Successful hiring managers

What separates the most successful hiring managers?

Published on by ben.white101884@gmail.comLeave a comment

Over the last decade or so I have helped countless managers in various industries at various levels add people to their team. In that time, as you can imagine, I have experienced many different hiring styles and interviewing styles.

One thing is for sure, not all hiring styles are created evenly.

Some hiring managers are amazing to work with and make partnering with them a real treat. On the flip side, some hiring managers can’t help but get in their own way and make even the simplest of tasks seem laborious.

In this post, I want to separate the good from the bad. The effective from the ineffective. Believe or not, there are definitely patterns. There are things great hiring managers do and then there are things that great hiring managers won’t do.

And while everyone has their own style, there are things that happen too often to be a coincidence.

For the purpose of this blog, I am going to focus on only things a hiring manager can control in the moment. I will spare you the “working for a fortune 500 company” or a company with a phenomenal reputation in the market. While that is a choice a hiring manager may be able to make or in the latter instance impact over time, you can’t snap your fingers and make that happen.

Fortunately, the traits and behaviors that I have isolated really can be done by anyone willing to do them. Now, some of them take some time and may even take a bit of an ideological change from a management perspective, but they are doable.

I feel I have set the table enough, let’s jump into the practices and then we can get together again after for a summary!

See the partnership as an actual partnership

You wouldn’t go to the doctor if you didn’t value their input, opinion and when it was doable, take their advice. Right?

But how many managers partner with a recruiter but brush off their information in favor of everything they have “learned over the years”? The answer, the ones who I am not writing this blog post about. Frankly, more than there should. And likely enough so that any recruiters reading this just said “amen” under their breath.

The problem with what hiring managers have “learned over the years” is that the information they have is changing. Hiring practices from five years ago and much less effective today. The market changes, the economy changes and the talent you are pursuing also experiences change.

If you want to be truly effective as a hiring manager, you leverage the knowledge of someone who is out in the market, living it every day.

I have had hiring managers who have hired a person a year on average discount my opinion when in that year I had helped hire fifty.

The bottom line is nobody wins if you can’t cooperate and work as a team. The communication is better, both parties are more open to sharing information in a timely manner and it’s altogether more pleasant.

The bottom line here is everyone benefits when both parties check their egos at the door and work together to accomplish the end goal. Great hiring managers know this and do this.

Love selling the opportunity to the candidates

If you go into an interview thinking that the candidate needs to sell you on their ability to contribute but you owe them nothing, be prepared to be disappointed. A lot.

Candidates have options, very view companies can afford to hire great people and also be the worst option a candidate has. This one is so easy it is almost hard to elaborate further. But it is so important I can’t gloss over it either.

Great managers know that hiring the best people is always in their best interest. They know the best people have options. And they also know that if you can be the best option, you stand to have a better chance of getting those great candidates to join you.

So, get the information you need from them but don’t let candidates walk out that door without them knowing that what you have to offer is superior to what they can receive elsewhere.

How do you know what matters to them? You ask. You ask them.

Find out what they like about their current job, what they would change about it with a magic wand, what their “why” is etc.

Get that information, and where you know you can offer them more then what they are getting in whatever regard you discover, let them know. Sell your organization in a way that will be meaningful to them and you will find yourself more successful than not.

They care about their people

This one isn’t the fastest to achieve but it is absolutely worth it.

Have you ever sat in an interview with a manager and the members of the manager’s team? What do you notice? Well if you are perceptive, you will notice that the people either feel heard and valued or they don’t.

How do they look at their manager? Are they afforded to opportunity to answer questions? When you ask them questions, do they answer in a way that leads you to believe they are happy with their situation? This stuff matters.

Look, if you don’t care about your people you have no business sitting in that chair across from a new person to manage anyway. You just don’t. But, if you insist, then learn to care about your people. Just like you, they have worked hard to get to where they are and just like the candidate you hope to hire, they have options. Be worthy of them deciding to stay with you.

They seek feedback when they fail

There are two ways you can take the unfortunate news that your favorite candidate has decided to withdraw from the process. You can look at it and go “well if they wanted to drop out, then they weren’t right for this opportunity anyway.”

Or, you have the hiring managers I am referencing in this blog that says “why did they decide to drop out and what can we do better next time?”

Now, what they do with that, I am not sure. I would assume they incorporate that to some degree into their process if they find the info valuable.

But I will tell you this, those questions are consistent. The great hiring managers I work with want to know the why. They are inquisitive. They don’t like losing great candidates and they sure you don’t like losing great candidates for the same reason twice.

Understand they can’t win them all and are at peace

A great hiring manager is passing out blame when things go wrong. They don’t blame the company, the process, the recruiter or anything else for that matter. Great hiring managers aren’t blaming people because they are too busy trying to figure out what they can do better.

They also do their best and are at peace with the outcome. The reality is life allows you to control only so much, and there are things that you won’t ever be able to control. You have to put yourself in the best possible position and be at peace with whatever happens.

I have seen great hiring managers love a candidate, extend an offer to that candidate just to have that candidate say no after getting everything they requested. Consistently, great hiring managers understand that hand is just part of the game and ask to be dealt in again.

If you do your best work, control everything you can control, there is no point in playing the pity game or lashing out. Get back in there. That candidate may have been a Rockstar, but the good news for all of us is that they aren’t the only one.

Conclusion

Most people aren’t born great at everything they do. Behaviors and skills are learned. Anyone who wants to do the things above can do them. They aren’t magic. Some are more time consuming than others but regardless of the investment, all of these will help you win when it comes to securing talent and building amazing teams.

I appreciate you taking the time to read this! If you found value or enjoyed this, please share it via social media. And if you can choose which one is most appropriate, please feel free to share them on several! Thanks again and have an amazing day!

Interview questions

Are your interview questions too tough?

Published on by ben.white101884@gmail.comLeave a comment

In my time in recruitment, I have often heard people brag about having super hard to answer interview questions. They brag about their ability to stump candidates with super challenging questions that only the best candidates are able to navigate without saying something incorrect or giving some sort of disqualifying answer. In fact, people who say this tend to wear it as a badge of honor.

But here is a question to consider. Is that a good thing?

What I mean by that is who benefits from you disqualifying a candidate with a super-challenging interview question?

Let me back up and I will circle back around to finish my thought on that question. A few years back I wrote a blog post on The hardest interview question I have ever been asked. That question was, “If I hire you, what will I dislike about you six months down the road?”.

That is what I call a “gotcha” question. It is a question that is designed to catch someone off-guard and, in most cases, cause them to stumble. That question, in particular, is the question “Tell me about your greatest weakness” but on steroids.

At least when it comes to greatest weakness you can spin it into something that while technically a flaw, it demonstrates your commitment to your role. The question above is really challenging to navigate successfully. I would wager that most people are going to have a hard time answering that question well.

So, if you are assuming most people cannot answer that question well, let’s take a look at who would be able to answer that question well. Well, the first group of people that come to mind is seasoned interviewers. People who interview frequently, encounter questions like this often and as a result, are prepared to answer that question reasonably well.

Now, some of those people might be fantastic employees. That is absolutely true. However, most of my clients ask me to find me, people, they would otherwise not be able to find themselves. People who don’t interview often because they are likely too busy doing a great job in their current role. In other words, a passive candidate.

Back to that question I was asked. If you are to look past just how negative of a question that is, what are you accomplishing there? You are catering to people who interview often, and you are likely disqualifying successful, qualified candidates you are not getting the same type of practice when it comes to those type of questions.

In other words, you are doing the exact opposite of what just about everyone says they want to do when they set out to hire someone. They find a way to push away qualified, hard-working candidates who might be excellent engineers for example but are not expert interviewers. Which one are you trying to hire?

Behavioral questions are fine and yes, there is value to learning more about some outside of their technical skills. How will they be as a team player? What is their work ethic like? Are they the type of person who has a problem for every solution or a solution to every problem? How developed in their emotional intelligence. Every one of these things might very well be valuable for you to know.

But don’t lose track of what it is you are trying to fine. You may think you have the world’s toughest interview question and guess what, you might be right. But what you also might have discovered is one of the most effective ways to move further away from your hiring goals while damaging your companies’ brand in the process.

