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What You’ll Learn How to leverage the factors that make your company special and develop your employer UVP Insight into market trends and competitive offers Actionable ideas for employer brand marketing About this eBook: When you strengthen your employer brand, it strengthens your overall brand as well. Your marketing team may have spent a lot […] More
The way we work has evolved rapidly over the past few years. Though remote work was already on the rise, the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns forced businesses to spread employees out and work from home, sometimes overnight. As the world begins to take steps toward a return to “normal” after the pandemic, employers and […] More
If you want to hire the best people, you need to ask the best interview questions. Online CV builder resume.io gathered the most effective interview questions from successful business leaders and entrepreneurs. And it added some helpful tips and advice on how to incorporate them during your next big recruitment drive.
Good interviews start with good questions. Those questions need to be open-ended and probing. Open-ended questions can’t be answered with a “yes” or “no” or a static response. They’re often phrased as a statement and are designed to get your candidates talking as much as possible.
Common open-ended interview questions:
Tell me about yourself.
How would you describe yourself?
How would your boss or co-workers describe you?
What motivates you?
What do you see as your strengths?
What accomplishments are you proud of?
The best open-ended questions
Not all open-ended questions are created equal. “How would you describe yourself?” is vague and could lead the interview down an unfruitful path.
Instead, the trick is to ask open-ended questions that reveal the candidates’ suitability for the role you’re trying to fill.
Porter Braswell, CEO of diversity hiring startup Jopwell, asks his applicants, “What does success mean to you?”
Shippo CEO Laura Behrens Wu asks something similar. She inquires, “What are some things outside of work that you’re irrationally passionate about?”
Both questions appear unrelated to a specific role. However, they’re excellent tools for hiring managers who want to understand what drives and motivates their candidates.
For example, if your candidate plays a competitive sport and is motivated by a high salary, bonuses, and awards, then there’s a good chance they’ll thrive in a fast-paced, high-pressure sales environment.
Asking uncomfortable questions
According to billionaire entrepreneur Tim Ferriss, your success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations you’re willing to have.
This is certainly the case for recruiters, who should never be afraid of asking really tough questions. After all, every candidate can look like a star if you keep pitching slow balls. Only an elite few can handle the fastballs and curveballs.
But finding the right balance is crucial. You want the candidate to open up, not clam up.
Former Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson uses this question to challenge anyone he interviews:
“Tell me about a time you really screwed something up. How did you handle it, and how did you address the mistake?”
It’s an excellent interview question. It assesses the candidates’ honesty and humility – would you really want to hire someone who claims they never make mistakes – and it’s an opportunity to tick off other essential competencies, including problem-solving and the ability to respond positively to feedback.
Here are some more ‘uncomfortable’ questions from successful business leaders:
“What would someone who doesn’t like you tell us about you?” – Luis Von Ahn, Duolingo CEO.
“What’s one piece of critical feedback you received that was difficult to hear?” – Pema Lin-Moore, VP of People Operations.
“Describe yourself in three words,” – Sara Blakely, Spanx CEO.
“If you were in my shoes, what attributes would you look for in hiring for this role?” – Tim Chen, Co-found and CEO of NerdWallet.
Get your candidates thinking
Elon Musk drops this brain-teaser in during his interviews:
“You’re standing on the surface of the earth. You walk one mile south, one mile east, and one mile north. You end up exactly where you started. Where are you?”
It’s not a trick question; the answer is The North Pole.
For Musk, the question tests a candidate’s cognitive ability – and that needs to be high if you’re designing rockets to Mars.
But the question is helpful in other ways, too – even if the candidate doesn’t know the answer. In fact, how they respond to not knowing can be extremely revealing.
Are they humble enough to say they don’t know? Curious enough to ask you to explain the answer? And if they try to wing or blag it, what else are they not being 100% honest about?
Start trying these questions out in your next interviews. You’ll be surprised by how much they’ll help you find the right person for the job.
