iCIMS Hire Expectations™

Today's blog post comes to you from a Ready Prep Interview Representative!

When it comes down to it, the primary purpose of the interviewing process is to gain assurance that whoever you hire can do the job successfully.  A situational job interview consists of a series of questions focused on drawing out the actual experience a candidate has in demonstrating the specific qualities or skills that are required to do the job. The theory behind the situational job interview is that a candidate’s past performance is one of the best indicators of future performance.

While not rocket science, here are 3 tips that will help you conduct great situational interviews and as a result hire the best candidate for the position.

Ask the Right Questions
Create a list of the qualities and skills required to do the job you are looking to fill. One of the best places to start is the job description you have created for the position.  Verify your list with current employees who hold the same position or other employees who will work with the candidate you hire.

Once you have a good list of qualities and skills required to do the job, translate them into a list of interview questions that ask for situations where the candidate has demonstrated the skill or quality.  For example, if the candidate needs to be able to accept criticism on a regular basis, you might ask “Share a time when you have received criticism about your work. What was the situation and how did you handle it?”

One resource that will help you identify questions you should consider asking is Ready Prep Interview, a website that hosts thousands of job specific situational job interview questions. Once you find the position you are interviewing for, the questions are already sorted by the importance of the quality or skill being tested so you can simply start at the top and work your way down.

Require Detailed Responses
As you already know, some candidates are better at interviewing than others. One of the most common mistakes I see a candidate make is when a candidate just tells the interviewer what he or she wants to hear instead of a real situation.  For example, when asked to provide a situation when their ethics were tested, the candidate may respond by saying that honesty is an important value to them.  As an interviewer, this doesn’t tell you much. Anyone can say that. The candidate’s response won’t help you choose them over another candidate.  Especially if another candidate gives you a detailed situation of when their ethics were tested and how they overcame it.

Don’t let a candidate’s inexperience with interviewing get in the way of you hiring them. The key is to not let your candidates off the hook too easily. Push for specific examples. Feel free to ask for details. Give your candidates every chance to provide detailed examples of how they have demonstrated the skills and qualities you are looking for.

Be Consistent and Take Good Notes
While you may want to vary some of your questions based on a candidate’s level of experience, the bulk of the questions you ask should be used for all candidates applying to the same position. The consistency will help you objectively compare one candidate to another.  If you take good notes about each response a candidate gives, you will be able to refer back to your notes when making your decision. I have found that even brief notes will help me recall my impressions about the candidate. This is especially helpful if when I interview several candidates over a relatively long period of time.

The situational job interview is a great tool to help you hire the right candidate for the job.  Ask the right questions, force your candidates to give you details, and consistently ask the same questions to each of your candidates. Follow these tips and you will get the most out of your situational job interviews.

According to a Generation Y and Facebook study done by Millennial Branding and Identified, “Owner” is the fifth most popular job title for Gen-Y on their Facebook profiles. Setting aside this subset of individuals who own their own business and focusing on those who enter the broader workforce, this study also showed that Generation Y spends an average of just over 2 years at their first job and job hops multiple times over the course of their career.

For organizations that focus recruitment efforts on the 18-29’ers of Gen Y, this can be a rough stat to digest. Given the translated cost of effort, time, and money that’s put into ramping up new hires, a continuously revolving door can result in a rough ROI and wreak havoc on employee morale.

Interesting enough, the Wynhurst Group stated that 22% of staff turnover is going to happen during the first forty-five days of employment. Fortunately, there is something that can be done to help improve those stats and simultaneously boost future performance of your employee base – implement a formal onboarding process.

When employees are processed through a formal onboarding process, they are more likely to stay with an organization for a longer period of time. Just like anything that’s new, it’s best to ensure that new hires are comfortable and understand their role in the organization and how they can make an impact. While providing the opportunity to deeply understand the bigger picture is important, we all know that there are a ton of tactical tasks and paperwork that go into onboarding a new hire that can make or break their experience with your company.

So, how do you manage all of those tasks?

The good news is that you have plenty of options. There are plenty of tools available to HR organizations that are looking for ways to smooth out the process of executing an onboarding program. Onboarding technology can assist in ensuring processes are followed and provide additional insight into where bottlenecks may consistently be occurring. With a solid onboarding process plan in place, onboarding software can take your results to the next level by formalizing your process and providing the team with a consistent set of steps that can be used to provide new hires with what they need to succeed. It’s consistency that’s going to drive your results.

