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How To Fix A Broken Interview Process

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Organization during the hiring process is critical to retaining and attracting potentially highly valuable candidates. Unfortunately, not all hiring procedures are a one-interview-and-done situation. Organizations that conduct more than two interviews before making a hiring decision, however, tell candidates that their interview process is broken (this isn’t true for all positions, namely highly skilled or executive roles).

Careful consideration should be taken when restructuring the interview process. Each company (and department) is different, so adjusting the interview process can’t be a cookie-cutter solution. Each step has to be tailored to your organization’s needs. Interviewers and the hiring team should know ahead of time what they are looking for in a candidate and be able to determine how each individual emulates the ideal candidate. Without preparation before hiring and interviewing even begin, the entire process is destined for uncertain repetition of interviews. So, as a resolution to create a better candidate experience, here’s how you can expedite the interview process.

Step 1. Train Decision-Makers

If hiring managers are uneducated about what the position needs, it will be difficult for them to make the best hiring decision. Plus, if they don’t know what they are looking for, the interview process will take that much longer. 58 percent of interviewers report having either no interviewer skills training or relying on their instincts. This forces candidates to endure multiple rounds of professional interrogation. It adds unnecessary amounts of stress on the candidate and the department as the position takes longer to fill.

Training hiring managers before the hiring process begins not only allows organizations to tailor potential changes in the interview process to their needs, but it also decreases hiring spend. If the team knows what to look for from the beginning, interviews have the potential to be succinct. Educate your hiring team about what the organization needs from the position and how to decipher if the a candidate’s skills could fit that mold. Help them communicate with recruiters and HR in order to build a deeper talent pool from the beginning. This will accelerate the process for the sake of your team and rectify any candidate experience issues.

Step 2. Create A Plan Of Action

What’s the best way to shorten the interview process? Create a plan of execution first. Uncertainty only elongates the hiring process, therefore frustrating your team and the candidates. Seemingly the root of innumerable interviews is the absence of preparation and planning. Lack of training and situational awareness to what the team and the organization needs leads to multiple interviews until someone somewhere kind of figures out what they might need.

“There’s never an excuse or a quantified business reason to do that [interview with excess]. But I think what’s happening is people don’t know exactly what they’re looking for so they throw everything at the candidate.” — Debby Carreau (@DebbyCarreau), Founder and CEO of Inspired HR Ltd.

Step 3. Make The Most Of The Interview

Repeating interview questions shouldn’t be on your to-do list, as the last thing your process should be is redundant. You might not have a lot of time during the interview, so it’s important to make the most of the time you have. Even if there are questions you have to ask (or can’t ask) due to organizational requirements, you can augment the quality of the interview with targeted questions.

Eradicate repetition by asking the right questions from the beginning. Evaluating soft skills shouldn’t require asking the same question in three different ways. Instead, ask candidates about how they resolved a problem with a supervisor or how they dealt with a difficult project with a team. Questions like these accurately determine the soft-skill fit of a candidate.

Adjusting the interview process can’t be resolved with a cookie-cutter Band-Aid. Because every organization develops at a different pace, it’s a faulty assumption that the same solution for the company next door will work for yours. Take these steps as a base for what you can do to improve the interview process and fill in the gaps with tools and practices fit to your organization.

About the Author: Raj Sheth is the CEO and Co-Founder of Recruiterbox.com, web-based recruitment software that helps growing companies manage their incoming job applications.

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ERP, Collaborative Recruitment And Getting Employees Involved

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Your recruiting team isn’t alone when it comes to attracting new talent. Your organization can get some employees involved by instigating and maintaining an Employee Referral Program. ERPs help employers find like-minded candidates to add to the team they already have. Combining the power of an ERP with collaborative recruitment gets employees involved in the workplace. Here are best practices and the tools you need to sustain an effective ERP.

Make Your ERP Work

Your team is already incentivized to find great people to work with, but why not sweeten the pot by offering rewards or cash for getting that perfect candidate to apply? Forty percent or more of best-in-class new hires are acquired from referral programs. Furthermore, those referred by current employees and acquisitions are 20% less likely to quit their jobs. This saves the company money and creates a more cohesive team in the long run. Because ERP programs are fueled by current employees, ambassadors know the cultural fit and the functional fit needed in the workplace and can refer people they know will make them look good and stay longer than a few months.

Create A Culture of Sharing

Workplace harmony is dependent upon the quality of communication among team members. Including current employees in the hiring process facilitates a culture of communication. Creating a sharing community around the office brings this mentality full circle. Communicating hiring perspectives with the current employees and hiring managers perpetuates this notion of teamwork. Start with an environment that fosters a sense of knowledge sharing. From that, a more collaborative and effective ERP will emerge. Diane Berry, Chief Knowledge Evangelist at Coveo says:

“The old adage that ‘Knowledge is Power’ needs to become ‘Sharing is Power.’ When employees openly share their knowledge, the entire organization becomes more powerful.”

Ultimately, you can use this mentality in the company’s ERP program. By integrating a “sharing” attitude into the organization, a collaborative recruiting program will surely emerge.

