possible posers, pretenders or just plain poor choices can be tricky. Implementing a disciplined process that begins by thoroughly defining the open position and ends with effectively on-boarding and orienting a new hire to your company is vital. Volumes have been written about effective interviewing practices, but if you aren’t a human resource scholar, we’ve provided a brief step-by-step overview of the interviewing process here.
Step 1: A Well-Defined Job Description
When a position opens within your company, you must resist the temptation to fill it as quickly as possible – no matter how prepared you think you are or how desperate you might feel. If you hire in haste, you are likely to end up employing your neighbor’s nephew or some other randomly-related applicant that is perhaps not best suited for the position or for your company.
Instead, you should start the process by developing a well-defined job description. Compiling a job description will not only require you to carefully consider the position you seek to fill, but it also forces you to think about how the hire impacts other positions and if other job descriptions need to be redefined to make sure the whole group is operating efficiently. Make sure the job description includes not only the position’s responsibilities, but also the qualifications, qualities and experience you seek in an applicant.
A thorough job description will serve as a useful tool throughout the hiring process. It can help as you prepare an employment ad and as you develop a list of interview questions. Closely matching an applicant’s skills and experience to the job description ensures that you are zeroing in on the best candidate and – considering the litigious culture in which we live – it can also help prevent any potential claims of discrimination or unfairness. Lastly, a job description will be your best defense if you have to explain why you cannot hire the neighbor’s nephew. You have the luxury of being able to sincerely say that his skills didn’t match the job description.
Step 2: Applications & Resumes
Applications and resumes are another crucial tool in identifying the strongest candidates and weeding out weaker ones. After all, these devices are a reflection of the candidates. Does his or her resume or application demonstrate quality, professionalism, creativity or leadership potential? Even though a good candidate may sometimes not appear strong on paper, in most cases applications and resumes are a good initial indicator of an applicant’s strengths and weaknesses.
When reviewing a resume or application, you should pay as much attention to a candidate’s employment history as you do his or her job qualifications and career experience. Are there any inconsistencies that are a concern? These days, frequent moves are to be expected and gaps in employment may be explainable, but you should take note of such things and be sure to ask about them during an interview. You may also want to consider typos or grammatical mistakes depending on the position you are hiring. If a candidate turns in a sloppy application or resume, it could be indicative of the quality of work they might ultimately produce for your company.
Remember that even though resumes and applications are good tools for cutting out unqualified candidates, these devices only tell you what an applicant wants you to know. Keep in mind that more danger may lurk in what your applicant is not telling you.
Step 3: Interviewing & Testing
After you have sorted through the resumes and identified the candidates you wish to meet, the interview process can begin. Be prepared. Use the job description to develop targeted questions. Use the same questions for each candidate so you can compare responses. Remember to ask any specific questions about a candidate’s work history if you are concerned about job hopping or employment gaps on the resume.
Begin every interview by putting the candidate at ease. Spend some time telling the interviewee about the company and the position, but try to adhere to the 80/20 rule. That means the interviewer should only do about 20 percent of the talking while the interviewee should do 80 percent of the talking as he or she responds to the questions.
When posing questions to an interviewee, there are a number of potential pitfalls to avoid. Certain questions could be considered discriminatory, and if asked, could lead to lawsuits if a candidate believes he or she was not hired as a result of a presumed “wrong” response. Below are some questions interviewers should never ask:
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How old are you? When did you graduate from high school?
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What is your nationality/race/religion?
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Are you a U.S. citizen?
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Are you married/single/dating?
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Do you own your own home?
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Do you have children, or for women, are you pregnant?
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What is your sexual preference?
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What are your political affiliations?
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Do you have a disability?
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What is your weight?
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Have you ever filed a workers’ compensation claim?
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Have you ever undergone a psychiatric evaluation?
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Have your wages ever been garnished or have you ever declared bankruptcy?
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Have you ever been a member of a union?
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Do you belong to any clubs, societies or lodges?
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What type of discharge did you receive from the military?
When you see that litany of questions together, it is easy to recognize their discriminatory nature. But in the course of a conversation, it is not uncommon for a casual mention of children or personal interests to come up, so be careful. Ask open-ended questions that focus your discussion on work experience and qualifications. Here are some questions you can ask interviewees:
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What kind of experience do you have?
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Of all your work experience, where have you been most successful?
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What are the primary responsibilities of your current job?
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What aspects of your current job do you consider most crucial?
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Describe how your job relates to the overall goals of your department and company.
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What would you change about your current job, or what aspects do you like least? What do you like best?
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What are you looking for in your next job?
Encourage interviewees to ask questions themselves. Not only will their questions help them learn more about your company and the open position, but their questions can also reveal candidates’ priorities and how they think. These questions can also help the candidate with their own decision-making process if you ultimately offer a position. Before completing the interview process, it may be helpful to have co-workers or other supervisors interview a final slate of candidates so you can get different opinions and perspectives before making a decision.
Finally, some companies elect to perform various types of testing, such as aptitude testing to measure skills or psychological testing to determine personality characteristics. Some theories suggest that for most non-technical jobs, it is better to hire based on attitude and train for aptitude. In other words, you can teach people how to do a job, but you can’t teach them the innate characteristics or mental abilities that dictate how or even if they will do it. Certain psychological tests can help evaluate applicants’ personalities. Are they motivated, decisive or team-oriented? Or are they mean-spirited, divisive or timid? Because testing can be costly, it is typically reserved for a final slate of candidates. Testing can also be controversial, so you and your company must decide whether or not to use such tests.
Step 4: Selection
When it comes time to decide which candidate is the best fit with your company and the position, there are a number of considerations and common mistakes to avoid. Be careful not to favor a candidate too strongly because he or she followed a weaker candidate during the interview process. Conversely, you may need to give extra consideration to a candidate you perceived weak if they followed an especially strong candidate in the process. Could there be more there than what initially came through to you?
Human nature causes many of us to favor candidates most like ourselves. We all tend to make a quick connection when we meet someone with whom we share a common background or similar experiences, but that hardly means that individual is the most qualified candidate for the position. However, there is also something to be said for selecting a candidate who not only fits the position, but also fits in with a company’s culture. A seasoned and successful techie from IBM may not adapt well to the unconventional cultures of Apple or Google.
The best guide for picking the best candidate is the job itself. Refer to the job description and evaluate candidates based on how you believe they measure up relative to all the skills and experience required for the job. Don’t fixate on one criterion or one characteristic you may have been looking for – consider the whole job as well as the whole candidate and all they have to offer.
Once you have selected the best candidate, what are the appropriate steps to extend an offer and how do you make sure that he or she is quickly oriented to your company in a positive way? Onboarding will be the topic for our next Spotlight. In the meantime, if you have questions or wish to discuss your company’s interviewing processes, feel free to contact G&A Partners’ HR specialists at (713) 784-1181.