By 2025, Generation Y will make up 75% of the workforce. Engage these potential job hoppers at the beginning of their journey with you, and convert them for the long haul. The returns will come in time, and your options for driving these results are endless – providing you with an opportunity to have some fun and showcase what’s so great about your company. A little creativity mixed with a formal process can go a long way, leaving your job hoppers with lots of reasons why they should stay, instead of go. 

The year 2011 has been quite an adventure for me. To date, I graduated college in May, landed my first professional job in August, and coincidentally, found two new passions of mine in September. I’m sure if you read the title of my post, you were already able to figure out that my passions landed in recruiting and fantasy football. I spend every Monday-Friday at my office, but on Sundays, I am glued to about 10 different TV screens routing on my fantasy football players. Now, you ask, what can HR recruiting teach us about fantasy football? The answers are endless.

1. The Draft: If you are a fantasy football guru, you were probably planning for the 2011 Fantasy Draft since you were born, and your knowledge well encompasses the past 10+ NFL seasons. Yes, I am being a little over the top, but still, somewhat serious so that you see my point. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for me. My NFL knowledge was slim to none until about 9 weeks ago. Instead, what I had to do was try to cram as much information about the players and teams on a shortlist as possible. I searched numerous websites, blogs, and magazines. All while thinking, wouldn’t it be nice if there was one system that could give me all of the best information I needed? This made me think of an applicant tracking system.  For recruiters, those who have an ATS find it much easier to look for the best talent. They can post to social media sites, track which candidates meet the job profile with screening questions, and so much more. If fantasy football had an ATS, I could easily track my offensive players, kickers, team defenses, and ultimately, where the best talent can be found. Bottom Line: use the best resources to find the most qualified talent.


2. Players on a Bye:  Isn’t it awesome when a running back (or any player for that matter) consistently puts up 20+ points every week?  You find yourself extremely happy until his bye week comes, and then, you scramble to find someone on your bench or the waiver wire that can help you match up. Same idea occurs when you are trying to find the right candidate to fill a key leadership position in your company. Recruiters can use succession planning to ensure their team or company still performs. After all, you can’t put in Shonn Greene (NYJ), and expect him to perform anywhere near the level that Fred Jackson (BUF) has been performing this season. Bottom Line: be prepared for the future.


3. Trade Time: If you have Aaron Rodgers (GB) as your starting quarterback, it’s safe to say you won’t be getting rid of him anytime soon (and I won’t lie, I envy you). However, if you have an above average QB on your bench such as Cam Newton (CAR), he will serve up a large amount of trade bait. What does this mean? Put Newton up on the trade block and see what you can get to improve the rest of your starting offense! Managing the players you have is so important, and recruiters know that for sure! They can use an employee data management solution to manage their entire workforce effectively. Time and money is precious, don’t you agree? That following Sunday will come before you know, and the best thing you can do is know what you need, and what measures you can take to get there. Bottom line: manage effectively.

Well there you have it! Men, I hate to break it to you, but if a woman can have a 6-2 record and be in the top 2 spots every week, it’s probably not because she’s the most sports-knowledgeable one in the league. I may have the luck factor on my side, but what really worked for me is that I found the best talent, planned ahead, and managed my team effectively. I took the strategies that recruiters should use every day, and it’s paying off for me.  Now, if only I could have that Talent Platform to keep track of my players, I could rest easy until the end of the season!

With the aftermath here in the Northeast of Hurricane Irene, and the stress of more storms to come during this hurricane season, we all remember too well who extensively exercised their preparedness and who did not.  Luckily, the storm itself wasn’t as much of a catastrophe as it had led on to be, but there were many of us that went days without power afterwards. The National Weather Service stressed how lack of preparedness can lead to hurricane disasters, especially for us as residents in a location that is not used to this kind of weather – it doesn’t hurt to be TOO prepared. 