Organize With An ATS

It might take a little research, some demos, and maybe even some trials to find the Applicant Tracking System that best fits your company. Taking time to find the right ATS for your organization versus rushing into the least expensive option is better for you and your team in the long run. Robust recruitment software provides yet another way for your employees to get involved in the hiring process.

The easy access of candidate files is essential for organizations that want to implement a collaborative recruitment strategy among their employees. When pulling in other departments for recruitment support, keep in mind that you’ll need a system to track and manage all referrals and the easiest way to do this is often through email and calendaring software. Look for recruitment software that works without forcing your entire company to log in to the back end. Simply put, make it easy for them to help you!

Additionally, organization is crucial for the sake of legal compliance. Without organizational tools like an ATS, maintaining and sending important paperwork can be difficult to keep track of. Each ATS is sold by seat, so the organization will pay for each user. This way, candidate files can’t be accessed with abandon but rather with purpose by designated users.

Employee referral programs have a higher success rate than recruiters simply reaching out to potential candidates. The employee ambassadors reaching out to the candidates already have developed relationships with them, so there is a pre-established level of trust. Meshing a sharing environment into the office atmosphere fosters not only the development of employees, but the growth of your qualified talent pool. With all of this information, the team will need a way to track it all. Using an ATS to enhance the already-in-place ERP will help your team make the best, educated decision in adding talent. A well-fitted ATS keeps your recruitment department organized so you can efficiently share information with the employees who are involved in the hiring decisions. With these robust tools and practices, your organization can begin the change to a collaborative recruitment process.

About the Author: Raj Sheth is the CEO and Co-Founder of Recruiterbox.com, web-based recruitment software that helps growing companies manage their incoming job applications.

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Finding Top Talent Through The Contingent Workforce

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When you hear the words contingent, contracted, temporary or seasonal, what do you think of? Traditionally, the contingent workforce has been associated with the bottom rungs of the corporate ladder. They’re the people who can’t find real jobs. Well, the contingent workforce is growing in numbers, and taking over every rung of that ladder from the bottom to the top.

The contingent workforce has a new face. They are now the sought-after candidates with experience and flexibility; instead of the plan B hires they were not so long ago. Let’s take a look at this new and rapidly expanding workforce segment…

Life Is Sweet For Contractors

You might be as surprised as I was to find out what a Randstad study revealed. We’re no longer dealing with temp secretaries or paper pushers; the new contingent worker has his or her sights set much higher. Randstad’s research indicates that about 1/3 of temporary workers are currently holding supervisory or managerial positions. The research also revealed that 40% of companies reported finding their top talent through the contingent labor force.

Now that employers are starting to embrace flexibility and find smarter ways to hire and manage the contingent workforce, the sky is the limit for this segment. There is no longer a stigma attached to granting responsibility to contingent workers. Employers have traditionally been reluctant to hand over any measure of power to someone who may or may not be there in the future, but they are now finding that the contingent worker’s patchwork career of skills and experiences make them perfect candidates for even high-level, power-wielding positions.

Contingent workers are no longer the tactical, last-resort hires, but rather strategic additions to teams. That may be why 60% of enterprises plan to increase freelance hiring in 2014, as revealed by Tower Lane Consulting.

Employment Is For The Birds

The same survey revealed that 53 million Americans, or 34% of the population, qualify as freelancers. This swift rise in freelancers is the result of many factors:

“The rise of Uber, Lyft, Task Rabbit, Elance and other online labor marketplaces, combined with employers’ desire to lower payroll and insurance costs, has driven up the number of people cobbling together a living from freelancing.” – Susan Adams, Career Specialist

Beyond the environmental factors contributing to the rise of the contingent workforce, these workers have their own intrinsic motivators for changing the way we work. They love the balance, independence, diversity and flexibility of their career path. Here’s the breakdown from the Randstad Workforce 360 Study:

●      78% of contingent workers describe their experience as positive.

●      These workers also express higher career satisfaction in several areas compared to their full-time counterparts.

●      31% of contingent workers enjoy perks like flexibility of schedule.

●      28% of contingent workers cite better compensation as a contributing factor to their job satisfaction.

●      21% of contingent workers value their career ownership.

Since the recession, employers have struggled to find a way to attract great talent while maintaining a balance between agility and budget. The contingent workforce went from being the backup plan to the ideal solution to the problem every employer was and is facing.

Human capital will always present the largest cost to organizations, making the contingent workforce all the more attractive. Employers can find the talent they need, when they need it, for as long as they need it, with little to no training. The reality now is that temporary workers are no longer a temporary workforce strategy; ironically enough, the contingent workforce is here to stay.

The lean and agile workforce that every CEO needs and wants will largely be comprised of these contingent workers. Today the contingent workforce is growing by 8.3% yearly, and that growth rate is only expected to increase. The real issue now falls on those employers who don’t have the capacity to attract and manage this workforce segment. Without the right tools, talent management of the contingent workforce can be disjointed and ineffective; rendering the positive benefits of hiring contingent workers a draw in vital resources.

Are you ready for rise of the new contingent worker?

About the Author: Raj Sheth is the CEO and Co-Founder of Recruiterbox.com, web-based recruitment software that helps growing companies manage their incoming job applications.

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