Posts Tagged ‘interviewing’
Wednesday, February 16th, 2011
Thanks to all the job boards and other search channels now available, candidates are casting wider nets than ever before. They are pushing cover letters and resumes at an incredible rate, often applying for dozens of positions a day or more. In the process, they are making mistakes … annoying mistakes. Spelling and grammar have become casualties, and it seems no original thought is being put into resumes or cover letters. In addition to bothering corporate recruiters, it also impedes the candidate screening process, which slows down the hiring process.
You wouldn’t want to bring candidates in who are careless and inattentive to detail, but you still have to sift through error-ridden resumes to find the candidates you want. This isn’t just time wasted on every resume you’re not going to use; it leads to increased frustration that will affect your overall performance. Instead of letting these problems get in the way, it’s more effective to implement a strategy that changes the process entirely and helps you remain as productive as possible. (more…)
Tags: BYTE, employees, hiring, hiring managers, HR outsourcing, human resources, interviewing, job market, optimizing recruiting, outsourced recruiting, talent market
Posted in Strategy | No Comments »
Monday, January 3rd, 2011
We all know that there are some questions you just shouldn’t ask in an interview (see five gems here). Anything related to age, religion and physical disability, for example, is strictly off limits. But, conversations happen. You get into a comfortable exchange with a candidate and notice a necklace with a religious symbol … which leads to ask if he or she attends a local church. Or, a conversation about a photo of your kids on your desk results in a discussion that could land your company in hot water.
The issue is one of litigation risk, and it’s a top concern for corporate recruiters all over the country. The wrong questions could cause a candidate to sue, costing your company both money and its reputation with clients (and future candidates). Even the best corporate recruiters slip up sometimes, often because they are so good at reading a candidate and managing the conversation effectively. Especially in the early stages of the corporate recruiting process, you need a way to protect your recruiters and your company. Structured interviews can be a particularly effective litigation risk mitigation tool.
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Tags: BYTE, candidates, interviewing, risk, risk management
Posted in Process | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 1st, 2010
Passive candidates can be difficult to lure away from their existing positions, especially with volatility persisting in the job market. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t reach them. Instead of pursuing passive candidates solely on their competencies and experience, refine your targeting to include how frustrated they are. Provide a solution to these challenges, and you gain a strong negotiating tool for attracting talent.
Employees, as a rule, don’t like to leave their jobs. A recent article in Business Insider observes:
How would you feel if someone called you a “quitter”? My guess is – not good. You might feel hurt, guilty or upset. You almost certainly wouldn’t feel proud of yourself.
People put enormous pressure on themselves to succeed, and it can be difficult to overcome this, even when the reality doesn’t square with self-perception. So, to attract a frustrated passive candidate, you need to include a mechanism for helping him or her get past this.
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Tags: BYTE, candidates, interviewing, job market, talent, talent acquisition, talent management
Posted in Strategy | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
The hiring process is built on questions and answers. You ask candidates about their motivations, skills and experience. They ask you about the company and the work environment … not to mention compensation and career paths. At its best, there’s an easy and comfortable back-and-forth, and everyone walks away from the process well-informed. When the process is one-sided, however, it can feel like an interrogation, with only the bare light bulb missing. This dynamic is unproductive and probably won’t lead to satisfaction on either side.
The interrogation problem is particularly prevalent when a corporate recruiter is talking to passive candidates. A lot more selling is required, and the prospect has fewer reasons to engage directly. The recruiter may feel the temptation to pry information from the candidate – and talk too much while doing so – ultimately tainting the interview and costing the company a strategic hire.
The results of an interrogation speak for themselves.
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Tags: candidates, hiring, interviewing, STREAM
Posted in Process, Strategy | No Comments »
Monday, August 9th, 2010
Whether you actively source candidates internally or simply conduct interviews with them because you have to, there’s a lot of value in getting an outside perspective. Too often, you’re too familiar with an internal candidate for an open position – or you’re taking the opinions of people who are too close to that person.
Think about it: with an external candidate, you can’t talk frankly and easily with peers, subordinates and supervisors. Sure, you get references, but they are hand-picked by the candidate. This puts internal candidates at a serious disadvantage. As a result, you lose people who could possibly be the best candidates for a position – who can move into new roles with greater speed and agility, and who come at a lower total cost.
