Behavioral interviewing is a style of interviewing developed in the 1970’s by industrial psychologists. The theory is that “the most accurate predictor of future performance is past performance in a similar situation.”
Fittingly, behavioral interviewing emphasizes past performance and behaviors. The questions do more than simply determine what a candidate says they will do (i.e. job activities). In contrast, gives the candidate an opportunity to share concrete examples of what they have done in their past work history that helped them to be successful.
Traditional Interview Questions
More traditional interview methods would include hypothetical, cognitive, and personality type questions such as:
Tell me about yourself.
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
Why are you interested in working for us?
What would you do if you were having difficulties with another employee on your project?
What would you do if someone asked you to overlook a problem with your project?
Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?
How did you like your last job?
These more traditional interview methods have some shortfalls. Firstly, since they can be very closed-ended, they can limit further information. Secondly, they can elicit a hypothetical answer that may or may not reflect how they really behave. Finally, the interviewer’s personal bias can influence their evaluation.
Of course, hypothetical questions may be valuable in showing how the candidate thinks on his/her feet, but should not be the only basis of evaluation.
What are Cognitive Questions?
Cognitive questions are based on the theory that a candidate’s thinking, learning and memory functions are critical success factors.
This line of questioning often involves a series of scenarios where the interviewer describes practical problems
The interviewer evaluates the candidate’s methods used to solve these problems. These include evaluating how the candidate gathers and applies information, how they process data, and how they think through alternatives.
This type of interview question is best used for jobs with a high degree of intellectual content.
What are Personality Questions?
This type of question reveals more about who the person is rather than what they can deliver.
The answers are often characterized by trait words like reliable, hard working, quick learner, assertive, etc.
These questions save time in an interview but are not effective as an interview technique unless you ask for a real example of how the candidate used this trait.
In contrast, the sample behavioral questions below may result in more reliable answers.
Sample Behavioral Interview Questions
Give me an example of a time when you had to keep from speaking or making a decision because you did not have enough information.
Describe a time when you had to make a quick decision.
What is the toughest group that you have had to get cooperation from? How did you win them over?
Have you ever had difficulty getting others to accept your ideas? What was your approach? Did it work?
Give me an example of a time when you went above and beyond the call of duty.
Describe a situation when you were able to have a positive influence on the action of others.
Tell me about a situation when you had to speak up (be assertive) in order to get a point across that was important to you.
Have you ever had to “sell” an idea to your co-workers or group? How did you do it? Did they “buy” it?
What have you done in the past to contribute toward a teamwork environment?
How do you decide what gets top priority when scheduling your time?
What do you do when your schedule is suddenly interrupted? Give an example.
Give me an example of an important goal which you had set in the past and tell me about your success in reaching it.
How to Prepare Questions for a Behavioral Interview
Companies that employ behavioral interviewing techniques can use the same analysis they use to develop the job description. This helps determine the skill sets required to be successful in the job. The hiring manager should consider the following questions:
What are the necessary skills to do this job?
And what makes a successful candidate?
Identify the deliverables we are expecting.
What would make an unsuccessful candidate?
Why have people left this position?
What is the most difficult part of this job?
A sample list of skills resulting from the job analysis may include the following:
Decision making and problem solving
Leadership, motivation
Ability to work independently with little supervision
Communication, interpersonal skills
Planning and organization, critical thinking skills
Team building and the ability to influence others
When asking a behavioral question, try using the “STAR” approach. Be sure the candidate’s answer includes:
Situation or Task
Actions
Result
Using the “STAR” approach, the interviewer might expect the sample answer below to the question; “What have you done in the past to contribute toward a teamwork environment?”
The candidate might recount a time when communication within their work group had broken down (situation). To resolve the problem, the candidate organized informal lunch meetings for people to discuss relevant issues (action). Morale then improved, as did the lines of communication (result).
Benefits of Behavioral Interviewing
To recap, let’s list the benefits of behavioral interviewing:
Helps determine if the candidate can prove that they’ve taken actions that have delivered results.
Makes the candidate recall real actions and results they have experienced and describe them in detail.
Can establish a pattern of behavior.
The safest for inexperienced interviewers because they don’t require the evaluation of a psychological or organizational professional.
Behavioral interviews make it difficult for the candidate to make up stories that are not based on real situations.
