Bill Humbert, Recruitment Consultant

When trusted employees are promoted into management, generally what is their first task? Replace themselves. How do they interview candidates for their replacement?  Go to HR and ask for a list of acceptable questions to ask. If they are lucky, HR has a list of “approved questions.” Are the questions targeting the skills required to be successful in the position? Generally not, they are simply acceptable interview questions. Do those questions include, “If you were an animal, what would you be?”  Probably not, those questions are usually created by managers who feel they need to ask something more in order to get a better picture of the candidate. Is interviewing taken seriously in corporate America? If it were, hiring managers would be trained to be more effective in the interviewing process. As a matter of fact, trained and “certified” hiring managers from every company function would be developed. For instance, there would a certified interviewing manager in accounting, another in marketing, another in sales, etc.

If executives truly understood the cost of hiring the wrong person for a job, they would require the same or greater due diligence on the selection of a new employee as they require on the selection of a new corporate acquisition. This due diligence would include a meaningful job description, a meaningful interviewing process, and meaningful due diligence on the selected candidate after the interview.

Let’s examine the cost of hiring the wrong person. The first assumption is that they are in the position for two years before they make the grievous mistake that gets them fired (after being put on plan). Let’s say that person is earning $60,000 per year plus full benefits. They are in a decision making position, possibly team leader/supervisor. Let’s also say they have some client contact (customer service is full-time client contact). Does this begin to sound like someone your company has hired?

What are your hard costs of this hire? Did you pay a recruiting fee, relocation, advertising for the position (Internet postings, newspaper, other), attend career fairs, etc.? What time was spent by individuals in your company during the interview process? Did you need to pay the candidate expenses to interview them in person? Did you need to call in an employment attorney prior to letting them go? Did you pay severance? Were you sued by the candidate for wrongful termination when they were let go?

Many companies will glance at their hard costs of letting someone go but never even consider their potentially catastrophic soft costs.

Let’s examine the soft costs of someone who has been in a position for two years but is only doing part of their job – and not doing it that well. What is the cost of the work that is either not done – or done by another member of the team? What is the cost of their disruption to the team? What is the cost of the credibility of the manager for hiring someone like them? Have they driven away a customer or other employees? What is the cost of managing, coaching, and correcting them? What was the cost of the management time spent interviewing them; and then their replacement? Has their employment affected your brand as an employer? How has that affected recruitment? There may be many negative impacts.

On one occasional, I conducted an interview training session with a small consulting firm. The attendees included the CEO and CFO. At the beginning of the session, I asked the previous questions. The table with the CEO and CFO estimated that the potential damage to the company could reach to $1 million over two years. Imagine hiring just four people like that over a couple of years. Potentially that could make the difference between profit and loss – even between staying in business and going out of business. That is how important interviewing and selection skills are.

10 Tips for Successful Hiring Manager Interviews:

1) Create effective job description that includes the three, six, nine, and 12 month goals for that specific position (http://www.recruitingtrends.com/building-an-effective-job-description). This exercise makes the skills and experience necessary to be successful the first year crystal clear. Then the manager is able to focus questions on those skills and experience.

2) Use the goals and the departments this position interfaces with to create an interdepartmental interviewing team that focuses on its specific area and general corporate fit.

3) Create an interview that combines behavioral interviewing with 1 and 2 step interview questions to probe skills and experience.

4) Each interviewer focuses on their skill area – and reports how well the candidate would do in their area.

5) Treat the candidate as a potential client – they may be in the future if they are not already.

6) After the interview and within 24 hours, the interview team meets and discusses the candidate. Each member of the team gives thumbs up or down. The hiring manager accepts their opinions and makes the final hire/no hire decision after the reference check/drug test/background test processes.

7) The hiring manager is taught how to conduct reference checks since they know everything the candidate will need to accomplish. Remember, they make critical decisions every day that impact the company. They will conduct a more meaningful reference check than anyone else. Coach them as you would for interviewing.

8) Once the reference check/drug test/background check processes are complete, the final hire/no hire decision is made.

9) Based on the information collected during the interviewing and reference checking processes, create an offer based on corporate compensation, budget, and scarcity of candidates.

10) Begin your offer process by selling the candidate on the position again, asking how they will handle the counter offer, and extending the offer.

Using this straightforward process will improve your company’s candidate selection process—and, as a result, improve employee retention.

Bill Humbert is an expert nationally based Recruitment Consultant and the author of “RecruiterGuy’s Guide to Finding a Job.” His business, RecruiterGuy.com, specializes in recruitment continuous process improvement, employment branding, creative candidate sourcing, interview training, and how these tie together to attract Impact Performers.

Jeff Davis, Recruiter, Career Strategies, Inc

Many months ago, I was interviewing candidates for a recruiting position. The position had been open for months, and I felt like I was never going to find a candidate who had the unique experience I wanted. That was until I found the perfect resume.

I found a candidate, let’s just say her name was Amy, who looked perfect on paper. She had three years of experience as a recruiter, both for corporate entities and for staffing agencies. She had a proven track record and had worked for some major companies.  Household names abounded on her resume and, given her experience, I felt she could hit the ground running and quickly become an asset to the team.

Without any hesitation, I scheduled her for an in-person interview and made sure that my whole team could meet with her. I was certain that as long as she showed up and was breathing, she’d get the job.

A few days later it was time for Amy’s interview. My team and I rushed down to the lobby to great the person I had shamelessly hyped and praised.

When I entered the lobby, I saw two women waiting. One was sharply dressed and exuded confidence. The other looked like she had slept in her suit and didn’t bother to style her hair. Seeing as how recruiters depend heavily on reputation and appearance, the candidate who was the epitome of poise and style had to be Amy.

I walked up to her and said enthusiastically, “Amy!  It’s a pleasure to meet you!”

She smiled at me but looked a bit puzzled. Then a small, quiet voice behind me said, “Oh, um, actually I’m Amy.” I turned around, and the suit-sleeper was now on her feet, arm outstretched to me for a handshake.

I shook her hand which felt like a cold, dead fish, and as I looked into the sad, droopy eyes on her smileless face, my heart sank.

