Posts tagged "interview"

This is not How You Hire Top Talent

February 28, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

The methods of recruiting vary from one recruiter to the other. In fact, a recruiter tends to have styles of recruiting which are unique to him. While the overall goal of recruiters is to get a quality and capable candidate for the job. But it has been observed that recruiters often fail to do so.

Due to the variation and unconventional styles of recruiting employed by recruiters, a fair deal of errors has been incorporated. This article seeks to examine the blunders associated with hiring and also suggests possible panacea to correcting the mistakes. The mistakes include:

Salary Attractiveness

Candidates tend to go for jobs with the highest possible salary available. Some candidates create themselves very high and will demand salaries that is excessive. Of course, this is subject to negotiations, but recruiters usually fail at this, leading to wasting of the applicants’ time.

Money is the most important factor that determines the choice of job for candidates. It is therefore usually surprising that recruiters at times decide not to include the range of salary in their job description. This will naturally lead to major problems, which includes:

Wasting the applicant’s time – The effort such a person has put into applying for the job is also wasted.
There is the likelihood of receiving applications from a whole lot of people – both experienced and inexperienced. This proliferation of applications makes it difficult for you to meticulously examine each applicant.

The solution is to make sure you highlight any privilege that the candidate would enjoy. You should also state the salary you want to offer in clear terms.

Not Calling, Texting, or Replying

Sometimes, job seekers can run into a brick wall. They may get fed up, perhaps because they have been looking for a job for too long. A good recruiter will help their candidates by preparing them for a wide range of interviews. Most often, a candidate would want to be informed about how things develop after the interview. You should try to oblige them. It is bad to keep candidates waiting and not reply to them.

Try to keep in touch with the candidate. Even if the employer has not given you a reply, it will do the candidate a whole lot of good if you update them on the current situation of things.

Poor Interview Etiquettes

People tend to blame the candidate for failing an interview. The truth, however, is that hiring managers cannot be exonerated from this. What recruiters often do is to intimidate their candidates, setting up tension in them in the process. As a result of this, the candidate might be jittery and unable to deliver their best. As a recruiter, you should endeavor to smile to your candidates, assure them and make them feel at home. Do not ask silly questions that can put them in tension. This will ensure that they will give as much information about themselves as possible, and you will be able to make informed decisions based on this.

Employer

Hiring In Tech: Potential Over Experience

January 17, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Every growing and advancing company seeks to recruit additional staff to handle and further their growth. In that light, companies usually seek the best minds and hands in the fields they intend to hire from. One such field is that of Tech; in which likely recruits fall into the categories of either those with experience in the industry or those with little/no experience but with potentials.

During the recruitment process, employers are usually faced with the question of whether to choose someone with experience over one with potentials or to do otherwise. This choice, of course, isn’t a straight forward one, as both categories of likely recruits each have their advantages and their drawbacks, and depends on what the company values most at the point of recruitment. But then, we will look into why tech companies should choose potential over experience.

Companies spend a lot of resources in order to get top talent for hire and have always favored those with experience. The reason for this isn’t far-fetched, as many think it is obvious that those with experience in the field will be able to handle more tasks and challenges and thus, are better suited for the job. But this approach no longer serves the best interest in today’s job market, as experience is not everything.

Potential is the capacity to develop into something great and everyone in the tech space will understand that jobs in this field are very competitive and need to be creative and innovative in order to stand out. These key areas of innovation and creativity are better handled by recruits with little experience but high potential than the experienced folks.

Also in the tech industry is the need for flexibility, adaptability to change, and diversity. These qualities are better found in recruits who have high potentials, as they are more willing to explore new options in the field; which is relatively new to them. This enables them to be able to effectively function and succeed not only in their current roles but also in sideways or upward roles within the company.

As mentioned earlier, hiring for experience definitely has its own benefits, as companies who recruit them can expect fewer errors in jobs, and better character and hindsight. But for a tech company whose main drive is insight and innovation, it is more advisable to go for the ones with potential over those with experience.

Sure enough, recruits with just potentials and little or no experience will have their own drawbacks, but with adequate support and training will be able to continuously improve over time. All the companies need to do is capitalize on the curiosity, motivation, and determination of these recruits to help them learn as much as they can. With this approach, the employers will be able to better understand them over time and give them more appropriate roles where they can function best.