Ready.gov released steps, “Prepare. Plan. Stay informed”, to make sure you have done everything you need to. Then, we must just hope Mother Nature isn’t too angry:

Step 1: Build a Kit/“To-Go Bag”

• Non perishables
• Water
• Battery powered or hand-crank radio
• Extra flashlights and batteries

Step 2: Make a Plan

• Evacuation Plans: plan places where your family will meet, fill your car with gas, take an emergency supply kit
• Family Communication: plan a strategy just in case you and your family aren’t together when the hurricane hits
• Shut off utilities if you need to evacuate

Step 3: Be Informed

• Educate yourself on hurricane hazards, rainfall, flooding, storm surges, tornadoes
• If not evacuating, secure storm shutters, bring outside objects indoors
• Ensure a supply of water for cleaning and flushing toilets by filling the bathtub and other large containers

No one should face a potential disaster without educating themselves and stocking up on proper supplies.

What does this, you ask, have anything to do with HR? Just like one must prepare for a hurricane, an HR professional must also have a plan in place for those unexpected resignations. Succession planning is a helpful process in seeking out and preparing internal employees to potentially fill future roles within a company.  But in order to prepare, a process needs to be set in place well ahead of time.

Deciding whether to hire internally or externally may be a difficult decision. And, while it is important to have a good mix of both types of hires, the risk associated with external hires can be greater, since you don't know exactly how they will integrate with the company. The good thing about internal players is that you already know how they work and if they have adopted company values, so the chance of success could be much higher. It is important to start considering these employees for future openings. Even if you end up hiring externally, it is essential to prepare and support current employees for those newly opened positions just in case you need someone to take over temporarily. Human Resources Executive Online has a great article that discusses this topic.

So, do you have a succession plan in place? If you don’t, it’s time to get started. Check out some educational resources, like SHRM.org, to help you optimize your succession planning process.

Another way to simplify succession planning is through automation. By making everything electronic, you’ll be able to focus more on employee training and preparation programs rather than spending time manually managing employee information. Most companies adopt succession planning solutions to do this, where you should get the following features:

• An online employee database to store all employee training and succession planning information for future reference.
• Online scheduler to help employees sign up for training sessions or complete training documents.
• Employee progress/evaluation forms to help hiring managers decide what areas internal employees need to improve.

Electronic and searchable documents provide a much more organized and easier approach than paper applications and employee progress files.  The more an HR professional is organized and has easier access to employee progress, the better the chances are for employee improvement and ultimately, internal promotions.

Yesterday, business sites were buzzing with the latest news about multinational technology giant Apple, and its fearless, er – cautious leader, Steve Jobs. Why the state of trepidation? The Central Laborers’ Pension Fund, which owns 11,484 shares of Apple, wants a formal (& public) succession plan in place for choosing a new chief executive.

So why is Jobs worried?

If you’re a regular reader of HR thought blogs and industry news – you’ve probably associated succession planning as a positive, strategic force in talent management. At the very least, you might agree with some of the questions in “The Strategy of Succession Planning” by M. Dana Baldwin:

• If there is no succession planning process, how would a company develop and nurture its human capital?
• How will you assure a continuing sequence of qualified people to move up and take over when the current generation of managers and key people retire or move on?
• How will you be able to plan for the future of the company without some assurance that the key posts will be filled with people able to carry on and excel?

Admittedly, succession planning for a CEO might be slightly more complicated than for the general workforce. In “A Practical Guide to CEO Succession Planning” author Clarke Murphy writes – The transition from one CEO to another is a critical moment in a company’s history. A smooth transition is essential to maintain the confidence of investors, business partners, customers and employees and provides the incoming CEO with a solid platform from which to move the company forward. A properly designed and executed succession plan is vital for any successful transition.

Okay, so if we know all the benefits for succession planning – then why is Apple discouraging its shareholders against the measure?

1. The succession plan would jeopardize their competitive advantage. According to Apple, a succession plan “would give the company’s competitors an unfair advantage [because] it would publicize the Company’s confidential objectives and plans”.
2. The succession plan would undermine the Company’s efforts to recruit and retain executives. “The Board believes that the Company’s success depends on attracting and retaining a superior executive team, including the CEO. A succession plan would require a report identifying the candidates being considered for CEO, as well as the criteria used to evaluate each candidate. By publicly naming these potential successors, the plan invites competitors to recruit high-value execs away from Apple. Furthermore, executives who are not identified as potential successors may choose to voluntarily leave the Company.”         

Hopefully, Apple is opposed only to the “public” part of the proposed plan, and not the idea of a succession strategy itself. Or perhaps they’ve blocked out their mid-nineties re-invention phase – in which haphazard CEO changes resulted in three-year record-low stock price and crippling financial losses. Either way – we hope that Apple understands the consequences of completely ignoring a succession plan (in addition to their self-proposed downsides of a public one).