What followed was the longest and most boring interview of my life. My team and I gave Amy every possible opportunity to impress us, but every question was answered in a ho-hum tone and featured phrases like, “Well, um, I’ve never done that, but I guess I could.” When asked what she’d say to a candidate before their interview to get them pumped up and enthused about our company, she looked down at her hands and said in a Ben Stein-ish tone, “Well, uh, I’d say that I guess it’s a good company and fun to work for.”

Needless to say, Amy did not get the job, but she definitely left an impression on me. To this day, I use her as an example to anyone I come across who is looking for a job.

Being a complete Disney fanatic, I often compare people I meet to Disney characters (in case you were wondering, I’m Mike Wazowski, the little green guy from “Monsters, Inc,”).  Amy was clearly Eeyore, the depressed donkey from “Winnie the Pooh.”

I understand that being unemployed and looking for work can turn even the best of us into an Eeyore, but keep in mind that Eeyores don’t get jobs.

If you think you might be an Eeyore candidate, try these 10 tips…

1)      Surround yourself with positive people

Ideally everyone you come across will be supportive of your job search, but some people’s idea of support is actually detrimental to your success. You will come across people that make up excuses for you, like “The job market just sucks right now. It’s not your fault,” or my favorite, “Let’s just get drunk and forget about it.” Distance yourself from these people. While they are trying to help, their “solutions” will only keep you down. Instead, if you have friends, family, and colleagues who say things like “I know you can do it,” or “Keep it up!” or do things like e-mail you jobs to apply to, keep these people close. Their support is positive, and being around them will give you a more positive outlook.

2)      Quit taking it personally

There is no doubt that even the most amazing job seekers will encounter rejection from time to time. Quit taking it personally. Most of the time, the reason for rejection has nothing to do with you anyway. The reason you don’t get the job or don’t even get an interview might be because of budgeting, internal candidates, or a complete revamp of the company or department you’re applying to. Don’t focus on things you will never be able to control. Focus on yourself and how awesome you are, which brings me to my next tip…

3)      Tell yourself you’re hirable

If you’ve worked at least one day in your life, then you must have some hirable skills, and even if you haven’t worked before, odds are you have at least one hirable skill that just hasn’t been utilized yet. So stop the self-loathing. You are good enough to get a job, but no one will hire you if you don’t think you deserve it. And besides, beating yourself up every day gets downright exhausting.

4)      Practice interviewing

There’s nothing as depressing and demoralizing as completely bombing an interview.  There’s one easy way to combat this: practice the interview. As much as I love recruiters and hiring managers, we’re not the most original, creative people in the world. Most of us will ask the same questions over and over again. You can find books in your library of standard interview questions. Lists of interview questions are also readily available on the internet. One word of caution though: a successful interview isn’t just about being able to answer the questions. It’s about how you answer the questions. Practice how you will answer the questions you anticipate being asked. Set up a mock interview with a friend, a recruiter, or even your spouse or partner. Acting out the scenario in a friendly setting will help you prepare for the real deal. If you’re a shy, timid person, I highly suggest getting involved with different organizations that can help you become more comfortable with interacting with others. Toastmasters and improv acting classes are great things to consider. Both will get you to open up, talk, and think on your feet. Go to a few of these events and you’ll gain a wealth of confidence.

5)      Get out of the house

When you’re looking for a job, your job search should be one of your top priorities, but it should not be your only priority. You can only sit in front of your computer and send out resumes for so long before you get cabin fever.  Getting out of the house is okay.  Reward yourself for your hard work by going out for a walk or grabbing some ice cream. Just getting outside, being around other people, and being in sunlight will have a dramatic effect on your outlook.

6)      Network

Since you’re getting out of the house anyway, why not go to some networking events?  Find some professional groups in your area or in your industry. Many of them may even have events that cater to people who are “in transition.” The people you meet at these events may be able to give you advice on how to be an effective job-seeker and may even point you in the direction of companies that are hiring. The worst case scenario is you get out of the house for a few hours, which isn’t a bad thing at all.

7)      Make a happy playlist

I remember when I was in high school, I was very angsty and angry almost all the time, but I really had nothing to be angsty and angry about. I then looked at the CDs I had in my car. All of them were very angry, angsty rock bands: Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Limp Bizkit. No wonder I was an angry guy! I changed to more mellow tunes: Sheryl Crow, John Mayer, Norah Jones, Jack Johnson. A few days later I started to notice a shift in my mood.  Before long, people close to me started to notice it, too.  It’s amazing how much music seeps into our subconscious and influences how we see the world. Pick music that puts you in a happy, positive, confident mood, and listen to that music when applying to jobs and prepping for interviews.

8)      Set small, achievable goals

It’s great to start with the end in mind, but don’t let the end be your one and only goal. If you wake up every day of your job search thinking, “Today is the day I get the job,” the fact of the matter is that you will fail from achieving your goal every day except for the very last day of your job search. And if you’re like me, that feeling of failure isn’t exactly motivating. Instead of focusing on the final step, focus on the smaller ones you need to make to get you there. Tell yourself, “I will apply to 15 jobs today,” or “I’ll RSVP for two networking events today.” These are small, achievable, attainable goals, and you will feel good about yourself when you cross them off your daily to-do list.

9)      Go shopping and give yourself a job seeker makeover

Clothes definitely make the man (or woman), so take some time to go shopping for a new interview outfit if necessary. There are some other perks to going shopping during your job search. According to studies conducted by Cornell University as well as polling companies such as Harris and Gallup, the act of shopping makes you temporarily happier. Investing a few bucks on a new outfit that makes you look like a million bucks will also make you act like a million bucks. When you like the way you look, you will exude the confidence, happiness, and positivity that Eeyore candidates lack.

10)   If it’s really serious, then get serious help

Being unemployed, especially for a long period of time, can easily lead to a serious depression problem. If you notice any depression warning signs over an extended period of time, such as having difficulty getting out of bed every morning or heightened alcohol consumption, go to your doctor right away and get help. Your job search is important, but your mental health should always be your top priority. Also, if you are clinically depressed and not getting proper treatment, your depression will be a major hindrance to your job search. Take care of yourself and everything else will fall into place.

