Avoid These Errors in Hiring and Recruiting

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Background Check, candidate Selection, dfw head hunter, discrimination, Errors in Hiring, Hiring and Recruiting, locating professionals, recruiting dallas, social media check, staffing agency, trend personnel services

by Stephen Bruce, PhD, PHR 

Making Poor Selection Decisions

Especially if you have not done a good job of gathering information about candidates, it’s easy to rely on one of these misleading factors:

• Halo. This means being swayed by one factor that’s great while ignoring other important factors that are poor.
• Recency. This means being swayed by one recent triumph while ignoring past failures.
• Extraneous. This means being swayed by an unimportant factor like successes in areas not related to the job.
• Glibness. This happens when you have an inspiring and enjoyable chat but fail to get around to talking about business.
• Background. This means being swayed by an impressive degree or a list of impressive people and companies with whom the person has worked, while ignoring the fact that there is no evidence the person can do the job.

Failing to “Test” Key KSAs 

If there is a key knowledge, skill, or ability that you can test, don’t rely on the interview.

For example, if hiring a writer, have the person write something in your style. (By the way, such testing tends to reduce the importance of the interview—if the person can write, you want him or her, and if the person can’t write, you don’t, even if the person is entertaining, knowledgeable, bright, and sociable.)

Failure to Do a Reasonable Background Check

There are turkeys and eagles and you want to hire eagles. Unfortunately, many turkeys are skilled at looking like eagles during the interview. And that’s where the background check comes in.

Talk to former bosses, verify education and certification, and do other checks as appropriate. Make the attempt to talk to former employers even if they won’t tell you much; it’s important to show that you did what you could in case there is ever a claim of negligent hiring (“You should have known that this person had a history of violence.”).

Overeager on Social Media Research

Should you do a social media check? The pros are that you may obtain a seemingly truer look at the candidate. Unfortunately, there’s a tradeoff, and that is, you’re likely to find out information you don’t want, like race, disability, etc. As they say, you can’t unring that bell, and it opens you up to future charges of discrimination that wouldn’t have held water if you hadn’t done the check.

Overeager hiring managers are likely to fall into this trap without training. To avoid this if you are doing social media background checks, most experts recommend the following:

• Delay the check until late in the hiring process when you probably know most of the protected information.
• Have a third party (could be HR or an outside agency) and report only appropriate information.
• Avoid any deception in accessing sites.
• If you find something negative and deny employment on that basis, print the page out to document what you found.

http://trendpersonnel.com/en/news/item/117-avoid-these-errors-in-hiring-and-recruiting

Can a Sense of Humor Win over a Hiring Manager?

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CareerBuilder study, direct hire employees, Hiring, hiring dfw, how to ace an interview, influence a hiring manager’s decision, interview answers, jobs in dallas, jobs rockwall, qualified candidates, staffing dallas, trend personnel services, Win over a Hiring Manager

by Elaine Quayle

A new study looked beyond the typical attributes, like background, certifications, etc., and found that a sense of humor, an eye for fashion, or even knowledge of pop culture can influence a hiring manager’s decision.

The nationwide CareerBuilder study asked employers if they had two equally qualified candidates, which factors would make them more likely to consider one candidate over another.

Their responses included,:

• …with the better sense of humor—27 percent
• …who is involved in his or her community—26  percent
• …who is better dressed—22 percent
• …whom I have more in common with—21 percent
• …who is more physically fit—13 percent
• …who is more on top of current affairs and pop culture—8 percent
• …who is more involved in social media—7 percent
• …who is knowledgeable about sports—4 percent

The survey also asked managers for traits that would take an employee out of the running for a promotion. Top responses included, “Someone  who…”:

• …says, “That’s not my job”—71 percent
• …is often late—69 percent
• …has lied at work—68 percent
• …takes credit for other people’s work—64 percent
• …often leaves work early—55 percent
• …takes liberties with expenses charged back to the company—55 percent

http://trendpersonnel.com/index.php/en/news/item/116-can-a-sense-of-humor-win-over-a-hiring-manager

Critical Hiring Mistakes

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carrollton hiring, dallas job seekers, dfw careers, Hiring Mistakes, hiring the wrong person, Interviewing Carelessly, low morale, poor productivity, recruiters and hiring managers tips, staffing agency rockwall, staffing firm texas, trend personnel services, trendhr

by Stephen Bruce

Selecting the right people is so basic to success, yet many managers do it poorly, due to either haste or ignorance. Here are critical mistakes for recruiters and hiring managers to avoid.