Companies that invest the time and energy in developing behavioral interviews often attract top candidates and top candidates make the company a more desirable place to work.
Work to Reduce Hiring Bias
As you work to create an equitable evaluation process, keep the following in mind:
Base your evaluation on specific facts, not a gut feeling or general impression.
Openly share your impressions and evaluations even if they are different than the rest of the team.
Feel comfortable with raising red flags.
Don’t rush to make a decision if you don’t have enough facts.
Avoid allowing the impressions of others to pressure you to change your evaluation.
Hiring Software Helps You Create and Manage Interview Scripts
Hiring software like ApplicantStack from Swipeclock allows you to create and manage interview scripts. Write scripts based on the job description and STAR method. In addition, manage your job descriptions and postings.
Differentiate candidates with similar qualifications
Highlight your culture
Reduce unconscious bias
Avoid costly hiring mistakes
Let’s discuss how to conduct an interview the right way. Like anything, good interviewing requires preparation. How should the interviewer prepare for an interview? Notice that many steps take place before the candidate arrives. If you follow the steps and prepare well, the actual interview will go smoothly.
The Benefits of a Good Interview
The job interview sets the tone for everything that comes after. It is also a compliance minefield. Let’s review the benefits of a good interview:
Allows the hiring manager to thoroughly vet the interviewee
Helps verify qualifications and skills on the applicant’s resume
Reveals the candidate’s expectations and understanding of the role and allows you to validate or clarify
Allows you to answer any of the candidate’s questions
Bottom line? Good interviews improve hiring outcomes.
The Challenges of Interviewing
Interviewing is an important skill for recruiters, in-house hiring teams and hiring managers to master. Without proper training, there are many pitfalls. Let’s discuss the most common:
Allowing bias to influence your decision
Ineffective questions
Asking illegal questions which increases the risk of a discrimination case
Inconsistencies that affect the process
Failure to put the candidate at ease
How to Prepare for an Interview
By all means, the things you do to prepare are just as important as what you do when you are conducting the interview.
Understand the Job Description
If you wrote the job description, you have a good idea what the position entails. But take it a step further by talking to managers. Ask them about soft skills. Also, talk to employees in the same (or similar) job role. When you have a deeper understanding, update the job description.
Write an Interview Script
Don’t ever go into an interview without a script–always prepare your questions ahead of time. Fortunately, it’s not hard to write structured interview scripts. We cover this in detail in: Why Structured Interviews Are Critical. Follow the steps to create structured interviews and questions to ask during an interview.
Questions to Ask During an Interview
It’s helpful to organize good interview questions into three categories: questions about job specifics (hard skills), soft skills (behavioral) and situational. Hard skills are also called technical skills and are job-specific capabilities or knowledge necessary for the job role. They are acquired through on-the-job training, experience or formal education. Therefore, hard skills can be quantified. For example, an ability to write code in JavaScript, measure blood pressure or speak Spanish.
Conversely, soft skills are behavioral attributes that help an employee succeed in their work. Working well with team members, problem-solving and effective time management are examples of soft skills that would help with any job. Soft skills are also called interpersonal skills, non-technical skills and essential skills. Situational questions relate to soft skills as well.
Job role-specific: What experience and certifications do you have in the [INDUSTRY] field?
Soft skills or behavioral: What if you had to solve a difficult problem and your manager was away?
Situational questions: How would you respond to an angry customer?
Questions You Can’t Ask in an Interview
The Equal Employment Opportunity Act (EEOA) is designed to prevent employment discrimination. An interviewer can unwittingly increase the potential for bias with illegal interview question. The EEOA prohibits interview questions on the following topics:
Age
Race
Ethnicity
Gender
Color
Sex
Sexual orientation
Gender identity
Country of birth
Birthplace
Disability
Religion
Marital or family status
Pregnancy
Salary history (in some states)
How do you avoid illegal interview questions? Create a script with legal questions and don’t deviate!
Business owners, recruiting and hiring managers make mistakes all the time. Therefore, protect your company by learning the do’s and don’ts of legal hiring. Additionally, if you have legal counsel, have them sign off on your interview questions.
The Importance of Standardized Scoring
It’s key to understand that to improve interviewing, you need to improve evaluation. To do this, standardize candidate scoring. An interview scorecard is the easiest way to do this. Use the job qualifications to create the scorecard. It doesn’t need to be complex, but each person on the interview team must use it. When everyone is working from the same playbook, it’s easier to compare candidates. It also helps to remove “gut feelings” from the process.