So, what of that company that I interviewed for who asked me that question? I truly don’t know. I do know I have no desire to apply at any company where the person who asked me that question is if I have to have any sort of interaction with them.

Thank you for taking the time to read.  I hope you found this post helpful! If you didn’t I would like to challenge you. What did I miss? Why does it make sense to ask questions like that? And if you agree, what was the hardest interview question you have ever been asked? Thank you again for reading and if you like this post, please like this and share it on your social media. I always appreciate it a ton.

Is it ok to ask about work life balance in your interview?

Is it ok to ask about work-life balance in an interview?

Published on by ben.white101884@gmail.comLeave a comment

Recently I received an email for a post on Reddit in which someone asked if it is ok to ask about work-life balance in an interview. This is a question where maybe the answer seems easy at first, but I would argue its more nuanced than a simple yes or no.

What do I mean?

So, I can tell you as someone who has worked with many hiring managers for many companies in many industries that this question is far from black and white. Depending on the company, or the hiring manager, it is possible or even likely that you get very different responses.

For example, if I was interviewing someone for my team, and they asked about work-life balance, I would not have a problem with that. I think it is reasonable that people consider how a job might impact the rest of their lives outside of working hours when considering if it makes sense to move. That is a reasonable thing to wonder about and quite frankly, I would be just a bit concerned if someone didn’t want to know what they can expect there.

That being said, I would be lying if I said I have not been in many conversations, getting feedback on a candidate, in which the hiring manager mentioned the candidate asking about work-life balance as a negative. Some of you are reading this right now thinking that is insane.

I get it, holding that against someone seems inappropriate to me. The reality though is that happens. Some hiring managers have the mentality that if someone is asking that upfront, they are not going to be a hard worker, or they are going to be lazy.

This brings me to a critical point in this blog. If you are a person who clicked on this blog looking for my answer to that question, I would rather shift your perspective. You don’t want to ask that question, you want to ask this question…

Do you want to work at a company where it is not ok to ask that question?

This is what you really need to consider. For the sake of easy math, let’s just say 50% of hiring managers will take you asking that question poorly. So, half the time, asking this question might knock you out of the running for a job you might otherwise get. My question is, would you be ok with that outcome?

I would be.

If I knew that the expectation of a potential employer was that I sacrifice my work-life balance in order to come work for them, I would kindly see myself out.

But is that the case for you?

See, I can say that because I am happily employed and don’t need a new job. I am sure there are many of you out there reading this thinking that is all well and good, but you are miserable at your current job or unemployed and need a new job. If that’s the case, then you have to decide if it is worth it to you.

In a pinch, where I was unemployed and badly needed a job, I personally wouldn’t ask that. I would not want to take the risk that the hiring manager would misinterpret my question and it would adversely impact my chances of employment.

For the have your cake and it eat it too crowd, I have another question. I am sure some of you are like, well that’s great Ben, but I do need a job but quite frankly I really want to know about work-life balance. That is a super fair position to be in. Just because you need a job does not mean you are willing to forego having a normal life. So, the next question I would ask you is this…

How do you plan on asking it?

There are right ways and wrong ways to ask most questions. Although I am an advocate for making sure you have the necessary balance in your life, I can admit I have had people ask me this question in a way that was off-putting. For example, in every interview I have ever conducted I have asked the candidate if they have any questions.

It is obvious to ask that for a plethora of reasons and if you ever interview for a company and they don’t ask you if you have any questions, run.

However, if I ask you that question, no matter how important work-life balance is to you, I would not suggest making it your first question. That is just bad strategy. If it is the first thing out of your mouth, whether it is the case or not, it is going to make you look like the type of person who is more interested in time off than the role.

Quite frankly, every interview you go into, you should have a ton of questions to ask. Even if you know everything about a role, asking questions is an indicator of interest and curiosity. Take advantage of that opportunity. So, I would say, yes, you can ask this question but make sure you lead with some other great questions first.

Ask great questions like the following:

“What would you say are the most rewarding and most challenging aspects to this role?”

“What are some of the characteristics of people who have previously been successful in this role?”

“What are some of the initiatives or goals you have for your team over the next 12 months?”

“What does your training and mentorship program look like at your company and how has it changed since you started?

“What is your favorite thing about your company and why do you stay?”

Once you have asked some solid questions like this, feel free to ask about work-life balance. Personally, I might ask it like this “How would you describe your companies’ culture?”

Yup, that’s right, I would ask in a way where I am not directly asking. Odds are, if you ask them to describe their company culture, they are going to give you clues on what you might realistically expect from a work-life balance perspective. Now, depending on what they said and how they answered it, I would decide whether or not it made sense to probe further.

The real skill here is reading the room. Does the person answering say something like “well we work hard and we play hard” to which you can respond by saying, “ah, so you have a good work-life balance?” However, if they said something like “Well, we have a hard-driving culture and we expect a lot from our people.”

If that is the response, then I think you have your answer.

My final advice here is draw your line in the sand. For me, I would like to think that in most cases, I would be willing to walk away from a company with that significant of a misalignment. So, I would be ok being ruled out for a role at a company where asking the mere question of work-life balance is looked down upon so strongly. That being said, it would not be the question I lead with either.

For those of you looking for answer in this post, I really hope that helps. If it did help, please subscribe to the blog for updates on the newest posts and please share with your social media. Thanks for taking the time to read and have a great day!

Are you an Indeed Responsive Employer

Is your company an Indeed Responsive Employer? Why not?

Published on by ben.white101884@gmail.comLeave a comment

Show of hands, how many of you knew that Indeed has a “Responsive Employer”? My guess is not many of you were aware of this. Today’s post is a quick one, but I want to cover four things quickly.

What does being an Indeed “responsive employer mean? Why should this matter to companies? Why does this matter to candidates? How can you ensure you achieve this status?

In the next few minutes, you will have the answers to all three of these questions, and additionally, I assume a desire to be a “Responsive Employer” on Indeed.

What does responsive employer mean?

Simple, it’s a designation Indeed gives to companies who meet a certain threshold of appropriate candidate interaction. Through my research, I was not able to find out exactly what percentage you need to meet, but one can assume it needs to be a strong response rate.

For those companies that achieve this status, the phrase “Responsive Employer” will appear in blue next to their name for all jobs posted on the site. That’s it, respond at a frequent enough pace and get the designation of a responsive employer.

Why should this matter to companies?

You know what it is now, but why does it matter? The answer is simple, the numbers are massive. Indeed has 250 million unique visitors to their website a month. On their site, they have 150 million resumes. Simply put, its one of the single biggest sources of candidates in the world.

Oh, want to know another pretty impactful stat? There are ten jobs uploaded per second. So, while there are a ton of candidates, there is a fair amount of competition. That is why it should matter to you.

It is as simple as wanting to give yourself every advantage when it comes to getting the best candidates. I will touch on this more in the next section, but having the two words next to your job posting is absolutely an advantage and giving yourself every possible advantage is always smart.

Why does this matter to candidates?

Talk to any job seeker that has been on the hunt for a new role for any serious duration and they likely will have the same complaint. Lack of company response.

I imagine most of us can relate, you apply for a role you feel you are a great fit for, and you never hear back. It’s incredibly frustrating and demotivating. Especially when the application process takes a good amount of time. You apply and then you never hear back.

So, imagine you are on Indeed looking for a new job. Your time is finite, you don’t want to spend all night applying. How do you choose which roles you invest time in? Sure, you spend time looking for companies and roles that are good fits, but what else? Well, I would think to know that your effort will be rewarded with a response is also a great motivator.

It is only natural, if you have the designation of a responsive employer, more candidates will apply to your roles than if you don’t. In any market that’s important, but its really important when we find ourselves in a talent scarcity.

How you can achieve this status?

By now, I am sure you have at least some interest in achieving this designation. Good news, it is pretty easy to achieve. Just respond to the candidates who apply to your role consistently. The Indeed website also indicates that writing a short message explaining why a candidate has not been chosen.

It all comes down to effort. To me, this is easily worthwhile. You protect your brand reputation while securing a status that will lead to more candidates applying to your roles.