1. Failing to Clarify What You Are Looking For

Everyone’s in a hurry to fill  a vacant position. But filling a job fast will never make up for hiring the wrong person. What’s a few weeks compared to a mismatch between person and job?  That’s going to result in poor productivity, low morale (not just for the  person but also for coworker), a termination, and often, a lawsuit.

‘Just replace Sally.’

Think about filling the job,  not replacing the person. Whenever there’s an opening, it’s a chance to take a  look at the organization chart and the strategy just to be sure that hiring someone to the old job description is still a wise idea. Perhaps anticipated changes suggest that someone with a different skill set would be a better fit for the long term.

2. Failure to Cast a Wide Net

It seems simple to hire today—hit one of the big job boards and go at it. But most experts recommend using more than one source for candidates. It will improve the candidate pool and support diversity initiatives.

3. Interviewing Carelessly, Poorly, Inconsistently, or Illegally

Carelessly. Careless interviewing, that is, being  unprepared or casual or both, results in not gathering enough information to make a reasonable hiring decision. In addition, that lack of interest will  leave the best candidates unimpressed.

Poorly. Poor interviewing techniques again  lead to not getting the information you need to make a good selection. For example, asking yes/no questions, fails to probe deeper than the first (often  prepared) answer the candidate gives.

Inconsistently. It’s best to conduct similar interviews and evaluations with all the candidates. Naturally, they won’t be the same word for word, but you should cover the same ground. If you cover past  accomplishments with one candidate, future vision with another, and local sports with a third, how will you make a rational choice?

Illegally. All interviewers need to be trained  to avoid questions or comments that can appear to be discriminatory, for example, questions about gender, race, national origin, religion, and age. The courts will assume that you asked the questions because you needed that  information to make your decision. That leaves you wide open for a discrimination lawsuit based on asking the question.

 

http://trendpersonnel.com/index.php/en/news/item/115-critical-hiring-mistakes

5 Most Important Interview Questions You’re Not Asking

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applicant interview behavior, dallas staffing agency, dfw jobs, follow-up questions, important interview questions, interview process, Interview Questions to ask, now hiring dallas, trend personnel, trend staffing, trendhr

by Chris Ceplenski

The 5 most important questions are actually variations on common interview themes. The tweaks are important, however, because they completely change the information solicited from the applicant.

Here are the 5 most important interview questions you’re probably not asking:

1. Tell me about your very first paying job.

The standard question is: ‘Tell me about your last job.’ What does every single person have an absolute canned answer for? Their last job. Asking instead about their first job lets you begin to see what type of person you’re interviewing. Ask follow-up questions that establish where they progressed, which will tell you their capacity to take on additional responsibilities. Ask them what they learned along the way.

2. Tell me about the achievements in your life you are most proud of and the obstacles or problems you had to overcome to achieve them.

Give the applicant time to think about what they want to say. In fact, throughout the interview process, let silence work for you. Don’t help them answer the questions. What you’re looking for with this question is to see how they solve problems. See how they overcome issues.

3. Tell me about your last performance appraisal.

It doesn’t matter the outcome, just ask about it and ask how they felt about it and whether they got a copy of it. (If yes, they could bring it – it may be more useful to you than a reference!)

4. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rank yourself as a [job title]? Why did you give yourself that number?

It doesn’t matter what the number is, unless they say they’re a 10. If they do, you may consider highlighting that even the best professionals can always learn more. If they still insist they are a 10, consider not hiring them—if you hire them, they may not be the type of person who is inclined to learn.

The second part is the more important part of the question—to see what rationale they give behind the chosen number. It will tell you a lot about that person and their ability level. Ask probing questions if appropriate. Follow up by asking what it would take to move up to the next number. This lets them explain what they need to do better or what they want to learn next. In interviews, many interviewers ask about strengths and weaknesses, but this question format avoids a canned response. It also allows someone to explain what they can do better without actually asking them about weaknesses.

5. What one question would you like to ask me? Of all the questions you could have asked, why did you choose that one?

This question does not have to be the last one you have, but it’s important to ask it at some point. The second half is more important than the question they chose. In fact, don’t answer their initial question—follow up with the second half of it first to see why they want to know. This lets you see what the applicant finds important.

If you’re looking to really find out who the person is – the behavior, the skills, the capacity – these five questions will get to the core of the individual.

http://trendpersonnel.com/index.php/en/news/item/114-5-most-important-interview-questions-you-re-not-asking