Share Your Mission and Values
The job seeker has the power in today’s employment dynamic. Moreover, it’s clear that job seekers care about what your company stands for. Certainly, the applicant is scrutinizing you as carefully as you are scrutinizing them. For this reason, write an Employment Value Proposition and practice sharing it. One of the best interview tips is to showcase your culture and values.
Interview Formats
Let’s discuss the most common types of interview formats.
Phone screen
Short, preliminary screening
Individual interview
One interviewer and one candidate
Group interview
One or more interviewers and two or more applicants
Panel interview
One applicant and two or more interviewers
Technical interview
Designed for technical positions including IT, data science, engineering
May include requiring the applicant to answer technical questions or demonstrate skills
Multiple-Round
A process of several interviews, often in a mix of formats
Used for extensive evaluation of higher level roles
The interview format will depend on the type of position and your hiring needs. If you’re doing high volume hiring, it may work to do a group interview. For example, if you need to quickly hire multiple candidates for the same job position, a group interview (in person or a virtual interview) may work for your company.
What is a group interview and when should you use them? SHRM gives these interviewing tips:
Group interviews are most effective when hiring for positions that require excellent people skills, especially when the job regularly deals with consumers or the public. Group interviews are also effective when teamwork is an integral part of the job. The group interview allows an employer to observe behaviors that are reflective of success on the job before the employer actually invests time and money into hiring a candidate.The Society for Human Resource Management
Review the Candidate’s Application
The more familiar you are with the candidate’s resume, the better. Firstly, it gives you important context. Secondly, it will help you maintain eye contact and put the candidate at ease.
Schedule the Interview Location in Advance
You don’t want to wander around looking for a conference room with the applicant in tow. If possible, use a private room with comfy chairs. A glass-windowed room can make an introverted candidate uncomfortable.
In the past two years, video interviews have become commonplace. If you conduct virtual interviews, ensure the tech is ready to go. Indeed, nothing lowers your confidence (and company image) like tech glitches.
Don’t Crowd Your Interview Calendar
Schedule enough time for the interviewee to elaborate where necessary. Add a 15-minute buffer between interviews so you never have to rush a candidate-or make the next one wait.
Now that you’ve prepared well, it’s time for the actual interview. Here are some interviewing tips for recruiters, hiring managers and small business owners:
Turn off your phone or have your assistant hold your calls
Offer the applicant a beverage
Speak slowly
Listen intently
Ask the candidate if they have any questions and answer them (if you don’t know the answers immediately, write down the questions so you get the information and call or email the candidate promptly with the answers)
Before ending the interview, explain the timeline and next steps
Thank the candidate for their time
What to Watch For
Be prepared for common issues so you can get prevent them:
Don’t overpromise–if the candidate asks for something you can’t guarantee, be honest and straightforward
Make sure you let the candidate do most of the talking
Resist the temptation to stray from the script
Post-Interview Steps
Create a post-interview process for documentation and follow-up. If you want to advance the candidate to the next stage, send an email right away. If you decide to eliminate the applicant from consideration, politely notify them as well. We mentioned candidate scorecards previously. Make sure you collect the scorecards from all interviewers. Encourage your team to fill them out during the interview or soon after while it is still fresh on their mind. Move the candidate to the next stage in your hiring workflow.
Recruiting Software Helps You Conduct Better Interviews
When considering how to conduct an interview, don’t forget the role of hiring software. ApplicantStack recruiting software helps you improve your interviews–and all of your hiring processes. Manage job descriptions, post to job boards, create structured interviews, and track applicants. The result? You will attract and hire quality employees faster.
Welcome to our How To Hire Your Next Employee Series. Whether you are a new or veteran hiring manager, our series can help you improve your recruiting processes. In so doing, you will find employees faster. And it will cost you less.
The Applicant Journey
In today’s post, we describe the process from the applicant’s point of view. This is called the applicant, or candidate, journey. Unfortunately, the applicant journey doesn’t always receive the attention it deserves. Yet the ApplicantStack candidate interface is key to our success. That means it’s key to your success as well.
ApplicantStack creates an exceptional applicant journey and your company deserves nothing less.
The Applicant Moves Through Stages Along The Applicant Journey
Before we continue, let’s talk about applicant stages because it’s important to understand how they work.