Well there it is, pretty straight forward but again, my guess is most people aren’t aware. If you liked this post, please like and share it with your social media. Do you think this is worth it? If so, please comment below, especially if you see this on LinkedIn where it is easiest for me to respond. If you haven’t joined my mailing list, please opt-in so you are always aware of my new posts.  Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Can your company survive a talent war with the gig economy

Can your company compete for talent in the gig economy?

Published on by ben.white101884@gmail.comLeave a comment

Five years ago, I was a corporate recruiter for a Fortune 500 company in Milwaukee Wisconsin. During that time, I recruited on a variety of roles. I did a bunch of Quality Engineer and Leadership roles (some of my favorites) as well as a ton of Test Engineering, Software Engineering, and various IT roles.

Those were going relatively well, but then I started to get some more challenging roles that were a bit different from the others. The roles I started getting were roles like Ethical Hacker, Penetration Tester and other various security roles. My first exposure to these roles was the Penetration Tester, who’s role at the company I was working was essentially to try to hack into different systems at the company in order to identify weaknesses, and ultimately try and make it more secure.

I don’t know your thoughts on that type of role as a career, but I was unaware it existed and thought it was super cool. What wasn’t super cool was just how sparse that talent was. There were not a ton of people doing it, the people who were doing it were exceedingly well taken care of and compensated.

Additionally, I started running into people who worked exclusively on contracts, with extremely high hourly rates. Some of these people also told me that they weren’t going to work during the summer, so the engagements they did would need to start after the summer and end before it. These candidates were able to dictate these terms because their skill set was so extremely rare and valuable. As a recruiter, this was my first exposure to the gig economy.

Why should you care about any of this?

Well, if you are a hiring manager, are involved in hiring or plan on being involved in the hiring process in the future, this is going to impact you. Not might, will. And it will likely impact you faster than you think.

So, what is the gig economy?

To simplify, it is essentially people who either by choice or have the choice made for them, forego traditional employment work on a contract or “gig” basis. These can be single projects or perhaps longer, but the common theme is that they are not your traditional employee and things tend to be done more on their terms.

When most people think of the gig economy they think of Uber, Lyft or Door Dash. And while those types of roles are new, unconventional and do represent a large segment of the gig economy, increasingly more “traditional” roles are available as “gig economy roles”, such as Writer, Graphic Designer, Web Designer, and Social Media Manager.

Is this a big enough problem to worry about?

Yes. The reality is that if you aren’t at least a bit concerned, it is probably because you aren’t aware of the momentum the gig economy has behind it. A 2018 study by Intuit predicted that 40 percent of American workers would be independent contractors of some kind by 2020. Think about that for a minute, that’s just about half of the workers.

Now let’s, tie in what we have discussed about the gig economy thus far with the title of this post. The reason I am writing this today is that most companies in today’s economy are experiencing a talent shortage in some way or another. Imagine how challenging it is going to be to find talent when another 10 percent of the population has made the determination to drive their career the gig economy way.

When I read the statistics on the growth of the gig economy, the recruiter in me immediately thinks of how much more challenging it might be to find talent that is already hard to come across. Hopefully, by now you are starting to grasp what I am getting at here, the war on talent could become super-charged as more and more talented people have alternative options to the traditional workforce.

But don’t worry, the reason I have gathered you all here today is that I want to go through 6 ways you can put yourself at a competitive advantage to compete in the world of tomorrow where gigs are aplenty and great candidates are a constant scarcity. If you have read this far, you probably also grasp the gravity of this situation and want to know how to position yourself for success. Great! Let’s jump into it.

Workplace flexibility – Mobile

The purpose of this post is to make you competitive when it comes to landing talent that might otherwise avoid traditional career options and go for the gig economy. It is also to discuss how you can make yourself more attractive than your competition to this same grouping of professionals. In order to achieve those goals, the logical place to start is to examine why those who choose the gig economy, choose it to begin with.

So, let us start with the obvious flexibility. Now more than ever, a segment of the modern workforce would have a strong preference to not be tethered to a desk. Rather, they want to work from home, or perhaps work while they travel. In the past, this was impossible, in the gig economy, this can be done quite easily.

How can traditional employers compete with this type of nomadic flexibility? The answer is while you may not be able to completely, it is certainly feasible for some jobs to be done remote. One of the ways you can compete with those who are looking forego traditional careers to achieve and flexibility and freedom their parents could only dream of is to offer them just that.

Look, to some of you, this idea seems like madness. But the reality is many companies are starting to offer remote work more and more frequently as a way to attract top talent with a strong preference for this type if environment. I work for an entirely mobile company, and I can tell you from firsthand experience that it provides us with a competitive advantage when it comes to hiring and retaining great talent.

If after solution suggestion one you are thinking that what I have to offer is unconventional, I would counter that is what I am purposely offering. This isn’t a conventional problem; these candidates won’t be conventional candidates and winning in this arena will require unconventional solutions.

Project Variety

One of the other reasons the gig economy is attractive is the variety it provides its workers. People attracted to the gig economy are not people who want to do the same thing every day for the next decade. The variety is fun, challenging and allows them to increase their skills.

You can offer this too. This might require more of an effort but think about how competitive it could make you to Software Engineers who want to try different things if you were able to give them variety in their projects.

If you truly think about the work your employees do, you can likely think of cross over with other teams and departments. If they want that, give them the ability to dabble. Don’t just do this for current employees, make it part of your job posting and part of the interview process. One of the biggest mistakes people make when crafting job ads, is they do a poor job of explaining the projects, scope, and impact of the roles.

How powerful would it be to show job seekers some of the cool stuff they will get to work on and how they will get to try new and exciting things? The answer is, for the right people, that is the secret sauce. That is what they want and what they can’t get elsewhere. If you can be the organization to provide them that then you increase the likelihood you will get to be the company that employs them.

Create an environment of exposure

No one, especially not me, said this would be easy. But accomplishing worthwhile things hardly is. Much like the last suggestion, find a way to create an environment of exposure. By this I mean provide variety, make the day interesting. Have an opportunity for your team to work with another team? Make it happen.

Do you have operations in a different location, either domestic or international? Can you get your people there to see what they do and work how they work? What about giving people the opportunity to switch verticals and work in a different part of the business. The fact is that you have the ability to provide people with some of the benefits of working in the gig economy, you just have to make the effort to give them it.

And look, maybe everything suggested in the paragraph above is not a realistic possibility for you. I get that, but is any of it? Anything is better than nothing and you don’t know what kind of impact it might have unless you try. The talent your company has impacts every single aspect of what you do, so it is the most worthwhile thing to put effort towards. Give it a try.

Benefits

One of the things most companies have over the gig economy is benefits. While the gap may close here as this type of work becomes more prevalent, it is still an advantage. One of the best attraction and retention tools I have ever seen is an employee ownership program. ESOP’s or employee stock ownership programs allow companies to give their employees bits of stake in the company as a reward for them staying.

The longer an employee stays, the more of the company “they own” and the more they stand to benefit financially. Besides the fact that workers feel as if the work they do every day is contributing to their bottom line, it’s also a fantastic way to retain your best talent. I have unsuccessfully tried to recruit employees of companies with an ESOP program enough times to know how wildly effective they are.

Companies have these for a reason. If you are serious about attracting and retaining talent long term, I would highly suggest looking into these. They might just be the advantage you were looking for.

Embrace gig workers

An out of the box solution here is to look at this problem like it is not a problem at all. Embrace the gig economy and welcome workers who only want to work on a gig by gig basis. While this might make things more challenging in the short term, with enough experience this is the type of thing you can get good at as an organization.

Create a portal where gig workers can access available work, don’t shy away, embrace the change. You don’t need to farm out all of your work to gig workers but have a segment you feel comfortable with available for these workers. Have your managers trained to effectively manage this type of employee and shift the way you view it?

The smart play is to use this as a tryout and when you find great gig workers who fit with your organization, put on the full-court press to hire them full time. You may not be able to get everyone, but this is absolutely a way to provide yourself access to talent, sample their work and see if they could potentially be a great fit.

Partner with a talent management firm with access to talent

The last thing I would recommend doing is partnering with a talent management firm that understands your brand, your needs, and the market. With fewer employees available for full-time work, accessing them is going to be more competitive. Given the shrinking market, partnering with a search firm can provide you an advantage over your competition.