Jeff Davis is a graduate of UCLA and has an extensive background in Human Resources and Recruiting. He currently works for Career Strategies Inc (www.csi4jobs.com), a staffing firm specializing in direct and temporary placements in corporate capacities.

Jason Gorham, CEO, SharkStrike

It amazes me how many conferences, current technologies and new technologies are available for recruiting.  I have been recruiting for over 15 years and it makes my head spin, and I can only image what an entry level person must think. In the past week alone here are some of the things that I have seen.

Recruiting Innovators Conference
New Social Media Tool Announcement
LinkedIn Recruiters Conference
LinkedIn New CRM Tool
Taleo Join Government to Help Job Seekers
Facebook Partners with Government to Help Job Seekers
Recruiting Innovation awards for making it easy for applicants to apply to jobs???

And the list goes on and on. I personally can’t keep up with it and do my job, so I’m not sure how anyone could. So let’s slow things down a little bit and take a deep breath and simply take recruiting to its lowest common denominator which is you either Push or Pull. I guess you could say that I’m biased to the word Push as I named one of my products around it, “Push Posting”; however, it’s also a very simple concept.

Let’s look at Push first.

Push is anything that you are sending out. These could be some of the following:

Job Postings

• Pay-Per-Click Marketing
• Search Engine Optimization
• RSS Feeds
• Banner Advertising
• Job Fairs
• Blogs
• Email Marketing
• Phone Calls To Candidates
• Any type of marketing

Pull could be some of the following:

• Applicants Applying to Job Postings
• Applicants Applying at Job Fairs
• Passive Job Seekers finding you
• Applicants Visiting Your Website
• Employee Referrals

I’m going to give you a couple of recruiting hints and some technology that is geared toward pushing and pulling that you will be able to utilize today without breaking the bank or your budget.  Everyone knows about the big recruiting technology Push players including Monster, CareerBuilder, etc. But what about other lower cost or free resources? Here are a couple of tools that I use to Push.

Push Technology

Smart Recruiters – This would fall under both push and pull as it’s a free applicant tracking system. You can post your jobs and send them to job search engines without any charge to you. Your company gets free branding, your jobs get exposure and you get candidates in one fell swoop! You get what you pay for and the system does have some glitches but I’m a big fan of it. If you want to parse resumes you will have to pay an upcharge as you get a minimal number of resume parses per month.

Blogging Your Jobs – Search engines love content and what better way to get your jobs visible than by blogging them. Blogs are very easy to set up and if you have a job ad just cut and paste it. You can also take it one step further and social media your post by adding Tell & Share by Social Twist. I love this tool because once I post a blog I use it to push to every social media site including Digg, Stumble, etc. Here is an example of blog/SEO juice. 

Search Engine Optimization

Pay-Per-Click Marketing – I love pay-per-click (ppc) and have been doing it since 2003, and I’m not just talking about Google either. Done right ppc can bring you more value than you will ever know. It does become tricky especially in Google so you could spend your entire budget in one day if not careful. However it’s still fun to play around with. If you’re serious about investing a good amount of budget I would have a professional manage it for you. Here are just some of the benefits:

• Brand your company in the advertisement
• Brand your job in the advertisement
• Target your competitors’ keywords
• Pay Per Click and not just when someone views the ad
• Geo-Target across the world or across the street

Some newer platforms have emerged in the ppc world including Facebook and LinkedIn. I love the LinkedIn ppc platform because I can narrow down on title and location. Facebook I’m not so crazy about. They have gobs of data and their targeting is awesome, however it’s very difficult in my opinion to get people to click on the ads.

LinkedIn Ads

Pull Technology

Jigsaw – (Acquired by Salesforce) – I have been a long time user of Jigsaw and still love it to this day. It’s not that difficult to get contacts and get points. All you have to do is run some Boolean search strings for good lists, upload them and boom, your have points. It’s very cost effective and I can’t remember the last time I paid for contacts.

Here is a breakdown of my account on Jigsaw.

Privilege Level: Rainmaker (Highest Level Attained)

Rating: 97%

Data Contributions: 3,484

Member Since: 12/09/2004

Resume Databases – Everyone knows and uses the typical resume databases but do they use them effectively? When I start a search I go from most recent and then move to a year or plus older. Why, you may ask? The people that are fresh on there are low hanging fruit. However with low hanging fruit come lots of pickers. So job seekers are bombarded and I mean bombarded with emails and phone calls from agencies and corporations. However if you start with the oldest people you are going to get less people contacting them and most likely they have changed from the job that they were in that you see on your resume. I recently did this and recruited a candidate from IBM that spent his entire career with IBM.

Email – Email is the best way to reach busy candidates. However if you’re not presenting the right opportunity to the right person your creditability is shot. The creation and crafting of the email must also be inviting enough to garner a response. I can tell you that by working for a company and have a signature coming from IBM gets a lot more response than from an agency. Agencies don’t despair, get creative. I typically will tell them that they were referred to me or use a “Who can you recommend” in the subject line to get their attention. Of course they are going to see that they are a fit for the job and will come back with “me I’m a fit” – really, I didn’t know that!

I know that these technologies or the recommendations that I made may be obvious but they are effective and, at the end of the day, that’s what the goal is, right? As you see, recruiting is just that simple, it’s not complex, it’s just pushing or pulling.

So do you Pull or do you Push?

Jason Gorham, CEO of SharkStrike, helps talent organizations learn how to transition from effectively attracting the right candidates, to understanding and developing the skills it takes to be exceptional.

Bill Humbert, Recruitment Consultant

As I chat with companies regarding a potential recruitment contract, it has become apparent that many companies follow the same process as candidates. They post jobs on the Internet and pray they will receive the best replies from candidates. You see evidence of this on Yahoo Groups and occasionally in various LinkedIn groups when recruiters ask where they may post for different types of candidate.

A couple of months ago a senior corporate recruiter informed me that they “recruit” by posting on LinkedIn. “It’s expensive but it’s effective!” In the next sentence she told me that they had blown their recruitment budget for the fiscal year.