A stage refers to one specific step in the hiring process. For example, an applicant could be in the interview stage. Or they could be in the manager review stage.
As you move an applicant through the hiring process, you change their stage in the system. Stage changes can trigger actions. For example, if you change an applicant’s stage to Do Not Pursue, you can cause the system to send a ‘Thank you for applying but you’re not a fit for the position’ email. You create a template for the email and even personalize it with merge fields. ApplicantStack will insert the applicant’s name.
As we talk about each point of contact between the applicant and your company, keep in mind that you can tie the applicant’s stage to auto communications.
The Applicant Sees Your Job Posting
Your job posting is the first point of contact in the applicant journey. Candidates can find your job posting on your chosen job boards (such as Indeed, Google, JuJu, CareerBuilder, Monster, etc.), social media sites, or your careers page.
Here are ApplicantStack job postings on Indeed. See the listing for the SwipeClock jobs:
Candidates look at these sites for jobs. Your ApplicantStack job postings start engaging candidates immediately. With branded postings, the applicant meets your employer brand at the first point of contact. Branded postings reflect the look and feel of your website.
Application
When the candidate sees your posting, they click a link which takes them to your application. (An application is called a ‘Questionnaire’ in the ApplicantStack system.)
Here is a questionnaire created in ApplicantStack:
Notice how easy it is to upload a resume. Applicants can use Dropbox or Google Drive. ApplicantStack makes everything easy and natural.
ApplicantStack has flexible settings to fit your ideal candidate. You can set the resume upload to allow the applicant to write a cover letter. If that isn’t customary in your industry, leave that turned off.
ApplicantStack Eliminates Redundant Processes
When the applicant uploads their resume, ApplicantStack parses some of the contact information. The applicant won’t have to reenter all of their contact information going forward.
Repeating tasks unnecessarily is frustrating for everyone. It’s especially frustrating for a job candidate who is in the process of applying for jobs at multiple companies.
Reentering contact info again and again wastes their time. And it makes your company seem twenty years behind the technological curve.
Personalized Candidate Emails
When the candidate fills out the application, they immediately receive a personalized email that confirms you received their application. If they are a good fit, you can reach out to them immediately.
The applicant never wonders ‘Did they get my application and resume?’ They see that your company is prompt and professional. You respect their time and appreciate their interest in your company.
Candidate Screening
In ApplicantStack, you can use questionnaires for prescreening. Screening questionnaires can play a role in a great applicant journey.
Here is a screening questionnaire:
Screening Questionnaires
Prescreening questionnaires with knockout questions help eliminate unqualified candidates. This is how a questionnaire with knockout questions works:
You create a screening questionnaire with knockout questions. The knockout questions will depend on the job description.
The candidate completes the questionnaire. If they aren’t qualified, the knockout questions will filter them out.
You won’t waste any more of their time. If a candidate is eliminated, you can program ApplicantStack to send a ‘Thank you for applying but you aren’t a fit for the position’ email. You create an email template and ApplicantStack will use merge fields to enter the necessary information. (As mentioned previously, all candidates receive a ‘We have received your application,’ email immediately after applying.’)
If they pass the prescreen questionnaire, the system presents the more extensive questionnaire.
If you want your applicants to receive the full questionnaire initially, you can program it that way. You understand the recruiting standards of your industry and company type. The job position also influences how you want to craft the process for your applicant.
You customize ApplicantStack to create an applicant journey that’s most effective for your hiring pool.
No-Hassle Reference Checks
In your questionnaire, you can ask for references. Your applicant will enter them when they apply. ApplicantStack saves them in the candidate profile. If the applicant passes the prescreening and interviews, you can move them to the ‘Reference Check’ stage. When this happens, ApplicantStack will automatically email the references. This is called a Questionnaire Action in ApplicantStack.
This saves your applicant the trouble of re-entering their references. And you won’t have to ask them for their references again or find them on their resume. It keeps the process moving and eliminates a common bottleneck.
Interview Scheduling Reinvented
If the candidate passes the questionnaire screening, they are invited to schedule an interview. ApplicantStack interview self-scheduling is a game changer. ApplicantStack integrates with Google and Office365 for interview scheduling. Because of the integration, any non-available time slots will be hidden from the applicant.
Let’s discuss this in detail.
