Hi folks, Dave Waring here again with FitSmallBusiness.com.
In Today's Lesson Of The Day.
In our last video we continued our series on hiring and managing
with a look at how to hire freelancers. In today's lesson we're going to continue
that series with a look at the interview process
when hiring full-time employees
So let's get started. The goal of the interview process is to find the best
candidate for the position
with the least amount of time and effort. After posting your position online
you may receive dozens if not hundreds of resumes.
Many of these resumes will seem to be a poor fit for the position
unfortunately many job seekers will send out resumes without looking in detail at
the job description
this leaves it to the employer to determine if they are reasonable fit for the
position.
A good way to combat this problem is to ask the candidate to include something
special in their cover letter
like asking them to tell you why they're applying to your company
or what drew them to this career. By doing this
you can easily filter out those were just sending you canned responses
and those who can't follow simple instructions. After you go through the
stack of resumes
hopefully you'll find a few people that interest you. If the position is junior
level
you may be able to find lots of people have the right college major
skills and an interesting summer job or internship
then the interviewing process begins
the first interview should be conducted by phone and should not necessarily be
done by the person hiring for the position
this interview should be two or three routine questions mainly verbally
confirming information on the resume
typically you would ask questions like where did you go to school? and what was
your major?
how would you rate your [insert skill here] skills?
The interviewer should provide a small amount of information about the position
and company
an ask the candidate if they're interested in the position. This
interview has three goals
one to test the candidate's verbal communication skills.
Two, to give the candidate a chance to say the job is not a good fit
and three to schedule the next interview. It's amazing how many people this
five-minute interview eliminates
ten years ago I would have recommended that you ask the person to come into the
office for the next
interview now I think the best idea is to have an interview conducted using
Skype video chat
I would say this is the most important interview and will lead to many
candidates being eliminated
with this interview I think one should answer the following questions:
how interested work excited is the candidate about the position?
how knowledgeable about or interested in the field is the candidate?
does the candid have some of the communication skills necessary for the
position?
does the candid have the problem solving abilities necessary for the position?
how does one get honest answer these questions instead of the scripted
answers that most candidates have memorized?
here the four key questions that every interviewer should ask:
question 1 what you know about our company?
An interested candidate will have researched your company beforehand
Even if you're hiring for retail establishment like a stationery store
your business will have online reviews which candidate can search and mention.
If the candidate is not willing to take the effort to check out your website and
do a search online about your company
it indicates a lack of interest in the job or general laziness
assuming the candidate gives a short or simple answer to the question
you can follow up with why should a potential customer do business with us?
Or, how do you think we make money? Question two
What do you think this position involves doing on a daily basis?
This question is remarkably useful. In interviewing candidates with minimal
experience
and also those with years of experience. With the job candidate has experience in
a similar position
they will probably tell you what they did in the previous position
what they've seen employees with that job title do. In this case
what the job candidate omits is as informative as what they say
omission may indicate they don't have experience in a particular facet of the
position
or that it might not be there strong point. For candidates with no experience
this question can indicate how realistic their expectations are for the position.
One person told me in an interview that they thought the job would be like the
TV show The Apprentice
with the marketing department brainstorms ideas and makes commercials.
Some candidates may say they have no idea but lots of questions.
If they have questions written down it indicates a good level of interest.
Question 3: for those with no experience
ask them if they're interested in the field, if so
what articles have they read recently? For those with experience
ask, what would you have done differently to make your previous position more
productive?
Generally I want the employee who's interested in learning on their
own without prompting or direct guidance. If a job candidate can
summarize an article that they have read in the field related to the company or
position
it's a sign that they will work to improve their knowledge base to do a
better job
for experienced candidates I think asking them about how
they could have improved their job gives multiple insights.
First if they cannot give you an answer it indicated they followed instructions
without thinking about what they were doing
on the other hand a detailed thoughtful answer
can demonstrate that they care about doing the best they can
the natural follow-up is did you try to make the change happen?
Question four: would you be willing to role play the following situation?
Example: I will pretend to be the customer and you the salesperson.
Most positions involve a degree of human interaction and communication skills
the idea of role playing is to act out a challenging but not uncommon situation,
which is likely to occur in their position. This exercise gives the
interviewer chance to see the job candidate's ability to verbally
communicate,
deal with stress, and think on their feet. In the case of the experienced
candidate
hopefully the candidate can draw upon their past experience to resolve the
situation.
these four questions are not the only questions you should ask
as the rest will vary depending on the position however
I believe these four questions to be part of the process for almost any
interview
and will allow you to have more insight into the candidates drive,
personality, and ability to handle the position.
For a great overview of the entire interview process
including second and third interviews and making the offer
see the webinar by Brad Ferris of inmass.com
that I've included in the resources link below this video. For more great how-to
guides on how to start and run a successful business
be sure to visit us at FitSmallBusiness.com today
Thanks for watching