For example, my company specializes in passive candidate recruitment. That means we don’t have a database of candidates and we don’t post anything online, rather, we specialize in finding great talent, engaging them, and selling them on what our clients have to offer.

Because we don’t rely on active candidates who are seeking a new opportunity, all of our experience is in finding people who aren’t looking for a new job, but they do happen to meet exactly what our clients are looking for. A model like this makes us relatively insensitive to the fluctuations in the job market and available talent. All of our candidates aren’t looking for jobs.

In conclusion

The gig economy is growing whether you react to it or not. Successful companies will find a way to get the best people working for them and in order to do that, they will need to be proactive. The tips above will help you attract a dynamic segment of the workforce you otherwise might not have access to.

I appreciate you taking the time to read this today. Hopefully, it was helpful. If it was, please like and share on your social media and get yourself added to the mailing list if you haven’t already. Thanks again for ready and have a great day!

4 Types of Questions Google asks in Interviews – And how to Answer Them

Published on by ben.white101884@gmail.comLeave a comment

Have you ever been in an interview and been asked a question that totally blew your mind? A question that was so unexpected and so challenging, that it completely throws you off your game mid-interview? I know I have, and it can definitely be a bit jarring.

I was reminded of this when I recently read an article on Inc.com  that discussed Google’s Hardest Interview Questions (great article if you want a list of questions google asks in an interview). A few weeks back I wrote a piece that was pretty popular on answering Amazon’s interview questions (feel free to check that out here – 5 amazon interview questions and how to answer them) and since it was so well received, I decided to do that again.

While I was reading that post on Google’s interview questions, I started to notice a pattern. There were four types of questions that were asked over and over. I started to see questions that, while different, would have candidates thinking and answering in similar ways. In today’s post I am going to break down these four types of questions, discuss why they ask them, how you can prepare and talk about if you as a hiring manager should be asking them as well.

If you have not already subscribed to my blog, please do so when the pop up appears on the screen. The only time I send emails is when a new blog post has been posted, so if you like this kind of content and want more like it, then it will be perfect for you! If you like this post, please share on your social media feeds and like and comment wherever it is you come across it.

Lastly, if you have any questions on anything I post or want to discuss, please comment below. If you happen to see this on LinkedIn, commenting there is probably the easiest way to connect with me because I am literally always on LinkedIn.

With that out of the way, let us jump into this post. I hope you find Google’s questions as intriguing as I did. For the candidates, I hope this helps you think outside the box when it comes to interview preparation and for the hiring managers, these might be some great questions to include in your next interview.

Learning more about you

I am going to start with something I would not define as groundbreaking. In most interviews, you are going to be asked to talk about who you are as a person outside of your career. I just happen to like the way Google does it. Here is their question.

Tell me something about you that isn’t on your résumé?

Again, I am sure nobody reading that fell out of their chair or did a spit take with their morning coffee, but I happen to really like the way they ask it. The way most people ask this question is to say tell me about yourself (pro tip: when asked that question, start by saying “where would you like me to start?” as this will force someone to guide you a bit on this purposefully ambiguous question).

Asking it that way is fine, but I prefer Google’s way because it forces someone to pick something not stated on their resume and think outside the box. If you are trying to get someone to give you a window into who they are as a person, asking the question this way is a pretty great way to force the issue.

As the person interviewing, you can’t very well say something “I have increased profit margins in my region 250% over the last 20 months by….” Because that is likely on your resume. You have to give the person asking you the question info about you as a person.

My advice for every interview you ever have for the rest of your life is be prepared to talk about two or three things non-work-related. You do not need to overthink this, it just needs to not catch you off guard. Maybe you are in a book club or you volunteer on weekends or you a big into trying new restaurants. It just has to be something real that does not paint you in a negative light (for example, “I am in a wine and book club, but I never read the books”). Bonus points if it is super interesting and a great conversation starter.

Problem-solving

One of the interesting things I noticed about Google’s interview questions is they often ask you to solve a complex problem. Now, I do not mean they asked you to do something with the expectation that you leave the interview and go eradicate one of the troubling issues plaguing the world, rather, they asked what you might do to solve something.  Here are a few of the examples below.

If ads were removed from YouTube, how would you monetize it?

How would you solve homelessness in downtown San Francisco?

Really interesting right? Now, I want to preface this by saying that probably are not asking these questions to every single person. In the article, I read it often said what type of role the person was interviewing for. Additionally, higher-level questions that required more depth of thought were asked to people who are likely a bit more senior in their careers and can pull from some of the knowledge they have gained over the course of their career.

That being said, I would not be shocked if they asked similar questions in every interview, just at an appropriate level for the interviewee’s experience. The tough thing about these questions is I can not tell you how to answer them. I mean, sure, I have thoughts on the above topics. YouTube could probably monetize by creating a pay way for premium content or by creating synergistic partnerships through in-video advertising but that is not the point.

The point is that there are almost unlimited questions like this.  These are just two examples but virtually every problem that exists in the world could be turned into an in-interview hypothetical thought exercise that you could be tasked with creating a solution to on the spot. The only prep you can do for this is to be really smart or really well-read and aware of current events.

The other thing you can do is just be aware that something like this could be coming in an interview. While that does not seem like a super helpful tip, just knowing you might encounter this type of curveball probably helps you mentally when you actually hear it.

Thought-provoking/speculation

Another pattern I noticed was questions that require you to take a look at a thought-provoking topic and make a prediction or solve it. These are a lot like the previous questions although slightly different. These often involved disruptive technologies and how they may change the landscape of how we live today. Let’s take a look at the one below.

What is the market for driverless cars in the year 2020?

Now, this question was one that was asked in 2015, so the question would have been five years out.  Again, these are the type of questions that I consider to be pretty hard to prepare for because it is likely that you will not that they are coming. However, in cases like this, the best defense is trying to gain as much information about the emerging markets the company has expressed interest in exploring.

In 2015 if you had read up on Google, it likely would have been pretty simple to know that they were interested in exploring driverless cars. Knowing that, perhaps you could have done some preliminary research. Now, this is a pretty talk task because a company as large as Google probably considers a lot of different markets that they might be able to enter.

My advice if you are going to interview with a company that is known for expanding their offering into different fields is to read up on them to gain an understanding of potential markets they make be exploring so that if asked, you are able to speak to them. Again, kind of a tall task so another good defense is to just stay generally aware of interesting, emerging technologies, the progress of them and how they will impact the world around you.

Unless your role is focused on driverless cars, my thought here is that they are probably looking for a well-reasoned response as opposed to an expert take on where driverless cars will be in five years. And, if your job will have to do with driverless cars, well, my assumption is you will already have a pretty solid take on the topic.

Do you understand it well enough?

The last theme I noticed from this article was an explanation question. I find these interesting because it is kind of like a mix between a role-playing question and a general knowledge exploration question. Asking a question like the one below will allow the person interviewing you to gather whether or not you have a strong understanding of the topic in question as well as gauge your ability to adapt your communication skills to fit your audience.

Describe AdWords to a 7-year-old

There is a saying that if you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well enough. This is a great example of that. The key to answering this question starts with understanding AdWords. If that is the case, the task is simply to make your language as simple and straightforward as possible. You need to make sure you make no assumptions about the level of knowledge the listener has because in this specific example, your intended target of the explanation is seven.

The article I read had several of these questions, some Google related and some not. So, while perhaps they want to make sure you understand the topic in question, I think most of the value here is the ability to watch someone adapt their communication style.

Using these questions

How do these questions fit your interview process? Personally, I think that I would be far more likely to use the getting to know you question and problem-solving questions. The getting to know your question serves as a good ice breaker type question and can help gain insight into who the person is outside of work. The problem-solving questions are probably my favorite though.

Because candidates have not typically prepped on the topic you will bring up, you get to listen to the candidate go through their thought process. If they have not put significant effort into thinking about the problem, they might be working through it for the first time. For me, I will want to make sure it is industry related but I think there could be a lot of value in laying out a scenario and then watching their critical thinking at work.

Wrapping up

The tough thing about Google is that you literally cannot prepare for the wide variety of questions you can encounter. There are a never-ending amount of hypotheticals, problems and even technologies they might have an interest in exploring.