Posting an opening on the Internet is a marketing effort where the poster pays and prays for great results. It is not a sales effort. Recruiting is a sales process. The most successful corporate and third party recruiters realize this and build relationships with candidates.

Recruiting is a dynamic process. Efforts that are wildly successful today may fail terribly a year from now. Therefore it is important to be out there from a marketing perspective and make it easy for candidates to apply if you attract their attention. Requiring candidates to complete an application prior to a conversation is not defined as “easy”. It benefits a company to have their resume in their database. It does not benefit a company to lose good candidates because it takes too long to complete the automated 1960s application.

May I suggest a new recruiting dynamic? How about “post and prey”? There is a reason for the title “headhunter”. These are specialists who know where to find the best candidates in any field and then deliver their “heads” to their clients. Does this take more time? It depends on how active a corporate recruiting staff is while building relationships with future candidates. What is the corporate budget telling them? When does the company forecast they will need certain talent? Then begin to identify that talent – not after the position has been opened.

Posting positions where potential candidates hang out virtually or physically is fine – just call it recruitment marketing. Then use the available tools like LinkedIn or Broadlook to identify who you want to hunt. That is the “prey” part of the process. Then call them not email. Thus the recruiter is beginning a professional relationship with the potential candidate.

During the conversation, ask if they saw your posting. If yes, where? If no, find where they are looking and their peers are probably there also. Now you are conducting market research at the base level and fine tuning your recruitment marketing. No need to spend money where the pool has dried up

Candidates love to be told they are wanted by another company. Posting and preying is more effective and more fun than posting and praying.

Bill Humbert is an expert nationally based Recruitment Consultant and the author of “RecruiterGuy’s Guide to Finding a Job.” His business, RecruiterGuy.com, specializes in recruitment continuous process improvement, employment branding, creative candidate sourcing, interview training, and how these tie together to attract Impact Performers.

Bill Humbert, Recruitment Consultant

It is interesting to listen when companies complain they have difficulty attracting candidates from out of state. With a little research, a consultant may easily determine why they are experiencing those problems.

Relocation of candidates requires an understanding of psychology, an understanding that recruitment is a sales process, and a recruitment process that does not interfere with those understandings.

One of my clients decided to transition an important IT organization from Washington, DC to Cedar Rapids, IA in the early 1990s. I was tasked to develop the recruitment strategy; and developed these tips. As a result, we recruited 200 IT professionals for Cedar Rapids in 20 months (prior to the Internet as a widely used sourcing tool). Of those 200 IT professionals, we needed to relocate approximately 145 individuals and families from cities all over the United States. I like to think we could have done it more quickly today because sourcing is so much easier and more targeted. However, the other side of that sword is absorbing and effectively orienting those new employees, especially since we also needed to recruit senior managers and orient them.

Fortunately my client was very light on its feet and welcomed innovation. Otherwise, we would have failed. We changed parts of our strategy when they were not as effective as they once were – while keeping the strategies that continued to work. The strategy was developed so it fit within my client’s basic needs of personal interviews, reference checking (very valuable), background investigations, and drug testing. Otherwise we were able to change the process as needed.

The following tips will help your company succeed in attracting top talent that needs to be relocated.

1) Examine your current recruitment processes. If you put up roadblocks to top talent, you will have difficulty attracting them. For instance, do you require candidates to complete an application prior to a conversation to develop mutual interest (a la the 1960s personnel department)? This practice is clerk recruiting at its worst. Professional recruiters talk to candidates first and develop an interest prior to any applications.

2) Avoid asking candidates to make a big decision. Keep asking for small decisions until relocation is a logical next step. People resist making big decisions without enough information – and asking them to pull up roots and move is a very big decision because it potentially impacts a whole family. Do you tell candidates in the first conversation that they must move to your town? If so, you are probably making relocation a more difficult issue.

3) Will the candidate be viewed as a diversity candidate? If so, they will be concerned about what happens if they move and the work relationship fails. They will also be concerned whether or not they will “fit in” with the company, neighborhood, schools, etc. It is important to introduce them to other similar employees in your company or area.

With all of the potential complications, what process works? Remember first of all, this is a sales process. Therefore you want to ask the candidate to make small easy decisions with each one leading the candidate to the next obvious conclusion.

You need to determine if the candidate is qualified. In your introductory phone call you discuss your company/client and the specific position to see if there is interest. It’s important to honestly sell each – company and position. It is good to mention the location of the position but that’s not important yet. What is important is their interest level in a position like that and in your company. At this point if they say I don’t want to move to (Park City/Washington, DC/Iowa, etc.), you reply, “I understand. What’s more important at this point is if you are interested in this position and the direction of the company. We don’t even know if you qualify for this position yet. When is a good time to sit down to discuss your qualifications?”

Set up a phone screen. At the beginning of the phone screen, refresh their memory about the position and the company. Be sure to add some new information that will keep their interest. Once you have decided they are qualified, then you may say, “The next little step is to have a phone conversation with the hiring manager. Would you prefer to have that conversation during the day or in the evening?” If they object that they do not want to move, simply say, “I’m not asking you to move. It doesn’t cost you anything to talk. Let’s just chat with the manager to see if this type of position is interesting to you.” You want them thinking about the next easy decision – when to phone interview with the manager. Once you have a mutually agreeable time, contact the hiring manager to set up the call and coach them about the next steps.

After the call with the hiring manager, ask how it went. Find their level of interest. If it is high, the next little step is to meet with the manager in person and meet people on the team. Then a tour of facilities, followed by a tour of the area by a chosen professional real estate agent who is there only to sell the area but not a property (that may happen later). The real estate agent will ask them during the tour what they would like to see – schools, playing fields, cultural locations (museums, live theaters – repertory or off-Broadway), hiking/biking trails, etc. While they are conversing, the real estate agent should ask them if they like what they’ve seen – in other words, understand their objections. This is key to your success because candidates will tend to be more open to discussing concerns with someone who is not connected directly to the company.

Once you know their true objections – and if the hiring manager really wants to hire this candidate – you may be able to answer that objection in your debriefing conversation. For instance, they may say they won’t make a decision without their spouse seeing the area. One client answers that objection early by inviting the spouse/significant other to the onsite interview trip. They tour while the candidate interviews. After the interview, the other person joins them and is shown what the first liked the most about their tour (and will probably talk about their interviews).

