so i wasn't going to do this video because i thought this topic was really specific and my
last coordinator video i posted just as a test to see how many of you would find it helpful
and then i started to get comments like this and comments like this and all of these comments and i
realized that people were getting amazing results i was really pleased because that's the aim of the
channel and i thought about how much more i know about how to secure a career in hr or recruitment
even if you don't have experience and that's what prompted me to post this video i'm really excited
about this topic so let's get into it again i've included timestamps below in case you are looking
for answers to a specific question but the answers i'm going to share can be used to answer a variety
of hr interview questions so i highly recommend that you watch from beginning to end so that you
don't get caught out with any curvable questions in your interview i'm sorry about the light i
think it might be coming in and out because the sun keeps going in and out so apologies for that
and uh let's get into it so i'm going to cover hr coordinator interview questions and answers
but bear in mind that this role might also go by the title hr assistant
hr administrator or sometimes even hr specialist so if you're doing an online search you'll want
to save these phrases too and by the end of this video i'll make sure that you have a clear
understanding of the role the duties and what the interviewer will be looking for in your answer
i'm Amri Celeste an interview coach and hr recruitment specialist with over 10 years
hiring experience and i make videos to help you secure the job you want so if you're job hunting
or interviewing like and subscribe so first i want to clearly explain the difference between
an hr coordinator and a recruitment coordinator so recruitment itself is a facet of hr it's an hr
specialism so within hr itself you can choose to specialize in a specific area within hr so a few
examples of this are l d which is learning and development employment law recruitment and many
other areas or you could choose not to specialise and to target an hr generalist position which
covers all areas of hr so i'm not going to go into too much more detail about advancing your career
but if you want to know more about different hr business partner roles or hr specialisms then
just let me know and i will store that topic away for the future so as an hr coordinator you would
be supporting and coordinating all areas of hr whereas a recruitment coordinator is specific to
recruitment and recruitment duties but i explained a lot more about that in the recruitment video
that i mentioned earlier so i'll link that in the description below so that i can keep this video
highly focused on your hr coordinator role so the questions i'll cover for hr coordinator are
what is your understanding of the role what relevant experience do you have so i'll share
how to answer this even if you don't have hr experience what are your top three skills which hr
systems are you familiar with what interests you about the job and what do you think might be the
most challenging part of this job now even if your interviewer doesn't ask you these exact questions
in that exact format you can still use these answers for so many questions related to hr so
don't worry if you don't get the questions exactly in this format so the first question is what is
your understanding of the role or of typical human resources coordinator duties so you can explain
that an hr coordinator is somebody who is at a junior level in the team normally an entry-level
hr worker this would be someone who is assisting other people in hr and coordinating the team
it's a key role as it's kind of like the engine oil that keeps things running smoothly it's
the small important admin task that if not done efficiently and accurately things really start to
fall apart of the seams so it can include things like inductions payroll right to work keeping
employee files updated it's a very busy role and often very fast paced depending on the team
the company size the duties and what's required it's a demanding role because even if you're in a
small company because you're supporting general hr as i mentioned earlier rather than a specialized
role like an lnd coordinator or a recruitment coordinator your role is very busy because it
spans all hr duties and you can throw in a few roles to really show off that you understand
typical hr team structures so for example you can include that an hr coordinator might support a
team consisting of hr advisors hrbps which stands for human resources business partners all the way
up to senior management such as head of hr or hr directors and in addition to the duties that
i just mentioned a few more typical duties are managing the hr inbox keeping employee files up
to date keeping track of employees work visas if they're on a visa if recruitment is included
in the job that you're going for it will be on the job description under key responsibilities
and duties hr terms so i shared in the other video about a really awkward and uncomfortable interview
that i did when i was a junior in the recruitment world years and years ago and the manager was
asking me about some very specific recruitment terminology and i didn't know and i just
became very uncomfortable realizing that i was totally unprepared i didn't have the experience
and um so i'm going to do the same for this video i'm going to share some typical hr terms that you
definitely want to learn before your interview one so you don't get caught out but also so that
you come across like an absolute pro i'll share the quick version because some of these terms
are complex and in-depth topics but in summary grievance and disciplinaries is the first one
so a grievance is a complaint raised by a member of staff for poor or unfair treatment
and this could be bullying teasing exclusion or a whole host of other grievances once they raise a
grievance it's investigated by hr through a series of meetings questions and assessment and if found
to be valid then the person accused could face a disciplinary kind of a penalty that could result
in dismissal if found to be very serious next is a scorecard or balanced scorecard this is super
common in hr it's the measuring or tracking of business performance in some of these key areas
and then each area of hr would add their relevant figures which will tell senior management about
key happenings and key metrics and figures in the business now when you're in your interview
if you really want to impress your interviewer you can ask about the scorecard and ask about
whether you'd be expected to do any uh basic level reporting or contribute to the hr scorecard and
they will get a real sense that you understand hr duties and the kind of things that the team would
be involved in so next is onboarding so onboarding is introducing a new employee to the business and
getting them settled and ready to start working so as an hr coordinator you might be asking them to
sign company policies collect their passport their visa or right to work you might be running an
induction that's very common in an hr coordinator job and these can vary from a 30-minute meeting
with a new employee one-on-one or a week-long group induction where you're introducing multiple
new employees to the business and it can include things like tours briefing them on the company
so it's best to do a quick search on that one if inductions are included in the job so question two
is what relevant experience do you have this is fairly easy if you have hr experience you can talk
through the experience that you have but just make sure that you do stick to the relevant points
if you don't have experience then you can talk about transferable skills that you have
and this is just skills that you've picked up in another role or learned in another company
that you can transfer or use in the role that you're interviewing for for example if you worked
in customer service you could talk about how developing the skill of customer relationship
development created a really strong transferable skill for hr because in hr you need to build