I mean sure, you can do research on them as a company and what they have expressed interest in. They are public, so you can find their 10k report online and become really well versed on them in general. But even so, predicting where they might go with their questions is a tall task.

The best you can do is be prepared to talk about yourself. Have some of your hobbies top of mind and be prepared to discuss them and do your research on them as an organization. For me, just expecting the unexpected probably helps in the sense that you can go in with the mindset that you may be caught off guard. When this happens, don’t panic, pause, say something like “that’s a really great question” and hope that the way you discuss the topic is well reasoned enough to not get you eliminated as a candidate.

Thank you again so much for reading! Please subscribe to my mailing list and share on your social media. Lastly, if you have any questions or thoughts on this, please feel free to engage in the comments. If you see this on LinkedIn and comment below, I will absolutely engage and discuss further. Thanks again and have an awesome day!

3 Great Reasons to not accept an offer

3 Great Reasons to not Accept an Offer

Published on by ben.white101884@gmail.comLeave a comment

A recruiter’s nightmare is a great candidate who your client has extended an offer to lets you know that they are turning it down. It doesn’t get much worse than that for a recruiter. The reason, of course, is that it is so challenging to get to that point. Having a candidate back out at that point can be absolutely devastating to both the hiring company and the recruiter.

Let’s talk about why you should do it anyway.

Now, to be clear, I am not saying you do this flippantly. Rather, under some very specific circumstances, I would recommend making the decision to pass on an opportunity.

When you do decide to turn down an offer, it is going to impact your ability to pursue opportunities with that company moving forward. With that being said, it is not a decision you should take lightly but sometimes it still happens to be the right call. With that being said, let us jump in and talk about when this might be the case.

Shaky financials

If you aren’t googling the companies you are applying with or interviewing with, you are making a pretty significant mistake. There is no way I would ever consider joining a company without seeing what information I can find on them and appropriately information myself.

Researching a company can provide you with a wealth of information and one thing you should be looking for is signs of financial stability. This matters because a company that is limited financially will be limited in its growth, which will, in turn, limit your ability to grow with the company. Additionally, the chances you are laid off as a new employee are greater if the company decides to reduce its headcount.

Over the past ten years, I have had many people let me know that they were unfortunately laid off after being one of the newer employees at a company that went through some downsizing. The last thing you want after making a move from a stable situation to a new one is for the company to lay you off for financial reasons.

How do you determine if a company is financially stable enough for you to make a move? Great question, it takes just a bit of investigating. If a company is publicly traded, that is going to make it pretty easy. I would recommend heading over to Yahoo Finance and taking some time to read about the company, look at trends and look for signs of financial stability.

Additionally, I would google them and try to find recent articles, good or bad, that will inform you of the current state of the company. This is something you can do whether or not they are public, so its something I would recommend everyone do.

It might seem like a no brainer but in my experience, some people assume that because a company is hiring, they must be in a good place financially. As someone who has been involved in hiring for ten years, I can tell you that is absolutely not the case. Companies have openings and replacements all the time, not just when things are going well. Make sure you take a few minutes to make sure you do everything to ensure you won’t become a casualty of poor financials.  

Company culture red flags

Another thing I would be focused on identifying in my research is whether or not the companies culture aligns with my wants from a culture perspective. Now, it’s likely that some of the people reading this will value culture less strongly than others. If that is the case, then feel free to put less emphasis on this. For the rest of us, I think its factor worth considering.

One of the reasons I think culture is important is because it is hard to achieve. Companies cant cross their fingers and hope that the end result is a great culture. When a company has a great culture it likely means that worked hard for it. And if they are willing to work hard towards achieving a good culture, it means they likely care about their employees.

I don’t know about you but if I had my druthers my preference would be to work for a company that was willing to put time and resources towards my happiness. If they are willing to put the effort into creating a good culture, the likelihood is that the effort put there bleeds over into other areas that will positively impact you as well.

To me, it comes down to the fact that I would always prefer to work at a place where the culture is positive and more enjoyable. So, if you are like me, how do you ensure this is the case? This comes back to research. I am going to give you two strategies here. One is going to be pretty obvious and the other is going to be a bit more aggressive.

Let’s start with the easy one. Simply go to Glassdoor, search the company and see what people are saying. Now, I personally always take a negative review or two with a grain of salt. When people have a negative experience, they tend to share it. And quite frankly, some people are bad employees and companies remove people for cause. Those people can still write reviews.

However, if you are on glassdoor and you notice a pattern of people saying the same negative things over and over, that’s different. Especially if you are reading reviews in which people are otherwise fair but you notice some consistency with the criticisms being shared by people.

The more aggressive tactic is to reach out to a current and former employee on LinkedIn and ask for a few minutes of their time. Talking to a person or two who has worked there or is currently working there can be a great source of information. The downside here is that it’s a small sample size, so its possible you get an overly negative or overly positive person.

The upside, of course, is you can ask specific questions around your concerns. You can ask about leadership, about advancement opportunities, about culture, etc. Whatever it is you value or are concerned about, you can specifically seek out and address.

For some of you, this is probably a tad aggressive and I understand that. However, the company is probably going to want to do a reference on you, why shouldn’t you be able to do a reference on them?

You don’t connect with your future manager

Anyone who has ever had a “bad” manager knows that this is a critical aspect of choosing whether or not it makes sense to take a new job. Working for an amazing company with a boss that doesn’t value you and invest in you is going to negatively impact your experience there. I would rather work for a great boss at an ok company than an ok boss at a great company.

I also feel like this is more important the earlier you are in your career but to me, this is never a factor that ceases to be important. Your happiness in a company and your opportuniti4es to advance will likely be impacted by nothing more than your boss.

With that being said, if you meet your future boss and sense that it isn’t a good fit, I would absolutely take that into consideration. It is too important to ignore. The logical question is how do I determine if they are going to be a good boss if I don’t get a read during the interview?

My advice is to have a handful of questions prepared to ask that should help shed some light on it. A few of the following questions should be useful in figuring this out.

  • What is the most challenging aspect of this role and what actions do you take to make sure new hires are prepared to succeed?
  • What are some of the development opportunities you have provided for your team over the last year?
  • How would you describe your brand of leadership?

These are just a few questions that I would want to know the answers to. Ideally, you would be able to not only ask the hiring manager these questions but then also members of the team about the manager. Getting the two perspectives and seeing if they differ would valuable information for me.

However you reach your conclusion, I would make sure to put some serious stock into it. At the end of the day, a great manager can take you far, help you learn and advance your career. But a bad manager can do a ton to harm your progress, growth and your enthusiasm for your career. Those are all things that merit protecting.

In conclusion

Accepting an offer is a big decision and deciding to not accept an offer isn’t a decision to take lightly. When a company decides to extend an offer, it is usually something they have deliberated on extensively and turning it down will certainly cause them quite a bit of heartache. With that being said, sometimes it is absolutely the right move.

Ultimately, everyone has different things that they value, so perhaps your list of three things might look a bit different. If I had to look at the variables that make a move a good idea or a not so good idea, these three are at the top for me. If you liked this post, please like it in whatever medium you stumbled upon it and any shares on your social media platforms are appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read and have a great day!

Amazon intervuew questions

5 Amazon Interview Questions – And how to answer them

Published on by ben.white101884@gmail.comLeave a comment

Some of my most popular blog posts in the past have been how I would recommend answering popular, challenging interview questions. As someone who has been a Corporate Recruiter as well as a 3rd Party recruiter, I think I have an interesting perspective to provide and people are always looking for ways to answering challenging questions.

In the past when I did these, I selected frequently asked interview questions and gave my perspective on why the questions were asked and ways I would specifically tackle answering them. This time around I thought it might be fun to take one of the largest, most successful companies in the world and go through a few of their interview questions.

After a bit of research, I found a Business Insider article that gave me a handful of questions Amazon asks during their interview process and I picked a few that I thought might be applicable to the average applicant (by this I mean not too role-specific that it wouldn’t be helpful to the average candidate). Below are five questions I picked out that are interesting, and I think should be helpful to discuss.