After the real estate agent debriefs you, you can debrief the candidate. If there is an objection, treat it as important but not a show stopper (the person could just have a little cold feet). If there is mutual interest at this point, the next little decision is an offer. At this point, it is expected and the move will seem like a smaller decision because of the additional information since the first conversation.

If this is a key position, companies need to have some flexibility on relocation benefits (especially in this housing market), signing bonuses, and compensation/title (it still needs to be within the compensation structure). How much is this empty position costing the company per month?

Before the offer is extended it is important to review all of the reasons why the candidate should strongly consider the position and get their agreement on those reasons. Then, with excitement, extend the offer to them. Once they accept, negotiate a start date and coach them on the counter offer again – but that’s another article!

Bill Humbert is an expert nationally based Recruitment Consultant and the author of “RecruiterGuy’s Guide to Finding a Job.” His business, RecruiterGuy.com, specializes in recruitment continuous process improvement, employment branding, creative candidate sourcing, interview training, and how these tie together to attract Impact Performers.

Patrick Ropella, Founder & Owner, Ropella Group

It’s hard to hide unprepared, unqualified interviewers. They bring little value to the interview process and, as a result, stick out like a sore thumb. What can be done at your organization to ensure those on your selection teams conduct the best, most well informed interviews? Read on!

Resumes are very poor ways to assess a candidate’s fit. A resume is simply a display of knowledge. It’s information presented in a raw form. Like the job application you filled out for your first job, the resume provides only a very superficial way to screen candidates.  And that is why interviews are key. Make your interviews powerful by getting fully prepared for them and using pre-interview information gathering and a skills survey. Then, collect your pre- and post-interview review data on a grading sheet.

First Things First: The Skills Survey

Before you even think about scheduling an interview, you must be sure to collect all of the information or “knowledge” you will need to create job search materials that bring in qualified candidates and help you make informed decisions. You do this by creating a “customized job application” or what I call a skills survey.

Interviewing is about finding out the depth of a candidate’s skills, aptitudes, and attitudes in relation to how they fit your work and your culture. Having candidates complete a skills survey allows you to focus more time on these issues and aspects of their experience during the face-to-face interview.

The skills survey is very different from a standard job application or one that human resources might use at the end of the selection process. Yes, it is yet another step in the hiring process, but it is one that is hugely valuable and actually very easy to execute (I promise!).

Here’s how to create a skills survey:

1. First identify the outcomes you want your new employee to achieve. For example:

• Ability to solve problems
• Flexible with rotating schedules
• Able to multi-task and stay very organized
• Well-adjusted and able to handle high pressure moments.

2. Now flip these outcomes into questions. For example:

• Describe an example or two of the most significant problems you’ve solved. How did you identify the problem(s) and go about solving them?
• Have you ever worked nights or weekends? If so where, and for how long at any one stretch?
• Are you well organized? What methods do you use to stay organized?
• How do you cope with or regulate stress and emotions? If you were training someone who is new to this type of high-pressure environment, what would you suggest to them to help them deal with the stress and emotions that come with it?

By now you should be getting a flavor for how easy creating a skills survey can be. In our experience, it is best to keep the number of questions between 10 and 15. As a rule of thumb, the greater the “needle in a haystack” nature of the search (i.e. level of specificity), the greater the number of questions.

Working through the process of completing the skills survey forces candidates to really think through the key roles they’ll be responsible for on a daily basis in the position. In other words, it helps them really assess whether or not the open position is the right job for them. It helps them determine whether they are under-qualified or overqualified and their true level of interest. It helps them dramatically improve their preparation for the interview process. Emphasize to them that completing the skills survey in writing helps them to think through the key topical areas that will be focused on the most during the interviews.

Also keep in mind that the best interviewers are not always the best candidates, just as terrible interviewers can be great candidates. The skills survey levels the playing field for all candidates no matter how good they are at interviewing.  Interviewers often have limited time to find out the depth of a candidate’s skills, especially as they relate specifically to the open position. The skills survey process forces candidates to focus, in writing in advance of the interview, on the most important aspects of their experience and skill set. You can then build on the information they’ve provided in the skills survey when you are in a face-to-face interview by asking more detailed, behavior-based questions. The skills survey also provides you with much more time in the interview to dig deeper into their relevant background, experience, and skill set because you do not have to use valuable interview time to do basic information gathering.

Creating Clarity: Requesting a Cover Letter

Now there’s one other information gathering step that, depending on the results of the skills survey review, you may want to use on a case-by-case basis. Follow-up cover letters can be requested at very different times throughout the interview process. Typically they are used very early on in the process to clarify whether a candidate should even be asked to complete a skills survey. Sometimes a cover letter is also helpful after candidates have completed the skills survey. At that stage, the cover letter can be used to address remaining concerns about a candidate and to find out details such as why they are interested in your opportunity and/or how well they feel they fit the role.

The request for the skills survey normally comes as a part of the screening process before any interview starts. But, cover letters can be asked for at any time. Sometimes you’ll ask for one upfront on one issue, and another cover letter on a different matter after the final interview, and maybe even another one right before the final candidate selection takes place.

When asking for a cover letter, you might say to the prospective candidate, “Before we proceed further into the process, we want to give you an opportunity to address, in the form of a cover letter, an issue we are concerned about. Please give me a paragraph answering the following question.”

Then you take the concern and put it in the form of a question, asking the candidate to focus on answering with one paragraph or two at most. Getting a candidate to answer in writing allows the entire selection team to hear the candidate’s own words and allows you to make a hiring decision based on logic, not uncertainty, assumptions, preconceived notions, or lack of information. It also tells you a lot about the candidate’s communication style, follow-up and organizational skills. Candidates will also accept being screened out with much greater grace when they see you’ve really given them a chance during the information gathering and interview process.