Decide how many members of your team need to be in the interview. For this example, let’s say three team members need to be there.
ApplicantStack will pull information from Google Calendar or Office365 for each member of the interview team.
Let’s suppose there are four specific time slots where all interviewers are available. The applicant is only presented with these time slots. The applicant can choose the most convenient time slot.
Let’s suppose there is only one time slot for which all hiring members are available. If this is the case, ApplicantStack presents the applicant with one interview time.
Your Applicant Won’t Be Frustrated With Scheduling Hassles
Interview scheduling is a hiring process bottleneck for many companies. With slowdowns, you run the risk of abandoned applications. Interview self-scheduling keeps the process on track.
Job Offer
When the background and reference checks are complete, it’s time to offer the job. Here is an offer letter email:
Notice the electronic signature. The applicant can sign and accept the offer immediately.
ApplicantStack ensures that you never lose an applicant because they are confused. ApplicantStack is always ready for each stage change. Candidates advance through hiring stages as quickly as your team chooses to process them. You will never have a slowdown because of the ApplicantStack platform. Your hiring team, the applicant, and their references control the timeline.
ApplicantStack can send hiring team members task reminders. Task reminders help your hiring team support a fluid, timely applicant journey.
ApplicantStack Reports
By running reports in ApplicantStack, you can identify bottlenecks in your hiring process. This allows you to continually refine your process and keep improving your company’s applicant journey.
How to Hire Your Next Employee
We hope you’ve found our How To Hire Employees series helpful. Here are the links to the posts on each step in the process.
After you’ve written your job description, it’s time for job posting. Posting jobs manually can be a long, tedious process. But there are lots of tips and shortcuts to save you time, and to help you find the best places to advertise your position.
The Difference Between a Job Posting and a Job Description
Though these terms are often used interchangeably, they are not the same thing. A job description is used by the employer internally. Its purpose is to describe the job role in detail, not only for the hiring team and Human Resources but for overall business strategy and operations. A job description also protects the organization legally.
A job posting is used to market the position to potential applicants. As such, it is written like an advertisement. Though it contains necessary experience and skills, you want it to showcase the job and company to entice people to apply.
What is a job board?
Job boards are websites where employers post open positions for individuals to review and apply. They are essentially search engines for jobs. Some job boards are highly specialized by industry, geography, or role. Others are known for their breadth and volume of job postings. LinkedIn has a job board-like function incorporated into a social platform. You can build a network of business contacts, post your job, and have the platform recommend candidates to reach out to.
What are some examples of job boards?
There are more than 25,000 web sites that list job openings. Indeed,Monster and ZipRecruiter are some well-known ones. Other niche sites may be favorites within your industry or for the position you seek to fill.
How do job boards help employers find applicants?
As mentioned, some job boards have a unique focus like diversity candidates, tech jobs (Dice.com), or remote jobs (Flex Jobs). By targeting boards that best match your ideal candidate, you can increase your reach. You can also actively recruit from many job boards, to identify the individuals you want to apply for your open position or internship.
How do I post a job to a job board?
Each job board has a process to upload job listings. Typically, you use a form to enter the various components of the posting–skills, work experience, etc. Most boards have a free and paid option. If you opt for the paid option, they give your posting more visibility. This includes moving it up in search results and presenting it to applicants searching for the position. Of course, if you don’t have the budget, you’ll have to go with free posting sites.
Like anything manual, this takes a lot of time when you post to several sites, which you will likely want to do. Applicant tracking systems (ATS) make it easy for you to post to many job boards at the same time.
Which job board is best for your organization and open position?
With thousands of job boards available, it may seem overwhelming to identify the one that is best for your company and budget. The good news is that you don’t need to pick one. Instead, figure out which ones focus on your industry, the skills required for each job posting, geography and more.
Where to Post Jobs
Money.com recognized the following sites as top job boards for employers:
ZipRecruiter: Best for Large Scale Recruiting
Indeed: Best for Free Job Posts
LinkedIn: Best for Executive and Upper Management Positions
Handshake Job Search Site: Best for College Recruiting
Dribble: Best for Scouting Designers and Creatives
The Balance Careers rates the following as the top ten job search websites from a candidate’s perspective:
Best Overall: Monster
Best for Employer Research: Glassdoor
Best for Remote Jobs: FlexJobs
Best for Experienced Managers: Ladders
Best for Startup Jobs: AngelList
Best for Connecting Directly with Recruiters: LinkedIn
Better yet, use a job marketplace like JobTarget, which aggregates your data across all of your job ads and all of your publishers. JobTarget’s analytics show which job sites attract the most qualified candidates so you can manage your spend. You’ll be able to compare data across all of your activities. And ultimately, you’ll be able to make more informed decisions about how to recruit.