strong internal relationships at all levels so this would be a really strong transferable skill
that you can use in an hr coordinator role if you're getting value from this video do
click like it's super helpful and it ensures that this video will be shown to more people
that are looking for help with hr interviews so question three is what are your top three skills
so first the ability to be discreet and understand confidentiality and how the breach of this
can impact someone's working experience and their mental health this is super important
in hr because you will be exposed to a lot of sensitive data sometimes it's basic information
like salaries or date of birth some people are very guarded about their age but it could also be
highly emotionally distressing information so for example if you were taking notes in a grievance or
a disciplinary meeting somebody might you might be exposed to somebody making a complaint about
se harassment or bullying they could be experiencing depression or su feelings
so discretion is critical to include as a key skill in hr now you won't necessarily
regularly be exposed to this kind of thing but it could happen so it's important to show your
understanding so another key skill is the ability to build trust and relationships with employees
so if you're the kind of person in your personal life where people just tend to to tell you things
um it's probably because whether on purpose or by accident you naturally build trust with people
so mention that people tend to confide in you and if the situation isn't too sensitive
you can explain the situation that someone shared something with you and how you resolved that for
them and how you help them with it just make sure that you keep names and identities private and you
know confidential otherwise it defeats the purpose of of demonstrating that you're trustworthy
another key skill is the ability to communicate effectively if you can do this well then you would
be demonstrating emotional intelligence emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and
control your emotional response so that you can deal with as many situations as possible
in an objective way while still showing empathy and understanding as a bonus tip you can talk
about your ability to build internal relationships and communicate with managers at all levels
because as an hr coordinator you will be receiving requests from all over the business from junior
assistance all the way up to senior directors so the next question is what hr systems are you
familiar with now if you're interviewing for this hr coordinator job it's fairly junior and entry
level so you may not have any experience with cis with hr systems and that's absolutely fine
but what you don't want to do is you don't want to say i don't have any experience so i don't know
any systems how you want to approach this is you want to let the interviewer know that although you
don't have any experience and you haven't used any systems you have a really strong interest
in building a career in hr and so you've done some research on systems and this is what you found
so first is people hr i've used this in a few different roles it's fairly basic cost effective
but it's a good solid system where you can store employee information and it's got a basic level
ats and ats stands for applicant tracking system but this is a recruitment function
so only mention this if recruitment is in the role next is workday so this is personally my all-time
favorite system it's very expensive but the ats is unbelievable super intuitive and makes recruitment
an absolute dream so of course i'm biased because i'm a recruitment specialist within hr taleo this
is really well known so you can do a quick search on that one success factors oracle now oracle is a
really well-known major management system and the oracle hr management system is just one component
huge brands i've worked with use this to manage payroll hr self services recruitment reward and
benefits and a whole host of other hr things now if you do struggle with interview answers you can
download my top 20 interview answers guide this is packed with answers to difficult questions like
um can you give me an example of a time when you thought outside the box or what would you do if
we didn't give you the job and i also included an important bonus question and what you should
be asking your interviewers at the end of your interview is totally free and you can get yours
by clicking the link in the description below this video what interests you about the job so
to answer this think about what your strengths are and match those to the relevant parts of the job
so for example let's say that this particular hr coordinator job includes onboarding or inductions
you could include something like this in your answer when i read through the job description
the piece around onboarding and inductions just jumped out at me because i enjoy arranging events
in my personal life i enjoy the planning aspect the opportunity to be super organized as i love
my spreadsheets my calendar reminders and all my organization tools so the ability to use that
skill is really exciting for me you can just see with this short section how you're communicating
your passion and excitement to the interviewer while including your personal skills and examples
of tools you use with a very specific duty which is onboarding so and then you can go on to do this
with a couple more duties in the role but don't speak too long just pick two or three but you're
also letting the interviewer know that you've done your research because you have actually looked
through the job description before the interviewer if you're feeling like there's something that i
didn't include or haven't included in this video that you want to know then just ask me
let me know and i will try to respond super fast so the next question is what do you think might
be the most challenging part of this job so the first is variety because this role supports all
hr duties as i mentioned before you could go from planning or hosting an induction
to doing payroll or organizing a summer party for the office now these are very very different tasks
and to switch your concentration from one to the other while completing that task accurately it
takes a lot of skill so how do you demonstrate that you have that skill in your interview
you can do this in four ways so one you can use examples from outside of work where you
multitask successfully so something like cooking dinner while helping with homework if you have
young children or helping with other tasks if you look after a young or vulnerable person
two you can use any tasks from when you were at work where you multitask for example audio typing
three you can talk about encouraging digitized processes to speed things up so using tools like
docusign or ecosign are they're both brilliant tools to use to digitize and speed up any sign-off
process or signing of documents you'd be shocked at how many companies still do things on paper
but that shows initiative four you can talk about tools and tech you use to stay hyper organized
such as creating email templates in outlook i use this and it saves hours every day instead
of writing out each email you can also use meeting polls which is another outlook function
as an hr coordinator you'll be booking in lots of meetings and this is a tool that automatically
tells you times when everyone's free and saves tons of time email scheduling is another huge
time saver so with this you can schedule important or regular emails in advance so
that you don't forget and it's great for so many other things and my absolute all-time favorite
is excel so i highly recommend excel for basic tracking and storing lots of data if this can't
be done on an hr system so things like promotions resignations new starters and recruitment data too
if this was helpful do let me know and feel free to keep me updated on how your job search is going
i know hr took me a little while to get into so i wanted to help you guys i hope this was helpful
if you haven't already do like and subscribe and tap the notification
bell so you'll know when a new video is ready and hopefully i will see you in the next video