Ashley Murphy graduated with a BA (Hons) in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Manchester. He works as a content writer for Resume.io, specializing in technology, higher education, and entrepreneurship.
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What You’ll Learn Key challenges of recruiting and how to address them Ways to get a jump on sourcing Connections between insights and zeroing on the best fit Tips to keep candidates engaged How transparency helps close the deal copy About this eBook: Your recruiting pipeline is as important to your organization as your sales pipeline, […] More
Key Learnings: Finding your unique value proposition as an employer brand How to market your company & stand out to top candidates How to message your offers strategically so candidates choose you About this eBook Okay — so you’re not a FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google). You’re also not a Unicorn or “stock market […] More
With the easing of lockdown kickstarting the economy and more employers seeking new staff, candidates have become far more selective about the jobs they decide to take. And where does a candidate gain their first impression of your business? During the recruitment process.
If you still think your ideal recruit will jump through hoops for the chance of an interview, think again. Candidates have far greater expectations when it comes to recruitment in 2022, and there are around 36% fewer applicants across industries in the first place. So, you cannot afford to let the ideal candidate slip through your fingers.
Where businesses go wrong with recruitment
Two key reasons why candidates decline a position include:
However, 52% of job seekers place lack of response from employers (or recruiters!) as the number one frustration during the job search — which explains why 89% of potential candidates drop out of the hiring process due to a drawn-out timeline.
During this new age of remote and hybrid working, company culture is also more important than ever. Failure to display a progressive attitude to work-life balance could be the ultimate turn-off for a potential candidate. According to Glassdoor, 77% of people consider company culture before applying for a job — and even believe it is more important than salary when it comes to job satisfaction.
What’s more, since the pandemic necessitated the widespread adoption of remote working, many people are reluctant to accept roles involving a long commute. Only one in seven workers expect to commute into their place of work five days a week — so, if your business cannot offer a flexible approach to work, your top candidates will likely seek it elsewhere.
How to improve the recruitment process
A candidate will gain their first impression of your business by checking it out online before even thinking about applying. So, if your online presence is inconsistent, incomplete, or out of date, people are unlikely to view your organization as a suitable match.
Ensuring everything — from your website and social channels to the job ad itself — is well written, accurate, and demonstrates a positive company culture will go a long way to reassuring a potential employee that your business is a legitimate and appealing prospect.
A business’ reputation also speaks volumes about its culture and values. Quality online reviews and feedback from current or past employees are crucial, so it is essential to build a positive working environment and reputation to prove how great your business is to work for.
Clear communication and timeliness from the start are also critical elements of the recruitment process. It takes a lot of time and resources for HR departments to keep up with multiple ongoing applications; by embracing technology and integrating digital processes, you can automate responses and streamline applications.
Once you have refined your software and remote onboarding processes, your pool of available candidates will expand significantly — especially since 43% of graduates have had to turn down interviews due to the cost of getting there. Plus, as the average cost of replacing an employee is 150% of their salary, it is well worth investing in the correct processes to get recruitment right the first time.
By Julie Mott, Managing Director, Howett Thorpe.
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Many HR departments are attempting to create a diverse workplace in today’s world, but you can’t have diversity without inclusion.
To construct a diverse team and a modern and attractive workplace culture, HR staff must create an environment that welcomes all individuals and fosters equal engagement and representation.
In recent years, there has been a significant effort in the UK to fight for equality, to the point that employers are instituting quotas based on gender, BAME, disability, and even sexual orientation.
There are two significant types of diversity in today’s workplace:
First, inherent diversity is concerned with qualities such as race, gender, and age. Education, experience, beliefs, skills, and knowledge are all aspects of acquired variety.
Natural HR has set out to explore our top ideas for making a diverse and inclusive recruitment process a standard element of your people talent strategy in this article.
What is the definition of workplace diversity?