How to Post a Job on Indeed
Go to indeed.com/hire and follow the steps to create an account or sign in with your Google, Apple, or
Facebook account
Click the Post a Job button
Once you’ve posted your first job, you can also find the Post a Job button in your Employer Dashboard
Enter the job details as prompted
Add your job description
At the Applicant Qualifications page, enter screener questions that will immediately qualify or disqualify an applicant
Types of screener questions include Yes or No, Short Answer, Multiple Choice, Date or Number, or Request for File Upload
Designate any Applicant Qualifications a deal breaker and give Indeed permission to file under Rejected in your Employer Dashboard
When you start receiving applications, you can sort them based on their answers to the Applicant Qualifications questions in your Employer Dashboard at the Candidates tab
Of course, you’ll want to post every job to your careers page. Make your page enticing with photos and videos that showcase your culture. Bonus points if your employees make their own video. Consider a contest with prizes for the best videos.
Social Media
Post to every platform, even if you don’t use them for business. Instagram, for example, may not be the best site for ad-like posts, but perfect for a job opening. (Especially if you include some eye-catching photos!) You can also coordinate each job posting with a social post and link them to the application.
Internal Job Posting
Let your team know when you have openings. Use your HRIS, Internal comms tools like Slack or email. Referral rewards work great for some companies. Since referral hires are often more successful than non-referrals, it’s definitely worth spending a few hundred dollars on some enticing rewards.
Add Photos and Videos
As mentioned previously, photos and videos can help you stand out. Most job postings on LinkedIn and Indeed don’t have photos and videos, so get ahead of your competition.
Remote?
If the job is 100% remote, put that in the job title. Many job seekers are looking exclusively for remote positions. An added bonus is that you can recruit from anywhere.
How to Promote Your Job Posting
Educational Partnerships
Partner with universities, colleges and technical schools in your community. Of course, if the job is remote, you aren’t limited to your geographical area.
Also consider the long game. Many institutions have formal business partnership programs. If your open positions are technical and there are skills programs in your area, volunteer to be on the curriculum advisory committee. This will solidify your relationship with the school and help you shape programs that could supply skilled talent for years to come.
Job Fairs
While we’re on the subject of educational institutions, participate in school-sponsored job fairs. In addition to promoting specific jobs, you’ll start building your employer brand among recent graduates and other job seekers attending the job fair.
Local Sponsorships
Get creative with local events. Depending on the demographic of your talent pool, sponsor a local event. For example, a volunteer day, race, theatrical production, or summer festival. You could even hand out branded swag or print your job postings on beverage cups.
Poach from Your Competitors
This technique if not for the faint of heart but some brave recruiters have had success with it. Transform an RV to a recruiting office and park it on a public street near a competing employer during lunch hour. If you have the budget, give free lunches to anyone who applies.
Local Radio Ads
Local radio stations might have affordable ad slots. Choose the station based on your new hire persona and produce a simple but informative ad about your open position(s).
Is there an easier way to post to multiple job boards?
Yes. Use an applicant tracking system (ATS) to connect to many job boards at once, including aggregators like JobTarget. You can discover niche and specialty websites that give you the best reach for each job opening.
A manual candidate screening process make hiring harder than it needs to be. Fortunately, it’s not difficult to create a formalized process. Does your candidate screening process affect quality of hire? Absolutely!
What Are the Challenges of Manual Candidate Screening?
Before we dive into the details of formalized screening, let’s explain why manual screening will stymie talent acquisition.
The Problems With Manual Candidate Screening
No way to compare one applicant from another
If you don’t have a screening process and resources, it’s difficult to compare candidates. This is one of the easiest ways to let bias creep into your process.
Inability to identify a pool of qualified candidates quickly
You don’t have time to engage with everyone (especially those without minimum qualification), so you need to isolate the cream of the crop. Application questionnaires are a great automated pre employment screening tool. When candidates apply, they self-filter by taking a carefully-designed questionnaire based on the job description and each necessary skill.
