Interviewing job applicants is the most important step in making hiring decisions, and the most difficult.  In my past blogs I have discussed various aspects of job applicant screening.  In this one we look at the main goals of interviewing:  Find out what the candidate knows, learn how their work skills have been tested in past work situations and where their aptitudes lie for future planning. 

Typically in a one-hour interview the hiring manager will ask 10-12 questions, and these questions should be geared to learning as much as you can in regards to the above goals.  However, there is a lot of prep time to hone these questions to produce the desired results.

Noah Apodaca, recruiter for UC Irvine, wrote an article for the Society for Human Resource Management newsletter (shrm.org) on what to ask and how to ask it to get the best response from your candidates.    The questions need to give the candidate an opportunity to share their skills and experience

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So here are a few examples of good/bad ways to ask the questions:
* Don’t ask: “Why do you want to work here/want this job?”  This elicits a response on how great the company is and what a great opportunity they have.  In fact the basic reason is that the candidate needs to make money!
* Ask instead – “What particular skills or experiences make you the best match for this position?”, or even more behavioral-based:  What would your most recent supervisor say are the skills that make you the best-qualified candidate for this position?”  This allows them to highlight the things they found to be important from researching the company and the position.
* Don’t ask:  “Where do you see yourself in five years?”  The obvious answer is with the company providing great contributions to the organization.  This gives you no insight on the candidate’s vision concerning professional growth.
* Ask instead – “Where does this position fall in your career path?”  This is more open ended, and also lets you see whether the candidate does have a vision or sees this job as a destination job.
* Don’t ask: “What was the worst thing about your last employer?”  This encourages the candidate to whine, or in the least, break professional decorum.
* Ask instead – “What aspects of your previous  position did you find most professionally challenging?”  This allows candidates to reflect on how they felt their skills matched the challenges of their most recent workplace, and even to suggest how they would improve that situation. 

This is just a short list of the types of interview questions that can be helpful to managers in trying to find the best person for the job.  It is difficult, but a good outcome is rewarding both for the manager and the company.  Good luck!

Tags: candidates, hiring process, hiring talent, recruiting

As most economic writers will tell you, it is the small business sector in our country that adds the most jobs to our economy.  As a matter of fact large businesses (over 500 employees) have reduced the number of employees significantly in the last few years.  Thus job seekers are feeling the pinch as new business startup statistics are the lowest since the 1990s. 
An article in USA Today Small Business provided a summary from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  For the 12 months ending in March 2010 there were 505,000 new business startups – the weakest growth since the bureau started tracking this stat in the 1990s.  Other publications have tracked current trends and say the outlook is not very rosy (National Federation of Independent Business).  After steady increases through early February, the optimism index dipped for March and April of this year. 
The lack of new business is attributed by many to the lack of consumer spending.  Sales trends are down, and there is a lot of uncertainty about what is next.  Also companies are worried about what will happen in the next year in U.S. Government. 
This news impacts our unemployment issues. National unemployment statistics hover at 9%, and an article in the Financial Times said that the “basic unemployment” percent (people between jobs or permanently unemployed) may not ever get back down to the 3% level we’ve held for years.  For every “opportunity” for growth in an industry there is a balancing economic factor that may dampen that growth. One example was the optimistic view that companies might move manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. because of rising costs overseas.  The pessimistic view is that these same companies will adopt more technologies that would replace these very jobs! 
There is an interesting factor in all this news.  Technology companies (mostly small businesses) and technology jobs continue to make gains, and there are jobs going begging.  The reason – the workforce lacks the skills to fill these positions.  One article talked about the loss of jobs in the construction sector, and the need for trained workers in the healthcare industry…and these skills don’t cross over.  There are also jobs to be had in IT, and even in skilled manufacturing. 
There is no easy answer to the problem.  There is hope for the job seeker with technology or IT skills, but it will require time and patience to find the best match.  Keep hunting!

Tags: hiring process, Hiring Trends, industry news, job seeker attitudes, retraining, technical jobs

Employers know that verifying a job applicant’s educational credentials is an important part of any background check.  Usually that confirmation consists of a letter or phone call to the educational institution requesting the applicant’s dates of attendance and any degrees or certificates awarded.  That isn’t enough in the current diploma market! 

The economic climate and lack of enough qualified applicants for certain occupations has resulted in a rash of diploma mills in this country and abroad. In addition, the popularity of distance learning programs has made it easier to provide phony educational credentials.  In the last year, the number of such institutions was up 48%, according to an article on the Society for Human Resource Management website.  Many of these institutions offer educational degrees and certificates to foreign workers eager to enter the US market.   As of this month, the report states that 1008 such institutions have been identified in the United States. 