Making the Grade: Use Evidence-Based Grading Systems to Compare Candidates

You now know how to come up with valuable information. The next step is learning how to quantify or measure its value. By this point in the selection process, you will have at least a resume and a completed skills survey and maybe even a cover letter and some notes from your original introduction to the candidate. Note that you will have yet to do an actual interview but you’ve already collected a good bit of information that will make the interview process a whole lot more productive once you move to face-to-face interviews.

The grading sheet is a customized form you complete and then use for every candidate you have screened as a potential fit. If through a superficial quick review of the resumes you can tell that some of the candidates are probably C level in comparison with the others, set those aside for now and grade the rest. The grading sheet will help you objectively weigh all the outcomes and even the preferences in such a way that at the end of the grading process you can be pretty sure who the A+ candidates are, who the A candidates are, and who the B candidates are. Then you focus on scheduling interviews for the A’s, set aside the B’s as backups (for now), and release the C’s.

The grading sheet is also a good retention tool. Reviewing the grading sheet during a quarterly performance appraisal is another step that can be taken towards making sure there is still a good fit between existing employees and the current roles they’re assigned to. People change and their interests, skills, and abilities change with them. If the position a person is in doesn’t change, then you need to stay tuned in to the person so when he has grown beyond a certain role you can move him into more fulfilling work as soon as it’s available. In the meantime, you may even want to assign special projects to keep employees motivated. Fail to notice the subtle changes in a person’s motivation or attitude and you will experience excessive turnover.

What you learn from people about why they are interviewing, what they like and dislike about their current organization, how their organization asks them to do things, and how their organization is structured, etc. can be very valuable information. Knowledge is power… so capture as much as you can during the interview process for continuous evaluation and redeployment of talent and even for competitive intelligence purposes.

Patrick B. Ropella is Chairman & CEO of the Ropella Group, a 25-year-old international Executive Search, Leadership Transformation, and Corporate Consulting firm in Florida with clients among the world’s most prestigious corporations. The Ropella Group focuses on working with mid-level management and executive-level leaders regarding their search, leadership, and/or consulting needs across most roles and functions.

Andrew Gadomski, Chief Advisor and Founder, Aspen Advisors

In his earlier article, Andrew Gadomski put forth three hypotheses regarding the Class of 2011 and their recruitment: talent is being redefined as beyond employees, the separation of talent acquisition activities, and the return of the manager. Here he shares three more hypotheses.

Hypothesis #4 – Employment Brand Manager positions will increase greatly on the staffs of corporate recruiting and third party recruiting organizations.

Attraction will increase, and potentially trump scouting and sourcing activities for certain resource teams as a reliable way to acquire quality. Because we are approaching less than three degrees of separation everywhere, the amount of potential resources a talent team can assess has skyrocketed.

These choices will force us to focus on “Who really wants to work for us, and can be great.” This will be a move away from “Who could be great, and do they want to work for us.” Of course the “Who wants to work for us?” is amplified by how many new influencers a person has access to. In 2001, when you had a job offer, you asked your siblings, parents, and college roommate. The Class of 2011 will ask 500+ social media connections and have them “like” the idea – in about 10 minutes. Controlling and proselytizing an employment brand will have to produce applicants that are significantly convinced the brand/project/work is for them, which will lead to better resources. We aren’t going to be selling; they are going to be buying. But if we don’t control the brand, it will be controlled for you, as will your viable resource pool.

Test It – Do you have members of your team that specialize in campaigns regarding employment branding? Do you use more technology, social media and other venues more than ever before, and do you see it increasing or decreasing? Do you see the variety of sources from where you get candidates increasing? Have you had to make concessions on the number of sources you track in your ATS because it is now too many? Do you see more people talking about your brand without your direct influence more than a few years ago?

Hypothesis #5 – Micro-employment brands will carry more influence on an acceptance decision than the larger employment brand.

What the heck is a micro-employment brand? Think iPad team vs. Apple. We see it now – people want to work on the Diet Coke brand or on the tablet team at Blackberry, and so on. As businesses monopolize on products and services that are brand-dependent, it is not impossible to believe that each of those brands will have their own employment brand. In many cases, they have specific innovators, leaders, and so on.

Large companies typically grow by acquisition, initiative or regional focus while smaller companies grow by pushing on a sector or product, so it is likely that companies will have to acquire resources specific to those ends. One of the great examples is actually in the gaming space, where different game labs have different locations, leaders, and projects.

So what are we REALLY selling? Are you selling Google or Google Chrome? Diageo or Johnny Walker? For smaller brands, are you selling your company or the project? The more we diversify, become remote, and use varying resources, the more we separate from other teams/initiatives in our companies; thereby, the micro–employment brand is produced.

Test It – Are you now describing specific teams or projects in your job descriptions? Is your corporate website separated by brands, initiatives, focus, and areas of development? Are you regionally focused for headcount expansion with a concentration on specific product lines? Are certain products targeted for growth much more than others?

Hypothesis #6 – Performance management will rely on external talent intelligence, and bring recruiting into robust succession planning activities.

Excuse me while I paraphrase from the dozens of conversations we have with HR and business leaders each month – “There is a talent shortage.” Meanwhile, there are so many people looking for work, so many people looking to grow, get promoted, and get developed. In the US, the underemployment rate is higher that the unemployment rate, which is plenty high. But again, “We don’t have the talent we need.” Then there is ANOTHER problem we keep hearing about: “We don’t have the leaders we need – but we can’t let those leaders go because we can’t find the talent we need.” These themes are all over the map, and it’s a broken record.

But there is a glimmer of advancement. Some companies are merging succession planning and performance management, and starting to look at talent pipelining as a part of those exercises – and it’s changing the conversation. When you combine the three (performance management, succession planning, and talent pipelining), you start hearing statements like “Let’s keep John is his role, and change his development. We have two internals that can be developed in this leadership position, and our recruiting team has six people on the hook long-term. Let’s not let John’s need for advancement hold us hostage. We don’t think he is ready, and we have plenty of options on how to advance that product line.”