It is critical to remember that workplace diversity is defined as when a company understands, accepts, and values differences between people of different races, ethnicities, genders, ages, religions, disabilities, and sexual orientations, as well as differences in personalities, skill sets, experiences, and knowledge.
What are the benefits of diversity and inclusivity recruitment?
Having a functional diversity and inclusion strategy that is incorporated into your recruitment workflow will provide your company with various benefits, including:
Hiring better talent.
Being able to make more informed business decisions.
Increasing the performance of your teams.
Accelerating innovation by allowing different mindsets to collaborate.
Gaining more decadent customer satisfaction due to high-quality staff.
Improving company culture with improved employee satisfaction.
The inclusive hiring in the workplace checklist
The tutorial below will walk you through the whole recruitment process, from bringing on a new team member to crafting a job advertisement and interviewing qualified candidates. It will include critical considerations to ensure that diversity and inclusion are prioritized at each stage.
1. Audit your job adverts to remove bias:
When it comes to inclusive and diverse recruitment, you can’t look forward without looking back. As a result, the first step you must take is to assess your whole recruitment pipeline to identify faults and begin implementing improvements that will address diversity and inclusivity concerns.
When reviewing historical job advertisements, you may find a propensity to employ more masculine or feminine language in job advertisements, which may discourage particular groups from applying for specific roles. Based on the findings of this analysis, you may then retroactively apply new conditions to the recruiting procedure to reduce biases in future recruitment drives.
2. Target sources where diverse candidates are focused:
It is now easier than ever to recruit applicants from a large skill pool with the Internet’s strength. To that end, sourcing individuals from several sources is a terrific method to diversify your recruitment pool.
Rather than relying solely on traditional job boards or recruitment agencies, look for chances to diversify candidates through alternative sources such as educational institutions, government agencies, and even rehabilitation centers.
You might also communicate directly with organizations that focus on specific areas; for example, for a technology post, you could interact directly with women in technology groups to connect with suitable female applicants.
3. Encourage your employees to utilize their network:
If you want to hire more of a specific group of under-represented people, reach out to some of your current team members who fall into that category.
Creating an internal applicant recommendation program is one approach to accomplish this. You will be able to connect with similar candidates from varied backgrounds by utilizing your existing internal pool of diverse workers.
4. Offer internships targeted at underrepresented groups:
Offering internships to folks with specialized credentials is a terrific approach to foster up-and-coming talent in your sector. To accomplish this, you may form collaborations with education and community organizations in your area to provide an opportunity to groups that may struggle to take the first steps into the roles you’re recruiting for.
5. Develop an employer brand that showcases your diversity:
When developing a brand identity, don’t overlook the significance of diversity and inclusivity. You should encourage employees from various backgrounds to share their experiences with your organization, which you should then incorporate into your employer and recruiting branding.
Having these stories in place and actively pushing them in your applicant sourcing is a terrific approach to ensure your diversity recruiting strategy is working properly.
6. Utilize blind recruitment:
Blind recruitment is one of the most popular trends in the industry. To reduce bias during the first recruitment stage, it takes steps to blackout essential information such as name, age, education, and candidate photos. The idea here is to avoid further discrimination in who you choose to interview.
7. Rethink what factors you screen for when hiring:
When determining what your ideal recruit looks like, it is vital to ensure that your possible candidates exhibit the characteristics that your firm values. Throughout the recruitment process, examine how you’re screening candidates and yourself to see whether you’re directing the outcomes towards specific types of people owing to potential bias.
Chris Bourne is Head of Marketing at Natural HR. Natural HR is a cloud-based HR software for small businesses and organizations looking to improve staff management and pay.
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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN The story of the “Great Resignation” and where we are now in 2022 3 key trends to navigate, coupled with our exclusive data 5 strategies to invigorate pipelines, increase efficiency, expand talent pools, and retain talent once they’re onboard About this eBook We’ve taken one of our most popular eBooks for employers […] More