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Tags: BYTE, candidates, interviewing
Posted in Process | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010
For many, the hardest part of the interviewing process is the uncertainty. Candidates are on the brink of life-changing decisions when they are interviewing with your organization. So, while you don’t like getting those phone calls and e-mails asking about where they are in the process, keep in mind the anxiety they are feeling. Overall, this is an expected dynamic, but it’s one that nobody has really invested in fixing.
Though this has always been an issue, a recent move by the federal government has brought a fresh perspective. A Presidential order has been issued to reform the hiring process used by the federal government in an effort to reduce time to hire, change the application process to allow resumes and eliminate application essays. These and many other changes will have to be addressed by November 1, 2010. One of the most interesting developments, though, will be the notification of candidates as to where they are in the recruiting process.
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Tags: application, BYTE, candidates, Corporate Recruiting, federal government, government, hiring, interviewing, recruiting, time to hire, USAJOBS
Posted in Process | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
According to the National Venture Capital Association, VC-backed companies are creating jobs at an impressive rate – which has significant implications for corporate recruiters. Look for your plate to fill up with reqs needing high-impact candidates, and be prepared to compete in a talent marketplace that may outpace your company’s ability to attract and close the most capable candidates!
The NVCA, through a study it completed with StartupHire.com, announced that more than 13,000 positions were posted as open (on StartUpHire) in the first quarter of 2010, a 16 percent increase from the end of 2009. VC purse strings are starting to loosen, which means the job market is starting to get the fuel it needs for growth. For corporate recruiters, the implications are obvious: positions will need to be filled.
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Tags: clean technology, cleantech, employees, hiring, information technology, interviewing, job market, life sciences, National Venture Capital Association, NVCA, outsourced recruiting, StartupHire, STREAM, talent market, talent pools, venture capital
Posted in News | No Comments »
Thursday, April 29th, 2010
If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a hundred times – You need another report? When? Admit it: the administrative side of corporate recruiting chews up your time and dilutes your effectiveness. Since close to 70 percent of your time is spent on tasks and not directly related to cultivating and securing talent, you’re clearly leaving value on the table. So, how do you get it back? Partner with KGTiger, and you can reclaim much of that time and put it to better use for your company. Here are four ways to use the KGTiger BYTE service to make your efforts more powerful within your organization.
1. Fill and manage your pipeline
It’s better to be recruiting before you need to hire. Instead of rushing to fill a req, work with KGTiger to develop a pipeline and cultivation process that will keep candidates “warm” until you’re ready to start hiring.
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Tags: BYTE, Corporate Recruiting, HR outsourcing, HRO, interviewing, operations, outsourced recruiting, talent, workload
Posted in Series Index | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
Sometimes, life just gets in the way of your next great hire. Flat tires, bad directions and spilled coffee can make promising candidates late for interviews. Even if the excuses are valid, the process nonetheless begins on an awkward note, and it’s tough to get past it – for you and your candidate. Something like traffic, essentially, can cost your company short- and long-term value. Remove these minor threats from your interviewing and hiring process, and you stack the cards in favor of you and your candidate, making merit the driving force behind your next hire.
The key to protecting your candidates from twists of fate isn’t complicated or expensive: all they need is a phone number to call. It’s strange that something so simple could be so powerful, but when you think about the hiccups that can derail an interview, they are profound. Just having someone to call can make all the difference.
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Tags: BYTE, candidates, Corporate Recruiting, hiring, hiring process, HRO, human resources, interviewing, outsourced recruiting, recruiting outsourcing
Posted in Process | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
What do you do when your instincts conflict with your approach? No doubt, you’ve been in this spot before, when you have a great candidate on paper and through the interview process … but something just doesn’t seem right. The candidate feels somehow “off.” Maybe his answers are too perfect, or her responses to certain situations seem canned. Whatever the reason, you now need to choose between what you know and what you feel.
The choice is not an easy one. A seasoned professional’s instinct is shaped by knowledge and experience, and any ol’ pro knows that to ignore a nagging feeling that something’s amiss is to assume an incredible amount of risk. Nonetheless, corporate recruiters see the value in process. We realize that the structure and discipline is crucial to both handling large (and growing) resume and candidate numbers, providing a clear basis for candidate comparison and revealing important insights.
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Tags: Corporate Recruiting, interviewing, recruiting outsourcing, STREAM
Posted in Process | No Comments »