The more this service level develops and the more it spreads, the more recruiting is going to be brought to the succession planning and performance management table. And that opens up a whole new set of assignments, types of work, and competencies. Recruiters and managers are actually doing proactive work associated with business planning. You asked for it – and it is coming – but the responsibility will be great. Recruiters will have different conversations, more training will be required, and managers will learn to recruit without an open job. It is going to be daunting and different. The presentation skills, reaction skills, and strategic questions are so different for this new group of conversations, that the term “recruiting consultant” will be exactly that.

Test It – Are you being drawn into succession planning meetings or asked to produce reports in regards to these meetings? When management does its leadership review, do you get asked for reports or sourcing information about the marketplace? Are you placing internal versus external talent on key positions – and external is starting to win more? 

In the next installment, I will post the last four hypotheses and tests. Here is a preview:

• Hypothesis #7 – Early productivity results will fall to recruiting’s responsibility, and assessment of candidates will become more rigorous prior to hiring manager interview.

• Hypothesis #8 – Smaller brands will need to increase their local and in-person presence, and the recruiting process differences will widen between well-known and less-visible brands.

• Hypothesis #9 – Job security will be assured because of skill set, not the actual employer for which you work.

• Hypothesis 10 – Education-dependent careers will decline even further and candidacy will widen, increasing the talent pool even further for the US and other modernized markets.

Andrew Gadomski is the Chief Advisor and Founder of Aspen Advisors. A truly unique efficiency consultancy firm, Aspen is the first organization to focus purely on talent strategy and productivity, enabling clients and partners to focus on execution and management.

Embracing diversity, retaining equality, and upholding strong ethics

Joan Francis, Consultant /Researcher

The pressure for the recruitment industry has never been as tough and competitive as the present date (except of course during the great depression of the 1930s). The need to deliver your best candidates on time and all of the time, screened and scrutinized to fulfill the total profile required by the customer for the candidates, then to compete against (volume) other equally qualified candidates from various other agencies can often prove disheartening for all, especially when the candidate is continually competing against many over-qualified individuals per position.

My personal view as a consultant is to have a broader knowledge of my own area and locality in the ‘Big Society’ within my catchment area and truly embrace diversity as a whole. To be able to diversify in a competitive climate can create an additional edge for your business.

So what do I mean by diversifying whilst retaining an ethically and equally balanced approach within the job market?

If we take, for instance, the caliber and type of candidate walking through our doors these days, the majority of them do have the ‘wow factor’ with CVs that in past would have guaranteed an immediate interview with an immediate job, placement or contract. Unfortunately, the present day delivers an overflow of such candidates with a minority of positions for them to fill. Therefore, we are left with surplus candidates entering unchallenging and unrewarding positions (if lucky enough) for the sake of being employed, having a job.

Can we as consultants counteract this and support the candidate towards better things? I believe that we can. As qualified and trained consultants we should be able to offer diverse and alternative support if we feel that we cannot accommodate that particular candidate at that particular stage. We should be our own ‘personal entity’ with the ability to identify both verbal and non-verbal communication, strengths and weaknesses, and other observational traits within the initial interview process.

High on the agenda should be the opportunity to offer the candidate significant solid and sound advice and perhaps a provisional redirection to alternative companies or bodies within our own network of businesses or support groups. Our network of a large number of organisations should not just be  organisations looking for staff, but bodies such as volunteer bureaus, local government bodies, support groups for self employment, additional training groups for updating skills, networking and talk groups – literally everything your candidate may require to retain interest and maybe even to regain self-worth if they have been unemployed for sometime or maybe unsuccessful in finding a first position since leaving university or college, keeping them in a loop.

It is so easy for the initial flame of enthusiasm to burn out through unsuccessful interviews or continual rejections.

All potential candidates should be valued as they are our future placements. What we do not want to create for the recruitment industry is a reputation of being unsupportive, uncaring, and disconnected from the real world.

Offering advice and support does not mean you will be overrun with a database of unsuitable candidates that cannot be placed. What it indicates is that you have taken the time to screen and profile your candidates’ needs and requirements, fulfilling your side of the bargain in these tough times. As a consultant this indicates you also understand the needs of your client and will not send just anyone along for the interview but a candidate whose profile best fits the position. This process also means that you will throw your net further to screen the perfect candidate increasing your success rate. You will broaden your opportunities by further networking with a variance of businesses outside your normal contact base; you will be extending and diversifying your own empire.

To be perceived as cocooned and insular in this day and age is non-beneficial to business strategy, and approaches to winning new business need to be continually reviewed and adapted to remain competitive.

The best form of advertising in any business is word of mouth which comes from clients, customers, candidates, and alternative bodies. Therefore, thinking outside your own box and networking with the alternative business could prove to be your winning card.

Joan Francis, MIRP CertRP, has been a member of the Recruitment Employment Confederation UK for the last 9 years supporting the biggest lobbying voice for the recruitment industry within the UK, a recognized and significant body. By trade, Joan is a Consultant /Researcher who enjoys a range of independent projects, independently sourced, which include research, investigation, consultation, and analysis.

Bill Humbert, Recruitment Consultant

Remember the 1960s? Well, there are two generations who don’t.

If you were a candidate, there were three primary ways for you to find a job.

1) Complete an application, drop it off with the personnel department, and hope the company called you.

2) Become known as a contributor in your current company and be recruited by a recruiter or someone within another company who knows your impacts.

3) Network with people who could help introduce you to another company – “It’s not what you know. It’s who you know” became a mantra.

If you were the personnel department, you ran a newspaper ad and waited for responses, looked at them, decided if they were a potential fit and either interviewed them or filed their resume in a file drawer.

In 2011, many companies have the same process, only today it is automated. The name “personnel department” has mostly become obsolete. Today, we have human resource departments that have the responsibility for talent acquisition.

How do many of those human resource departments recruit today?

1)    They run an automated newspaper ad on one or more job boards. “Automated newspaper ad?” CareerBuilder was founded by two newspaper publishing companies.

2)    They utilize the services of a third party recruiter.

3)    Or, the candidate may network their way into the company.

Sound familiar?

Today when candidates reply to an online posting, what are they required to do in many companies? Complete a six- to seven-page application prior to any conversation generating mutual interest, and hope they receive a reply from the talent acquisition team. That process is called “posting and praying.”