While I graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology and thoroughly appreciate everything from Calvin to Alexander McQueen, by no means do I consider myself a fashion expert. However, there are some things that I believe should never be worn, especially when we’re talking about the workplace. For instance, a woman should never attend a work related event wearing a scantily clad velvet santa suit. Unfortunately, it’s been done. I saw it in a previous life, prior to joining iCIMS.

Maybe Human Resources forgot to include her on the new hire training schedule or she never got the memo on the corporate dress code. I’d like to give her the benefit of the doubt, but something tells me she would have donned the santa suit either way.

In any case, employee training is essential in workforce and succession planning. While it’s important to train new hires on company policies and procedures (to help avoid the onslaught of inappropriate santa suits), it’s just as important to prepare employees to fill future roles by equipping them with the right tools to successfully grow within the company. With long term planning, organizations can view their workforce holistically and plan for future opportunities.

An article recently featured in People Management, covered a study that was produced by Randstad, a recruitment solutions provider based in the UK. According to the study, employees credited the level of salary, training and development, a good career path and flexible work conditions as the most significant factors when choosing an employer. So, what did employers think would attract talent to stay with a company? Brand, culture and benefits. Looks like there’s quite a disconnect there.

Brian Wilkinson, head of Randstad UK cited, “There is a gap between what organisations think will motivate their key talent to stay with them and what their employees actually say will retain them. The research also showed that a quarter of workers, who are not actively looking, would consider changing employer if something attractive came up.”

With that said, I think it’s safe to say that Training Management and Succession Planning are vital to developing an overall strategy to retain top talent and plan for the future. By creating an organized process, employees can document and build new skill sets to prepare for challenging roles, in turn allowing the organization to proactively prepare for the long term. By building out this process, organizations can help close the gap between what an employee seeks and what they may think is helping to retain and attract top talent.

If I claimed that my middle school basketball skills would qualify me enough to speak freely on the sport itself, then I would be sadly mistaken. So, as I cannot claim to be an expert or an avid sports fan, I must admit that I did not know about this “Letter to Cleveland Fans” prior to my coworker Mike sending it over to me. Looking past its opportunity for a good laugh, I think it holds a valuable lesson for those in the HR Industry. While I don’t know the politics behind Lebron James’ decision to move to Miami, I think we can all agree that Dan Gilbert’s letter was exactly what you should not do when an employee leaves your company.

Picture this… you are ready to move on, take on new responsibilities, live someplace else, execute a change. You knock on your boss’ door. “Hi Mr./Ms. Boss, I would like to give my two weeks notice. I have been offered a new job working for X and have decided to take it. I have truly enjoyed my tenure at this company and have learned a lot, but would like to open the next chapter in my life.” Regardless of what the employee says, it is how the boss and/or HR manager replies next. Dan Gilbert decided the best and most appropriate way to respond was to do so by vehemently ousting the former Cleveland Cavalier. Now, I can’t speak from a sports perspective, but I can say that if Dan Gilbert was an HR star, he should be reprimanded for his actions and words. What do you usually say?

When an employee resigns there are many things that must happen. Here are a few important ones:

1. Take a deep breath – When an employee resigns, it usually isn’t personal. If they are telling you face-to-face and giving you two weeks notice, they respect you and the company enough to want to help with the transition. They are just moving on to the next part of their career.
2. Exit Interview – Make sure to do this. This interview will explain clearly why the employee is leaving. Utilizing this information will help recruiters with workforce planning. Moreover, it may help HR training programs. For example, if the ex-employee cites lack of training as a reason for resignation; than both the manager and HR can work on a program to eliminate this complaint for future employees. 
3. Succession Checklist from Employee – Be sure that the soon-to-be ex-employee is well aware of what knowledge they are expected to pass on to their replacement. Even if the person has not been replaced yet, explicitly written training documents will help the new hire pick up the ex-employee’s responsibilities more quickly.

Having a streamlined process to succession would ensure a couple of things. First, you have all information regarding the resignation on file to secure absolute compliance should the ex-employee bring legal issues to the table. Secondly, you will be able to refer to the ex-employee’s exit information, which will then enable you to strategize for workforce planning, recruiting, and onboarding.