First things first, any time you look at an interview question and talk through the best way to answer it, you are making assumptions as to what the interviewer was trying to learn by asking that question. So, I want to make mention that I don’t know for sure what they are trying to learn because I have not consulted with Amazon recruiters nor have I worked for Amazon; however, I feel confident that I can provide value on answering these questions based on my experience as a corporate recruiter.

With that out of the way lets dive into these questions and discuss why they might be asking these questions and then how you can successfully answer them. By the end of this post, you should feel comfortable answering these questions if you encounter them in an interview. Let’s jump in.

What was the worst mistake you ever made?

I wanted to start with this one because this is one of those class “thread the needle questions”. It is similar to the “what is your greatest weakness” question in the sense that properly answering this question requires you to admit fault. So, by threading the needle I mean that you have to give them something but at the same time, the weakness or the mistake can’t be something so damaging that’s it is disqualifying.

For example, saying something like my greatest mistake can’t be something that clearly paints you in an overwhelmingly positive light like “my biggest mistake was caring too much about customer satisfaction that I stayed after work to make sure all customer complaints were answered real-time, even if they came in after hours.” That would be like answering the “what is your greatest weakness” question by saying that you care too much. These aren’t actually mistakes or bad qualities, you are dodging the question and trying to paint yourself in a positive light in a transparent and ineffective manner.

On the flip side, you cant answer this question with an answer so troubling its an immediate disqualifier. I don’t care how well the interview was going, if you say something like “My biggest mistake was messing up a customer order and being so pissed about it I set my bosses car on fire in the parking lot during my smoke break”, you aren’t getting that job.

The key to answering this question is to find a nice balance. It has to be a reasonable, but not unforgivable mistake that you have learned from. That’s the formula. For example, you could say something like “earlier in my career I was responsible for entering customer orders in the system and one of our larger customers placed an order and I accidentally entered in a wrong item. They ended up not getting everything they needed out of this purchase order which caused us to have to expedite the rest of their order when they called us and informed us of our mistake. While we were able to fix the situation and ultimately it blew over, it was an embarrassing mistake that did cost the company money. For me it was a real learning experience and moving forward, I made sure that every order I placed I would go through and check one last time before I sent it through and thankfully, it never happened again.”

That answer works for several reasons. Right away, I said “earlier in my career”, which distances current you from a previous mistake. The mistake itself is an actual mistake with real-world consequence, but it’s a mistake anyone could make and it is not something that makes you look like a potentially problematic employee. Lastly, you reinforce that you learned from it and it wasn’t repeated.

Who was your most difficult customer?

I like most of these questions and this one provides some really good insight from the interviewer’s perspective. If you deal with customers, the reality is, some are going to be difficult. You can’t control that but every one of us is capable of controlling is how we react to a difficult customer. That’s what they are looking for here.

The question isn’t really about the customer at all really. Sure, they provide the canvas so to speak but this question is getting at how do you handle challenges, specifically when there is a customer service and thusly, a customer retention issue. How will you handle challenging customers and will the way you handle these customers allow us as an organization to retain them? Are you cool under pressure? Are you capable of deescalating challenging situation skills? How strong is your emotional intelligence?

These are all being assessed with this answer. Similar to the first question, you have to give an actual problem and your answer has to be reasonable. Ideally, you start with a problem that occurred not because of you, a customer whose journey takes them from angry to satisfied and something repeatable you could do for their organization. It should also do an adequate job of demonstrating your desire to do right by the customer and your ability to stay calm under pressure while seeing the big picture.

How do you persuade people?

This is another interesting one because I personally don’t think the best answer involves manipulation. I don’t think you want your answer to sound like you are tricking someone into taking your preferred course of action or buying your specific product. This one is particularly interesting to me because it could be very applicable to interviewing recruiters as well. As recruiters its necessary to sell candidates on the role and/or company you are recruiting for.

Framing it that way, I don’t think I would want someone answering that question in a way that made it seem like they were tricking someone into arriving at a certain conclusion. If I were interviewing someone for my team and I asked that question, ideally, the person would help some arrive at a conclusion based on information they discovered throughout the conversation.

To me, the right way to answer this question is to learn about the person and where their areas of dissatisfaction exist and then match them with the corresponding solution you are able to provide. To me, that is the right way to answer this question, you center it around solving their problem.

Tell the story of the last time you had to apologize to someone.

Of all the questions we are looking at today, this is actually my favorite. When I interview for my own team, I always ask three questions I got from the book “The Ideal Team Player”. One of those questions is “how do you handle giving and receiving apologies?” This question, in particular, gives me some really good insight into emotional intelligence and the way people see the world.

These questions are similar and ultimately are driving towards getting the same info.  I really like this question because, unless you are reading this right now, it is likely a question that the interviewee did not prep for. So often you ask a question and its painfully obvious that the person interviewing has rehearsed the answer many times.

When I ask this question, it is likely the first time I am getting to hear the candidate think on their feet and give me a truly off the cuff answer. Outside of getting an unrehearsed answer what you are hoping to learn from this question is what kind of teammate you can expect this person to be.

I truly believe that no matter how talented someone is, its critical that they also be a good teammate. I heard a quote once that said don’t hire brilliant jerks, the cost to teamwork is too high. I personally am looking for smart, competitive, good teammates, so I love asking this question.

In answering this question, the aim isn’t to suggest you are infallible, but rather to admit fault for a reasonable trespass and demonstrate your ability to give a reasonable apology. My advice is pick something that would require an apology that is relatable, a mistake we all make and how you gave an apology that you meant and rectified the situation with the impacted party.

Honestly, the most challenging part of this question is that most people don’t see it coming. With a little time to think, most people can find an occasion in which they made a small mistake that negatively impacted someone and how they made it right.

How would you improve Amazon’s website?

This is another cool question that I might actually start using from now on. I want my candidates to have looked at our website, that’s just a preparation thing. If you aren’t preparing for your interview, how much do you value the opportunity and the peoples time who are involved. If you don’t go to the website of the company you are interviewing with, you are going to have a really hard time answering this question.

Beyond making sure they are the type of person who prepares, there is some value in hearing what someone’s ideas are. This is a chance to hear if a candidate has any interesting user experience or content ideas. If nothing else, some free market research.

As a candidate, answering this question checks the box that you did spend some time preparing, which is a good thing. My advice would be to compliment something specific about the website and then follow it up with a critique that is not overly harsh. Saying something like “ The website was really slow and ugly” probably would not be the way I would personally choose to answer the question.

However, saying something like “I am a huge fan of your products so I would have liked to seen a larger emphasis put on feature differential between some of your products to help consumers identify which product might be the right fit for them” probably sounds just a bit better.

The name of the game here is showcasing your preparation and critical thinking skills. Did you look at the site and can you offer a fair, potentially helpful suggestion? If you accomplish those two things that you have done your job answering this question.

In conclusion

While these are questions Amazon has been known to use in their interviews, realistically these are all questions you could encounter in any given interviewer. If you are someone with an upcoming interview, I hope this will help you navigate these questions should you be asked them. If you are a hiring manager looking for some interesting questions to add to your repertoire, try adding a couple of these in.

Lastly, thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you happened to find this on LinkedIn, a like or a comment really helps me out and I would appreciate it! If you feel so compelled, please feel free to share it on any other social media platforms you use. I don’t ever post on Facebook and I always find it interesting when my site analytics show me that people have reached my site through Facebook.

If you have any other interview questions you would like my thoughts on answering, please feel free to comment on the post with those questions and I will answer them in an upcoming post. Have a great day!

5 ways your company pushes away the best candidates

5 Ways Your Company Pushes Away the Best Talent

Published on by ben.white101884@gmail.comLeave a comment

Last week I write a blog about dynamic ways you could improve candidate experience. This post was not for the faint of heart because the improvements I was suggesting took a significant amount of effort, but I would, of course, argue that improving the candidate experience is a worthwhile endeavor. If you want to get ideas on how you can shake things up and differentiate yourself in the market place, I suggest you check it out!

I am of the opinion that improving your candidate experience throughout your application, interview and offer stage is something worthy of tremendous effort. But, if you or your organization isn’t quite ready or interested in the ideas I put forth in that piece, the next best thing might be to avoid the following pitfalls.

