"It's important for managers to keep their company and team values in mind when framing interview questions," says Jennifer Kraszewski. (Photo: Shutterstock)
All of the headlines about the "Great Resignation" tend to overlook one key consequence: The great hiring spree. As employees embark on new career journeys, HR departments and hiring managers are scrambling to fill the empty roles.
Unfortuantely, in many industries, it's an employees' market, and companies might find that their ideal candidates getting snapped up by a competitor or better offer. Today's hiring process is less about competition between qualified candidates and more about hiring managers being able to out-compete.
Jennifer Kraszewski, vice president of human resources, Paycom Jennifer Kraszewski, Paycom's vice president of human resources, recently shared with BenefitsPRO some of her advice for hiring managers as they look to fill open roles in our new era of work. Kraszewski has more than 20 years of HR leadership experience, driving transformative, business-focused human capital strategies in high-growth industries to achieve efficiencies, compliance and employee engagement.
What are the top questions that hiring managers should ask to determine if a candidate has the right skills for the role?
Analyzing a candidate's fit for a role is critical — not only for making sure you're onboarding the right person, but also to ensure they support the existing team effectively. To do so, I always recommend hiring managers ensure they have clearly defined the competencies for the role. Applying that filter to each question allows a hiring manager to confirm candidates understand the competencies that it takes to be successful, while simultaneously giving them an opportunity to address how they have put skills into action in the past. How they have performed in the past is a good predictor of future behavior.
To put this into practice, during an interview, a hiring manager should consider posing requests such as, "Give us a time when a scenario like this happened." Follow-up questions can then focus on exploring what a candidate took away from an experience, what they learned and what motivates them. It can serve as a good measure of how a candidate will perform in the specific role a company is hiring for and the skills they have on hand.
What should a hiring manager do during an interview to communicate their company's culture?
It's important for managers to keep their company and team values in mind when framing interview questions; this will help to find candidates who share these same values. And when a candidate asks about your company's values, they want to hear about your experience — not just what a company would include on its website. Tell them about how the team has supported you and what keeps you at the company. Be honest and let your passion shine through. This conversation allows both sides to assess if it's a good fit.
For culture, this should be defined by the company's leadership and its people. Let candidates experience the culture for themselves from the moment they meet with a recruiter. More importantly, don't forget to maintain that connection with candidates in the window between the offer and their first day of work. By communicating well and leveraging technology to implement pre-onboarding, you are building rapport and highlighting your culture early and often so they can hit the ground running.
Hiring has become more about impressing candidates than seeing if they are a fit due to the labor shortage. What should companies do to do this successfully?
Position your company and team positively, but don't shy away from tough, pointed questions either.
Additionally, for businesses to compete in the marketplace, they must embrace the digital reality around them by implementing the right tech to attract, hire and even onboard their employees. According to Gallup, only 12% of U.S. employees felt their company does well onboarding new hires. Onboarding that begins before an employee's first day on the job reduces the time spent on procedural, housekeeping items, allowing organizations the opportunity to engage new hires in areas unique to their business. A variety of tools are available, but businesses should invest in technology that's seamless and covers the entire employee life cycle — even better if it's all in one system or database.
Also, no matter what the labor market is like, it's imperative that you provide candidates a great interview experience and follow your established processes. You aren't doing anyone any favors if you overreact to current events by throwing process and best practices out of the window. By doing this, you maintain the integrity of your brand and keep the candidate as an option, should they be a good fit for another role down the line.
How can hiring managers best answer questions like "What is the day-to-day of the job like?" and "How do you measure success?"
When answering a question about granular details of a job, be honest and give examples. This will help someone know what to expect and truly assess the opportunity to determine their interest level.
Ideally, candidates should already have a good sense of the job and culture. If employers are building out their brand and publishing blogs, social media and videos catered to candidates, then a lot of these questions can be answered prior to the first interview. Shaping an employer brand relies heavily on managing your reputation across platforms. Take an honest look at the story you're telling online and see how it reflects the actual employee experience.
Discussing how to be successful is also critical. Talk about the KPIs you use and give the why behind each of those factors.
Can you share general tips for hiring managers/HR teams to make their hiring efforts as successful as possible?
There a few key tips companies should keep in mind so their hiring efforts can be efficient and effective.
It's critical that hiring managers and teams are aligned on the hiring profile. A misalignment can create a disconnect where mismatched candidates are brought in that don't fit the team's needs or expectations.
Make sure it's clear who is covering what during the interview process. This will prevent duplicate questions from being asked. Perhaps one team member can ask about professional history and another can focus on future goals. Regardless, when developing a plan, make sure you focus on the candidate experience. It's not just about impressing the candidates, but also making sure they understand the long-term expectations and what working at your company would truly be like for them.
Move quickly throughout the entire hiring process. Especially now, candidates are getting recruited left and right, so time is of the essence. Leverage technologies to make this as seamless as possible. For example, the right applicant tracking software can help streamline the hiring process by automatically posting jobs to online job boards, helping hiring managers see all candidate information in one place and moving candidates through all steps of the process — including background screening — all in one seamless experience. Any misses or hiccups give other companies a chance to bring that candidate on board before you can even make an offer, something that is happening more often due to the talent shortage.
Be sure to follow up with candidates after the interview. Even if someone isn't a fit, it's important to keep the door open. The candidate could be good for another role in the future, and relationship management is key.
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