To reiterate, the resignation is not just an isolated incident that has no affect on other processes in the HR process. On the contrary, it’s a spider web, intertwining and connecting in more ways than one. Every HR related action affects most steps in the talent lifecycle and beyond into entire business performance (see HR strategy).

• Workforce Planning – As you probably know, collecting data regarding all resignations is important for allowing HR professionals to analyze when their “hiring seasons are”, when employees tend to leave, why employees tend to leave, and much more.
• Recruiting – This is simple. When an employee resigns, it is essential to replace the employee. Therefore, it is important to thoroughly understand the details of the job, in order to find the best candidate suitable for the job. 
• Onboarding – If the employee left for professional development reasons (see Exit Interview), your onboarding process could be reevaluated. i.e. Provide more trainings. Create more outside employee job-specific trainings.
• Performance Review – Were the resignation reasons not touched upon in the performance review? Should they have been?

Processes must be efficient and results must be easily accessible, as they are all intertwined.

Now, how to best search for a replacement. And should this be an easy thing? Yes. Although succession planning can’t predict the future, it does enable recruiters to decrease the “downtime” it takes to find a replacement. If there is a plan in place that can be rolled out when an employee quits, hiring a replacement will be less stress-inducing.

For example, an IT manager quits.

1. Evaluate skills needed from IT manager’s past employee performance reviews and ascertain skills required of the job.
2. Evaluate current employees for promotion utilizing past training surveys, performance reviews and employee recommendations. 
3. If no employee qualifies, look outside the organization, utilizing high-powered searches to sort through the qualified from the unqualified. 
4. Once a candidate is found and hired; refer to the ex-employee’s exit interview to ensure the new hire does not face the same problems.

Of course there may be steps in between, but their are two main points to make here. First, don't react like Dan Gilbert. Second, accumulate all the data you need to be prepared for succession when an employee resigns. If both of these are points are accomplished, finding a replacement won't be so difficult.

Many economists say that the worst of the recession is over and unemployment will decline as the recovery takes hold.  Undoubtedly, recruiters will soon find themselves busy with more positions to fill, less time to fill them, and a more aggressive talent landscape to compete in.  Unfortunately, the post-recession rush for talent may not be the worst of what’s to come.  Even now, as companies are rushing to ready their talent acquisition systems for the recovery, they may be ignoring a much larger and more pressing issue: the baby boomer exodus from the workforce.

According to a report by the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College, 77 percent of employers have not analyzed projected employee retirement rates or assessed employee career plans.  In other words, employers are largely unaware of the true impact the baby boomer exodus will have.  In 2000, baby boomers were 48% of the US labor force.  By 2010, they’re projected to represent only 37% of the labor force.  This decline would represent a shortage of 10-15 million workers in the next decade alone.

 Maybe it’s time to start analyzing.

The talent gaps created by experienced and skilled baby-boomers leaving the work force will be large.  Even if most of the replacements for those workers come from within the company, many new hires will still be needed to replace the replacements.  There is no way around the problem: new candidates will be needed and in large numbers. 

So how can we prevent a complete catastrophe?

The good news is that great candidates are still out there looking.  Now is the time to start building relationships with candidate pools in order to identify those individuals who truly stand above the rest.  When hiring freezes are lifted and new positions open up, a truly excellent recruiting team will already have candidates in mind.  Remember that the candidates being hired today will be in line for those leadership positions currently held by baby-boomers, make sure to catch some good ones.

As far as Talent Technology is concerned, employers should ensure that they have a proper Workforce Planning and Applicant Tracking System in place.  The worst outcome by far would be for employers to miss out on the best candidates because they were unprepared for the exodus or were inundated with low-quality resumes.

In summary, here are the steps for success:

1.       Identify the potential impact of the baby boomer exodus on your business

2.       Use Succession Planning tools to properly identify replacements from within the company and Workforce Planning to identify the additional staffing levels needed to fill the gaps

3.       Build candidate relationships through career fairs and ongoing interviews. Leveraging Candidate Relationship Management tools (CRM), frequently reach out to your candidates of choice to see how they are doing and update them on positions within your company

4.       Make sure that processes are in place to properly screen out low-quality candidates in order to save recruiters the time they need to properly evaluate good candidates

5.       Get started early and be ready!