If you can’t wow candidates, then not pushing them away is likely the next best thing. However, it is something so easy to do and the reality of the situation is tons of companies make these mistakes regularly. If you are reading this right now, I can almost guarantee that at some point you have gone through an interview process that didn’t meet your standards. The next question that pops into my mind, how many of you are now working for those very companies that provided you with a substandard interview process?

The last thing I want to do before we dive into these tips is justify why these things are worth avoiding in the first place. Every single of one the things below is off-putting to candidates. My belief is that few companies, if any, can afford to make these mistakes. With low unemployment candidates have so many different options and the best candidates, absolute difference-makers will always have options. Making these mistakes could be the difference between getting a great candidate and not getting a great candidate.

Flagrant lack of communication

One of the most frequent complaints from candidates is that they truly don’t know where they stand with a company. I mean, imagine updating your resume, taking the time to research a company, having a great phone interview, taking the time off to go meet them in person just for them to go radio silent. Frustrating right?

The frustrating thing here is that this is so easy to fix. All it takes is the occasional call or email to candidates to let them know that the interest is still there, but you are just going through your process. Also, have someone serve as the candidate liaison. Let them know that if they have questions, they are free to reach out. It may be one of the most frequent mistakes but its also one of the easiest to fix.

Long application process

Every single one of us has likely applied for jobs at one point or another in our career. I bet every single one of you remembers finding a posting that interested you, deciding to apply and being relieved when the application process took all of two minutes.

On the flip side of that, I am sure we all remember filling out a job application that seemingly takes forever. You upload your resume just to have it ask you for all the information included in the very resume you just uploaded. What was the point of uploading the resume then?

But it is not just a preference thing, it actually has a significant impact. According to this SHRM a post, 60% of candidates quit filling out the application mid-application due to the length of the post. Can you afford more than half your applicants to quit before they even finish the process?

I know this one might be a tough one to change, but it is worth it. Long applications might be pushing away great talent. Getting talent is the name of the game here, so pushing it away is exactly what you are trying to avoid.

Longer than necessary interview process

I advocate for doing away with all of these interview process “mistakes”, but this is the one I understand the most. Adding someone to your company or to your team is a big deal. Every hiring manager can remember making a bad hire. It is costly, it requires significant time investment and fixing the mistake is no easy task.

As a result, people often add several steps and loop in several people to make sure they get as many sets of eyes on the candidate and they mitigate their risk of making a hiring mistake. Seems like a good idea, right?

Well, yes and no. It can be helpful to get the opinions of others and a variety of perspectives, but you can’t do that at the expense of being efficient. When I first learned recruiting, my manager would tell me “time kills all deals” at least two to five times every single week. He was right then and presumably when he still says it today, he is right now.

The longer your process, the higher the chance is that something goes wrong. Maybe the candidate is promoted at their current company, maybe another company reaches out to them and they figure since they are currently interviewing, they might as well check out this other company as well. Maybe they have a really good couple of weeks at work and they decide they would be crazy to leave a company that has been so loyal to them.

I have seen every single one of those scenarios play out over and over again, for a bunch of companies in a variety of industries. Risk is universal. You increase your own risk of losing great candidates when you have a lengthy process.

Now, this doesn’t mean you shorten your process so dramatically that you fail to ascertain whether or not a candidate is qualified and is a good fit for the team you have built. What it does mean is you need to find the sweet spot. How can you be thorough yet, efficient?

I find it helps to imagine that a company equally as appealing as yours starts interviewing that candidate you are extremely excited about the same day as you started. Whose process do you think will finish first? Assume that the offers will be equally good, and you are dead even when it comes to every factor the candidate cares about. If this is the case, you better get the offer out first.

Interview panel lacking diversity

Of all the factors listed here today, I feel like this is the one most frequently overlooked. In fact, if you have been hiring for a while, it is likely you may have done this at some point. I bet when you did it you probably didn’t even think about it.

Either way, it makes a difference. Nobody wants to show up to their onsite interview and have a panel interview with four people who look exactly the same and have all been with the company 12.5 years. Every panel can benefit from having a bit of diversity of thought. Not to mention that most candidates would probably prefer to see people who represent different groups in their interview, I know I would.

Next time you interview someone, think about this. Who is involved? Are these the same people you always have interview potential new hires? Does the candidate gain something different from the perspectives of each person they will meet with? Does this group accurately reflect the makeup of your company?

Failure to sell your company

This last one is a mindset issue. My belief is that companies are so used to candidates needing to sell themselves and they don’t always realize that this is a two-way street. If you aren’t using the interview to share with candidates why working at your organization is a good move for their career, you are missing out on a massive opportunity.

I have interviewed with companies who expected me to sell them on why I was the right candidate and I have interviewed with companies who also explained why they were the right company for me, and let me tell you, those are dramatically different experiences.

I have talked to candidates who have turned down offers and asked them just to help me understand why. Time and time again I have heard from candidates who told me that they felt like they were interrogated and none of the exciting aspects of working for the company were really shared.

I bet some people are reading this and thinking, well the candidate applied so they need to tell us why they are a good fit and not the other way around. And look, if that’s how you want to interview candidates, that is absolutely your choice. But don’t be surprised when your competition ends up extending offers that get accepted and you have candidates removing themselves from your process. The market is too competitive and good talent is too scarce.  

Bonus: No feedback as to why they weren’t chosen

I wanted to throw this bonus tip in there because it fits with the discussion today. Far too often hiring managers and human resource professionals are more than willing to talk to candidates but then are inexplicably not able to give them feedback as to why they weren’t chosen for a role.

If you were to completely remove the fact that leaving someone wondering whatever happened with that role they interviewed for and never heard back from is incredibly rude, it is also incredibly dumb. Maybe they weren’t the ideal candidate for this role, they might be the perfect candidate for a job you have in two months. The problem, of course, is they may never apply to your company again because of the negative experience you provided them.

But, let us remove their candidacy from the equation. There are still consequences outside of karma to contend with. People don’t always share good experiences with others, but they are pretty consistent when it comes to sharing negative ones.

Next time you are thinking whether or not you should close the loop with a candidate, just imagine they happen to know the next three you are hoping to hire, and they are going to share their candidate experience with them. Do the right thing, build pipelines and protect your company’s reputation in the market.

Conclusion

Well, there you have it, 5 ways your company pushes away the best talent. How many of you have made these mistakes and are currently making them when it comes to hiring? I would also love to hear in the comments section either on my site or LinkedIn, what are some of the other big mistake’s companies make. Please feel free to comment and share with me what I have left out.

Lastly, please subscribe to the mailing list so you know when new posts are published and please like and share this on your social media if you liked the post. It is a huge help to me. Thanks for reading and have an awesome day!

5 Radical Ways to Improve Candidate Experience

5 Radical Ways to Improve Candidate Experience

Published on by ben.white101884@gmail.comLeave a comment

I want to start by saying that I intend these tips to be radical.  If you are hoping to read this post and gain a few easily implementable tips, you may want to consider investing your time elsewhere and find a different post. There will be no, offer them coffee and donuts in the waiting room-esc suggestions here. Rather, you will likely look at these suggestions, and wonder if they actually make sense for you to implement.

Why? Well, my reasoning is that very few companies try to make the candidate experience poor when they interview. Most try to improve the process but only are willing to go so far. So, if I was to offer you little tips that will give you incremental improvements, you are likely just even with the status quo. I want you to close your laptop after you read this, go get some coffee, think if this is actually feasible for your organization, and then provide your candidates with experiences, unlike anything they have experienced in previous interview processes.

Again, why? Why is this worth doing? The answer is simple, competition. When I interview a great candidate or a great candidate of mine is being interviewed by a client, my assumption is they are also being interviewed elsewhere. Opportunities seem to find their way to great people pretty consistently. So, if you have a candidate you feel is super strong and uniquely positioned to succeed within your organization, the smart assumption is other organizations feel the same way.

So, if we are to operate under the assumption that you number one candidate isn’t just choosing between you and their current job, but rather, you, their current company and another one or two companies vying for their skills, it behooves you to differentiate your company. And most companies do that every day through the products or services they offer, company culture, and a variety of other ways. However, I feel like most companies don’t do a great job of making their interview process a symbol of how employee-focused they actually are.