Difficulty keeping track of multiple job boards and sources
If you promote your job well, applications will flow in from many sites–careers page, social media, job boards, employee referrals and internal job seekers, outside agencies. if you don’t set up a process for organization, you may lose track of some great applicants.
No tool for tracking applicant stages
A candidate screening process is essentially a workflow that includes stages. These may include Application Received, Resume Review, Do Not Pursue, Phone Interview Complete, Pending Live Interview, etc. With no workflow, you have no hiring stages, and this will make it hard to know the status of each job seeker. To screen candidates efficiently, build a workflow based on your needs.
Inability to filter out unqualified candidates
In today’s competitive hiring environment, you and your Human Resource team are in a race against time–spending precious hours engaging with unqualified applicants leaves less time for the top job candidate. Screening candidates automatically during the first pass gives you a head start. Using a formalized method for phone screen and interviews keep you on track.
EEOC compliance risks
If you can’t document a fair evaluation process, you are at risk of an EEOC challenge if a rejected job seeker suspects bias. In a way, this is a self-fulfilling disadvantage. Without a formal screening method, you ARE more likely to have a biased process. Consider, for example, if your hiring manager uses a ‘gut feeling’ to judge which applicant is a qualified candidate.
Difficulty collaborating with the hiring team
If each decision maker is using their own evaluation criteria for screening resumes or interviews, there is no way to tell which candidates are the most promising. In addition, as mentioned previously, this puts you at risk of bias, or at least the perception of bias. A disorganized team can’t identify a suitable candidate if they don’t even have a common benchmark.
What is Prescreening?
Now, let’s discuss the components of candidate screening. The first step is prescreening. This refers to evaluation that happens before any communication from the hiring team. As mentioned previously, this step can easily be automated. Using the job description, create a questionnaire that candidates will complete when they apply. Include elimination questions that filter out those who don’t meet the minimum qualifications.
Should you review resumes as part of the prescreening process? It will depend on the open position. If you are hiring for an entry-level opening, the questionnaire may suffice. Furthermore, if you are hiring for a high level position with relatively few applicants, you may want to take a look at the resumes. An applicant tracking system ATS can help you organize resumes and applications. Remember, however, not to base your decision solely on resumes–unless you are hiring a resume writer.
ATS search functions can help with resume review. Suppose you have 100 applicants and want to identify those with particular skills. Use keyword and boolean queries to zero in on your applicant pool.
Social Media Screening
Should you look at applicants’ social media sites? There isn’t a consensus among talent acquisition specialists. However, many employment law experts counsel waiting until after interviews if you insist on doing a social screening. A review of a candidate’s social media will reveal demographic information which shouldn’t be used in the hiring decision. If a rejected candidate accuses you of bias, you will have an easier time defending your decision if you interviewed all the top candidates–including those from underrepresented groups. For more protection, don’t have a decision maker do the social review. Bottom line, seek legal counsel to design a policy.
The First Screening Interview
Most hiring teams do the first interview as a phone call. The purpose of this interview is to isolate the group of candidates to move to the next step. For example, verify the skills and qualifications listed on the candidate’s resume. It’s also an ideal method to evaluate communication skills.
Useful questions for the phone screen include:
Tell me about yourself.
Why are you applying for this job?
Why are you leaving your current position?
What are your salary requirements?
(For jobs that require travel) Are you willing to travel?
What type of work environment are you looking for?
Notice that you can eliminate even high quality candidates if their salary expectations don’t match up or if they don’t want to travel and the position requires it.
Additional Screening
Every company has different hiring needs. Some do verification of the candidate before the first interview. These may include:
Calling of references
Background checks
Credit history checks
Education credentials
Prior work performance
How do you know which screens to perform before the interview? Review previous hiring experiences. If a relatively high percentage of previous candidates have failed the background screen, move that up in the process. It will save you time in the long run. If something in a job seeker’s application raises a red flag–say educational experience listed–check it out.
In-Person or Video Interview
At this stage, you should have a pool of great candidates: 1. They weren’t eliminated by the filtering questionnaire due to lack of qualifications, and, 2. They weren’t eliminated in the phone screen.
The best practice for all interviews is structured interviewing scripts. They allow you to compare candidates using the same yardstick and protect you legally.
Before we continue, let’s review where we are in the series:
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