Time to brush up on your interview etiquette(Recruiter’s Guide Part 2)
The theme this year for Jobonics has been employer branding and in particular, treating recruiting like dating. It’s a courtship where both sides go through a series of steps and experiences to determine if they are the right fit for each other. A candidate once said “You have to like the company. They have to like you. It has to be the right time and the right job.” Dating is thus the most crucial part of relationship building. That’s why most couples are usually advised that 2 years is better than 1, 4 better than 2, and so forth. Dating can reveal very important details that you would have wished you had known earlier if you ended up in a bad relationship. Details we have highlighted here before. But while the internet is filled with tips for candidates, we have also noticed bad behaviors exhibited by recruiters during interviewing that might as well cost you a good candidate.
“A candidate will remember how you made them feel, long after they remember what you said, or did.”
“In an era of transactional keyword-matching & ‘dumbing down’ of recruitment, now is the time for differentiation through brand & reputation”
-Greg Savage(Twitter)
1. Before the Interview (i.e preparing for the date)
The call/invitation- Every piece of communication between you and the candidate has to be formal. Including the telephone invitation. Make sure to follow this up with an email reminder as well. This should be done even though the candidate verbally accepted the invite.
Include as much detail as possible about the interview and in good time. Who will be there, what kind of interview is it, link to the job description, some companies even include areas that will be tested, directions ideally a Google Map Link, or a pictogram, time & dates, Skype details if it’s an online interview etc. Remember to also express how excited you are to meet them & learn more about them. The goal is to make the candidate experience as human & friendly as possible.
An email is preferred also as a way for the candidate to follow up in case of any questions before the interview. For more on this, check out https://medium.com/jobonics/hr-meets-marketing-part-4-email-campaigns-309d1061b632
Make sure everyone on the hiring team is well-versed with the job details and potentially trained on interview etiquette. The worst thing you want to happen is for one of your team members to sound ridiculous or out of rhythm.
2. During the interview (The Date)
Do your research beforehand. Do not waste precious interview time by asking irrelevant questions to the applicant. Instead of asking questions such as “Take me through your biodata”, you should be asking very specific questions that the CV is not revealing such as “Why did you leave company X, Tell me more about what you did at XYZ concerning ABC, You mentioned in your CV that you handled training, tell me more about how you would go about XYZ.” As we discussed in our Part 1 article, “ Think about the common guidelines for candidates and turn them around to apply to the employer.”
Be prepared to sell your company by answering some of the questions candidates may ask you including queries on salary, management, culture, job description, etc. I once asked a recruiter about a negative review on Glassdoor about the company.
Put your best foot forward by being professional throughout the time.
With diversity & inclusion being on top of recruiters' minds in 2018, review your interview process to check for any questions that may be biased or discriminatory. In the LinkedIn 2018 report, companies are also advised to move from seeking ‘culture fit’ to ‘culture add’ as a way to improve their culture. Beware of interview bias and train the interviewers on some of the shortcomings of the interview process that are leading many recruiters to adopt new hiring techniques like job tryouts of AI-powered hiring.
3. Post Interview (After the date)
Whether the date(interview) went well or not, you want to leave the candidate with a great first impression about you and your company. Remember most candidates will share about their experiences online which may cost you a great deal.
Follow up with a thank you email after the interview and express your gratitude about them attending it giving you their time and sharing about themselves.
If they are not the best candidate for the job at the moment, it’s also recommended that you communicate the same. Go a step further and give them actionable feedback about what they did right or wrong or why they were not the best fit. You can even recommend them to another employer who may be looking for them. This moves it from a transactional process to a relational one and you turn the process to a strategic one through Candidate Relationship Management. Do not also lie to the candidate in any way and don’t make ‘promises’ you can’t keep such as saying ‘we will contact you if a suitable role comes up in the future’ yet you know you won’t. Lastly, the best companies want to know what they can always improve. In this article, we shared tips on hiring metrics and the importance of data in the hiring function. Ask your candidates for feedback about the interview & application processes and even employer brand perception. 3–5 well-crafted questions can cover all these. You can’t improve what you can’t measure.
In conclusion, the future of HR is not more tech but more human interaction. Working on your candidate experience will improve your employer brand greatly and you will soon start to see the benefits.
Here’s part 1 of the recruiter’s guide and here are tips for virtual interviews.
Still looking for more, read our follow-up article 6 Habits of Highly ineffective recruiters here.