That’s what we are going to do today. We are going to discuss five ways you can turn your interview process into a commercial about your company and why it is absolutely different than the other companies your dream candidate is in process with. If done correctly, you can sell your organization without it looking like you are selling your company. The fact of the matter is, when it comes to something as critical to your organization’s success as the acquisition of talent, you owe it to your company and every one of its employees to be as competitive as possible, so let’s get outside of the box and talk about how you can do just that.

Invite them to be investigators

I am going to start with the tip today that will not be for everyone. If you feel confident that your employees are happy and you have created an environment where they are advocates for your brand, this tip is for you. However, if you have a workforce where you know a good deal of the people aren’t overwhelmingly positive about their employment, this won’t work as well or potentially at all.

Now it’s no secret that smart candidates will look your company up on Glassdoor. It’s a no-brainer. Its one of the best ways to get a peek into what working for a company might be like. You often can get a pretty unbiased look at a company’s positives, negatives and an overall feel for how former employees view them. Candidates go to glassdoor to learn about the inner workings of a company, but what if you could help them do it.

I am borrowing here from my company because we do just that. Part of our interview process is encouraging interviewees to reach out to current employees and ask them about the company. Candidates interviewing with our company are able to ask questions about culture, work-life balance, career advancement, leadership and their overall impression of the company from people currently working there.

This is powerful for several reasons. First, it’s a vote of confidence in how your employees feel about their careers. Secondly, it gives the person interviewing a glimpse into the reality of a prospective employer that they are rarely afforded. They get to ask the questions that matter to them in a medium where they know they aren’t being measured.

This takes a little work and a lot of confidence in how your employees feel about your company. The work that needs to be accomplished is as simple as bringing up in a staff meeting that potential new employees might reach out for quick phone calls and that it’s appreciated if the people who are contacted would take the time to answer questions. Let them know how they can expect these candidates to reach out to them, the easiest being LinkedIn.

It’s also really important that these candidates are allowed to reach out to anyone. If you give them a list of people, it’s a lot less powerful. Those people could be cherry-picked, people who are overly positive and are willing to just follow the company line. By giving candidates the ability to reach out to anyone to get an inside scoop on the life of an employee, you are providing them with a tremendous opportunity and a clear boost to their experience as a candidate.

Share with them their 90-day success plan

I have seen many high-level sales roles require candidates to put together a “plan” of sorts if they are to be hired. This includes how they would generate sales, take market share and attack the market. This is valuable information for hiring managers, it gives a glimpse into how candidates have been successful in the past and what they are planning on doing to be successful for their organization.

What if you could do this for candidates? Imagine walking into your final interview with a company, prepared to answer another battery of questions and one of the things covered is a comprehensive plan on how they are going to do everything in their power to make you successful. Totally different, right?

This could include training schedule, shadowing sessions, their mentor with their mentor’s background and experience, etc. What if you could show them the checkpoints you set up to monitor their progress, the goals you will have in place and then the steps you will personally take to help them achieve the next set of goals if they fall short on the first. Have you ever had an interview like this? I know I haven’t, but I know that seeing all of that would make me feel confident in the company’s investment in my future success. If you want to radically change the way a candidate perceives their interview experience, you need to think outside the box, and this is a great way to do just that.

Let them participate in choosing their interview plan

Some roles, like sales or presentation heavy positions, require confidence speaking in front of groups. But I would wager that the vast majority of positions don’t actually require strong group speaking ability. Despite that, the majority of interview processes that progress all the way to the final rounds will have some sort of panel interview at some point. I am assuming that if you are reading this, you have probably experienced a panel interview and understand that for certain people, they can be quite intimidating.

Another interviewing mistake companies frequently make that can serve as a “turn off” to interviewers is a lack of diversity in the people they interview with. Imagine you are interviewing with a company, you show up to a panel interview and its basically four people who could almost be carbon copies of each other, minus the fact that they presumably have on different outfits. No diversity to speak of, they are all extremely tenured, so their perspectives will likely mirror each other.

While this interview was likely helpful for them in assessing whether or not said candidate will fit what they are looking for, it falls short in providing the candidate the variety of perspectives that can provide them with a fuller expectation of what working at your company might end up being like.

What else do you do on your interviews? Do you do facility tours? Do they meet the team? Do they get to see the area they will be working in? Or do you get people there, provide a vanilla experience and if there is enough time left over you give them a hurried view of life at your company?

I want to preface what I am about to say with the acknowledgment that getting buy-in here will vary depending on the openness of your hiring team and compliance might limit the degree of flexibility. But, what if you allowed your candidate to partake in customizing their candidate interview experience.

What would this look like?  Prior to the final interview, you send the candidate an email thanking them for whatever the most recent step was and then provide them with options for their final interview. It might look something like this…

“Hi Ben, we want to thank you for taking the time to interview with us recently. We know your time is valuable and we appreciate you carving out time in your busy schedule to learn more about us as we continue to learn more about you. As we look forward to scheduling your final interview, we understand everyone has different preferences when it comes to meeting people and learning about opportunities, so we were hoping to get your help in determining what our final interview will look like. Please take a few minutes to examine the options below so that we can make sure you have the best final interview experience we are capable of providing.”

Below this message, you would have as many options that you can provide (within reason) that fall within the compliance guidelines you are required to adhere to as well as whatever you can get your hiring team to agree to. You might first start with preference of day and whether it’s the morning or afternoon interview. If it’s over lunch, perhaps ask if they want to do a lunch interview and if so, where or what kind of food they would prefer.

You can ask if they will want to do a facility tour, a tour of where they would be working and if they would prefer that at the beginning, end, or in the middle to break up the questions they will be answering. Then you can ask if they would prefer a panel interview or perhaps two different meetings with smaller groups of people.

I know this won’t work for everyone and this might seem like small things. However, these could potentially be huge things for the candidate. The bonus here is if this candidate is interviewing elsewhere, guess what, they likely aren’t doing any of this. From a candidate experience standpoint, you will already have a leg up. If this is your number one candidate who you know will make a significant impact on the success of your team, don’t you want that leg up?

Let them get to know you first

Great candidates will already have stalked your LinkedIn to learn more about you and your background. However, if your goal is creating an exceptional candidate experience, you can do better! There are several easy ways to do this, one of which is creating an “Interview Guide”. You can create a PDF in which you inform candidates about the date, start time, parking and then go the extra mile by introducing them to their interview panel.

Here is an example of something similar that my company does, Welcome Kit. This is something we have created for our clients so that they can get to know us prior to us working on a search for them. It tells them something about our company, our mission and ultimately serves as an introduction to the people they will be working with. What’s stopping you from doing this for your candidates? Let them know who they will be meeting with and use the document itself as a way to brag about company culture!

Pro tip: Why not short video clips of the hiring manager and the team introducing themselves? If you are interested in going above and beyond, there are so many great ways to create a superior experience for your candidates.

Have their mentor participate in interviews

The last one is simple and powerful. If your company has a mentor program, this is going to work great. If you don’t, it might be worth considering. But assuming you do have a mentor program, have the candidate get a chance to meet their mentor, have someone on one time and establish rapport.

It’s a great opportunity to show candidates that you have a plan for their success and begin their mental transition to your company. Imagine how powerful this tool would be if a candidate who is newer to their career is looking in part because they feel their current organization lacks the support and guidance they need. You are already providing it day one. What a massive advantage.

In conclusion

Let me get ahead of some of the comments once more by acknowledging not everything here is going to work for everybody and every company. Not everyone will have this kind of flexibility and not all of these things are easy to accomplish either. Of course, things worth doing rarely are. Candidate experience is one of those things that are truly worth the effort.

It can be the difference between having the best candidate accept your offer as opposed to another. It can also make a huge impact when it comes to what people are willing to share with their colleagues. What will they mention to future prospective employers? Where they treated like a number or did their experience turn them info potential brand advocates? One of the things I say frequently is to control what you can control. Candidate experience is absolutely something in your control.

For those of you who may not be ready for the tips above, here are some of the basics I wrote in a previous blog, Five ways to boost your candidate experience. Thank you for reading and make it an awesome day!