Companies have conditioned candidates that (for the most part) completing an application prior to a conversation is a waste of time. Certainly you have heard the words “black hole” when candidates discuss corporate (and some third party) recruiting processes, correct?

Today instead of filing the resume in a file drawer, it is filed in an applicant tracking system. (Thank goodness! At least that way you may be able to find the resume in the future!)

The applicant tracking systems that promote that process are partially correct. Clerks should be able to run that process. Unfortunately recruitment is not a clerk process. It is a sales process and successful companies treat it as such.  Wouldn’t your company rather use that computer memory storing more resumes of possibly better qualified candidates than discouraging slightly passive candidates from simply dropping their resume into the applicant tracking system?

Successful corporate recruiting professionals understand the psychology behind recruitment. They understand that candidates do not like to make big, life changing decisions. They help them make little decisions that lead to the obvious conclusion – offer acceptance and starting.

As our economy slowly improves, companies will begin to open new positions for growth and to replace retiring baby boomers. The clerk-based recruiting teams will suffer in that environment as their applications dwindle, and they won’t understand why.

Meanwhile the successful corporate recruiting professionals will have the opportunity to choose and recruit the most promising candidates – who will no longer follow 1960s processes.

It is time to move recruitment to Recruitment Release 2011. Utilize the tools available in the way that attract candidates. Beware of processes that repel candidates.

Companies that understand recruiting is sales create a process that encourages communication with the selected candidates. For instance, the new recruiting process will place the phone screen prior to the application completion requirement. This enables the recruiter to recruit!  When people feel a company is interested in them, they are much more likely to spend the time with the application.

In the future, the enlightened recruiting teams will use technology to leverage their efforts instead of using technology to discourage applications. The recruitment teams that understand that recruitment is a sales process will automate the clerk processes, as the applicant tracking systems currently automate the resume tracking/candidate tracking processes. Newer technologies such as mobile recruiting will be recognized as the advanced sourcing/marketing strategy – not recruiting. True recruiting will continue to be a relationship building process, not an automated paper process.

Beware of people who sing the virtues of technology replacing recruitment, and then charge your company many times the value of their service. Companies that follow recruitment fundamentals well will be very successful in the recruitment of top talent because they are building relationships.

Bill Humbert is an expert nationally based Recruitment Consultant and the author of “RecruiterGuy’s Guide to Finding a Job.” His business, RecruiterGuy.com, specializes in recruitment continuous process improvement, employment branding, creative candidate sourcing, interview training, and how these tie together to attract Impact Performers.

Russell Miyaki, Vice President, National Digital Creative Director, TMP Worldwide

We spend an enormous amount of time and money branding ourselves to potential candidates. Yet for a lot of companies there is a syndrome in place that drastically affects the candidate’s experience with the brand. And in a down economy, your candidate engagement strategies don’t necessarily have to change, they just need to be firing on all cylinders.

Let’s think about our audience when they come across your communications. Are they really listening? Or are they just trying to get employed? What defines the new best candidate experience? In this economy, is it defined by actually getting employed? Or is it a combination of the acknowledgment of one’s skills and talents with highly relevant, truthful, and timely up-to-date status of where-they-stand information?

In a down economy like this, does the “black hole” syndrome increase in size? How does that make them feel when they get the black hole notification after they submit their resume; “Thank you for applying to the position below. Your resume has been added to our candidate database. Members of our recruiting team will be reviewing all the resumes we have received and will be in touch should your skills and experience match our open needs.” Usually this is followed by no follow-up.

(“Hey wait a minute. Didn’t I just apply to a specific need that you just spent thousands upon thousands of employer branding dollars on?”)

Chances are the percentage of candidates that experience the black hole with your candidate engagement process may be represented by the amount of resumes and applications to actual interviews. Why worry about the engagement of these candidates if they were not right for the positions, you ask? Two reasons come to mind. One, that percentage is more likely to be very large. And in today’s social power, the masses are strong. Word gets out, and perceptions are their reality about you. Two, their talents may have not been perfect right now but may become hard to find later.

Innovation should not be exclusive to the development of front-end branding and engagement. The level of the innovative engagement the candidates experience learning about you should carry through to the end of the application process. You can have all the social strategies in place, employee stories, compelling message platform and innovative shiny widgets to deliver this platform. But if the part of the engagement that means the most to the applicant is abandoned, you are left with a lot of disengaged people who bought into your machine.

Here are some ideas around closing the black hole:

Social platforms

Leverage social platforms to keep the candidates in the loop. Create specific social groups that invite candidates to have a more personal exclusive follow-up with you. Instead of general walls or forums, you can create groups or membership areas that make the engagement more personalized. Platforms like Ning are very powerful in doing this. But remember, no matter what platform you use, you must provide timely response, and it should be a two-way communication between them and you.

Pipeline resource

Assign members on your recruiting team to the role of pipeline engagement consultants.

Again, no matter what platform you use, candidates are always looking for human interaction and timely response. Think of these roles as talent farmers and scouts. They keep the pipeline happy, engaged and efficient.

CRM systems

Utilize backend CRM systems (like Salesforce as an example) to track status, send timely notifications and alerts, and manage talent pool internally.

As with many companies, to manage all this engagement takes resources. Here is where you can apply more concentrated innovation by leveraging CRM systems to automate a very human interaction without sacrificing too much on the high-touch human element.

Candidate dashboards

Create candidate dashboards on your site that enable candidates to register their information, and manage their application process with you.

Like a good CRM, this is only good if the system responds efficiently with timely status alerts, distributes to as many eyeballs as possible within your organization, and becomes a future doorway between their career endeavors and you. Give them the opportunity to receive timely information like new job alerts that match their profile. The system should make them feel that it is working in their best interest, helping them gain employment, and even feel exclusive to them as if they had a personal agent.

We see a lot of wonderful immersive candidate engagement campaigns out there, from events to mobile social. Take a look at your strategies and ask yourself, have you paid as much attention to the immersive engagement to those that have already applied as you have to those you are marketing to?

Russell Miyaki is Vice President National Digital Creative Director for TMP Worldwide and leads innovation initiatives for clients and development teams while overseeing the development and creation of all interactive media.