In addition to the fake documents, the employer may also have difficulty in verifying that an educational diploma abroad is equivalent to one issued in the US.  Hiring employees who don’t have legitimate credentials, or who don’t have equivalent training from abroad, exposes employers to significant risk.  There should be as much of an emphasis on checking educational backgrounds as in checking any other factors in the process.

Many HR professionals are unaware of the magnitude of the $1 billion international diploma mill industry, and are not validating the issuing institution.  Suggestions by one background check service suggestion that U.S. schools can be validated through the U.S. Department of Education or the Council on Higher Education Accreditation.  Verifying the legitimacy of foreign institutions requires more effort, but any professional background check should be able to provide information.  (wikipedia has a fairly thorough list, though they caution that it is by no means the last word).

Tags: hiring process, hiring talent, industry news, recruiters

There was an interesting story on CBS Sunday Morning on April 3 concerning unemployment among baby boomers.  They opened the story at a Florida job fair where there were 2000 applicants, many of which looked closer to retirement age.  The premise was that people over 50 are having a hard time getting hired if they have been laid off. 
Here are some interesting statistics:  people over 50 are actually less likely to be laid off, but those who are struggle to find new opportunities.  Laid –off workers 34 or younger have a 36% chance of finding a new job within a year, according to the story.  For those in their 50’s or older it is only 24%.  For job seekers over 62 the number is even lower. 
There was a survey done by a Texas A&M professor in which over 4000 fictitious resumes were sent out in response to job ads, using high school graduation dates from the late ‘50’s to 1986.  The survey found that employers were 40% more likely to go for the younger applicants. 
That’s a real problem because more and more boomer are continuing to work as their retirement nest egg shrinks.  These people are a new underclass that could end up being a huge burden on the government.  Many are finding jobs well below their skill levels, which also affects their ability to save. Some are giving up all together and using unemployment benefits as they can – or finding other ways to get by.
Why the differences?  There is a perception that older workers will cost more, that their benefits will cost more, and that they are more demanding in their jobs.  There is also the idea that folks slow down with age, even though this older generation is a lot more healthy and energetic than those in the past.  Ultimately many employers are opting for “young and cheap” versus mature and experienced. 
So – my question is, is this really true for high tech companies?  It seems that technology companies, especially new ones, need experienced professionals to help them grow and be successful.  In the searches on our job site, nmtechjobs.org, many of the opportunities say “experience preferred”.  True, there is a choice between a newly graduated PhD with no experience and the latest info vs. a veteran who knows the ropes.  Also true that the more cutting edge tech companies have products so new that there aren’t likely to be very many with appropriate experience for the technology.  In the end, the industry does value and need its experienced workers.  Good luck!

Tags: hiring process, hiring talent, Hiring Trends, job seeker, recruiting

I find it very interesting that articles on how to retain your employees and how to hire successfully are intimately intertwined.  The overall assumption is that if you interview carefully, you and the candidate will have a long and happy life together. 
As a job applicant, the same rules apply.  For every “suggested question” the interviewer/recruiter asks, you need to ask others to find out what you need to know about the job.  
Some suggested reasons for why employees might not stay, gathered from resource Profiles International, are as follows:
* Inadequate capability
* Poor job fit
* Fuzzy goals and accountabilities
* Poor relationship with manager
* Poor relationship with co-workers
* Health and wellness issues
* Physical and environmental factors
On the other hand, Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has an article on its site listing the three main goals of a good interview:
* Find out as much as possible about what the candidate knows.
* Learn how their work skills have been applied and tested in work situations.
* Determine where their aptitudes lie, defining the path of future growth and development.

If you glance between the two, it appears that the interview list covers most of the “why they leave” list.  Health and wellness and environmental factors may be harder to control for, but the rest seems to fit. 
The SHRM article gives some great advice – check your interview questions (and expected answers) against the interview goals and make sure they mesh.  Also ask the questions to get the best personal insight from the interviewee. 
One sample question, asked two ways, illustrates the management part of the interview.  The general question “where do you see yourself in five years” is fairly open-ended (they might have a terminal illness!) and won’t get the best response.  Instead “Where does this position fall along your career path” provides the opportunity for a more specific response.
Again, as a job seeker, give real thought to these questions, as you want to make sure this opportunity is a fit for you.  You need to give the prospective employer a chance to know you, to avoid the “misfit” thing.
Of course the one event no one can protect against is a major change in leadership, or even in business focus.  Therefore the employer should always be looking for people who are flexible and willing to learn who can make the sudden leaps that sometime happen in the current business environment.
As usual, good luck!

Tags: candidates, employee morale, hiring process, job seeker attitudes, recruiting