Recruiting Employees: People Are Your Most Important Resource

Behavioral Interview Questions and Free Recruiting Software

Recruiting employees is a challenge; it's more than asking job interview questions. You can hire more successfully by using free recruiting software and asking behavioral interview questions to understand how a candidate will perform in specific work-related scenarios.

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In today's business environment, job applicants are well trained and well prepared to answer most job interview questions.

Note: While it's good that applicants care enough about the interview to prepare for it, this can be like students cramming for a test, passing the test with flying colors, but not really retaining any of the knowledge.

Just because a job applicant has all the right answers - and is well studied and well prepared - doesn't mean that they are a good fit for your company.

Behavioral Interview Questions:

To better assess the job applicant’s fit, you need to develop some behavioral interview questions. Ask questions about how an employee would behave and act in a certain set of circumstances that are a reflection of your working environment. Develop these behavioral interview questions (or scenarios) in advance and make sure that the questions cover areas of strength and weakness within your organization.

For example, if you know that your quote turn-around time is too long to satisfy customers, you might ask a question that relates to that:

What would you do to shorten the time-in to the time-out of the quotation cycle? Draw on your own experiences to explain (the job applicants won’t know your system or environment so they have to use past experience but that is useful information in your assessment of their skills and behaviors).

More Job Interview Questions:

• An unhappy customer is in an open area and starts raising his voice while expressing his frustration. How do you handle this?

• A dissatisfied customer calls in and wants to return a non-returnable product because she is unhappy with what she bought. How do you handle this?

• A co-worker is always coming in late, leaving early, or taking long breaks – you have to continually cover for that person. How do you handle this?

• Your supervisor is short-tempered, doesn’t listen to you, and micro-manages everything you do. How do you handle this?

There are no obvious right answers. There are some very obvious wrong answers (i.e. yelling back at the unhappy customer would be wrong). What these types of situational or behavioral interview questions do, is allow you to see how this potential employee would handle everyday stresses and strains of working in your organization. Is the person a good fit? Would the addition of the individual help make the workplace, the services, the organization better? If the answer is yes, hire them.

Other Recruiting Employees Tactics:

Job Recruiting Software, Including Free Recruiting Software

If you need to hire on a frequent basis (seasonal work, growing business, changing business, etc.), you might want to consider job recruiting software, particularly some of the free recruiting software available. A number of the software programs have free software available at a base or trial level. They are worth checking out online.

What Can Free Recruiting Software Do For Your Recruiting Employees Program?

• Tracks applicant’s information; including job applied for, education, experience, salary information.
• Tracks applicant’s contact information.
• Matches data on the application form and job requirements – looks for key word matches.
• Tracks interactions: phone calls, phone interviews, mail, in-person interview, answers to job interview questions (providing you input that data).
• Helps you rank and select applicants for interviews based on job criteria and resume matches.

Recruiting software is useful in helping you to narrow your search and select from a large pool of talent. You still need to do face-to-face interviews to be successful in recruiting employees who are a best-fit for your organization and who will contribute effectively to your business.

It is important, even more so in a small business with limited staff, to hire employees that are right for the job and for your business. By using focused job interview questions - that are aligned to job descriptions - and behavioral interview questions, along with accessing free recruiting software, you will be more successful in recruiting employees.

Recruiting employees is time consuming work for a small business owner. And, unfortunately, job applicants have become very sophisticated in their applications and their interview techniques. It all can sound very good to you when you’re desperate for some help in your business. But many applicants just want a job, not necessarily the right job for themselves or for you.

It becomes your job to develop job descriptions, ensure that the employee compensation package is competitive (and affordable), advertise the position available, screen, interview and assess those who have the ability to be the best-fit applicants - it is a waste of your time and money if firing employees that you've recently hired is the outcome or if they quit because the fit is wrong.

Human resources, specifically in terms of recruiting employees and managing the whole process of hiring new employees, can be contracted out - there are some significant advantages of outsourcing human resources work.

For example, I’ve provided support on the basis of 8 hours of time per month to small business owners. This time commitment can be ramped up or down depending on the needs of the company.

You may want to consider contracting one of the human resources consultants who specialize in recruiting to at least do the advertising and initial screening, and perhaps handle the testing. Or you may want the firm to all the work right up to the selection of the best candidate.

Remember that it is hard to find good people, who can do all the things you need them to do, who can learn quickly, who will stay a while, and who will fit into your business and your culture. Do it right – successfully recruiting employees means hire effectively.

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Read More:

Visit Employee Handbook Guidelines to find out how to develop your own policies and practices handbook.

Visit Performance Evaluations and Sample Performance Evaluations to see how you can effectively write appraisals that help employees improve performance and set goals.

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