Having said all that we have, we can confidently conclude that for long-term investment and future growth of tech companies, the choice of potential over experience in hiring is the way to go!

Employer

How to Calculate the ROI of Your Developer On-boarding Programs

November 29, 2018 Comments Off Roxana read

New employees are a great asset to any organization. When they come in to replace former staffers or even to occupy newly created positions, organizations would want them to hit the ground running.

However, this is not always the case even with experienced employees. Learning an organization takes time. Onboarding programs come in to bridge this gap to reduce the amount of time to acclimatize, become socialized and get productive at work.

Organizations invest in the onboarding programs with so that their new developers can bring more value than what was spent invested. At the very least, the onboarding program should be successful.

How can you calculate, therefore, the return on investment of the onboarding program?

Kirkpatrick’s model of evaluation involves reaction, learning, behavior, and results. This model has been used over the years to evaluate the effectiveness of training.

After the onboarding program, a company may provide the new staffers with a questionnaire to collect information based on their reactions. The benefit of this evaluation is you obtain the employee’s first impression of the organization.

Employee turnover

If an organization’s employee turnover rate is high, it indicates that staffers are dissatisfied with the environment within which they work. With an onboarding program in place, you could orient staffers on the job at hand and get them to understand the processes in the organization. Here employees are also informed about the challenges and opportunities that may arise in the organization.

In the case of a significant reduction in employee turnover, an onboarding program is counted to have been successful.

Employee sourcing

Likewise, referrals help organizations to reduce the cost of advertising and sourcing for candidates who are the best fit for existing positions. Ordinarily, happy employees are more willing to invite their friends over into that particular company.

So, when a firm finds itself in a situation where a large number of interviewees attribute their knowledge of the position to your employees, then onboarding was successful.

Feedback sessions

Immediately after the onboarding program, developers could be asked a few questions on a scale of 1-10 to provide feedback on whether they are satisfied with what the company has to offer, its terms and environment. This is critical as it can capture what employees feel and perceive your organization.

Stay interviews

During these sessions, developers are asked questions why they choose to stay with the organization. It is useful in picking out the specific aspects of company strengths. Firms can, therefore, emphasize these positive aspects to ensure members of staff remain productive.

Exit Interviews

While the stay interviews address why employees choose to remain loyal to the organization, the exit interviews focus on why an employee decided to exit the job. Here, the company could ask if ever the onboarding program was effective or otherwise.

For detailed insights, you could employ the use of each one of these approaches. Employee surveys can be used to determine how effective developers find these onboarding programs are. Also, employee turnover is a quick way to establish whether your company got its fair return on investment (ROI) in the onboarding program.

Employer

Companies using Gamification for Recruiting IT Talent

November 8, 2018 Comments Off Roxana read

Recent years have witnessed huge advancement in Information Technology and with this rise is the corresponding increase in the demand for IT experts. In a bid to get more talents for hire, companies now use gaming to attract, develop and motivate candidates, increase their own prominence and create workplace reward and recognition.

The use of gamification in recruiting is the application of typical elements of game playing to contribute to workforce development, by introducing fun, creativity, competition, and rewards into areas where they didn’t earlier exist. Understanding its diversity and effectiveness, a number of companies now use gamification to recruit experts in the field of Information Technology. Contained in this article are some of these companies that have taken advantage of the assistance gamification renders in recruiting IT talent.

Google

Google, a very innovative and creative InfoTech based company is definitely one to be on this list. For over a decade now, the company has been organizing a Google Code Jam software-writing competition to attract fresh and new talent. Monetary prizes up to $50,000 can be won as a big motivation to potential employees. However, the main aim of Google is to attract potential hires who have the appropriate skills that meet up with the company’s requirement.

Umbel

This big-data startup created a gaming challenge called Umbelmania. Via this platform, amateur and professional coders code their movements to earn points in the first-person fighter-style game. Competing head-to-head, gamers accumulate points to progress in the interviewing process with the company. Through this, coders are able to measure their coding abilities in relation to that of other contestants, improve on them, and know how suited they are for the job at the Startup.

AXA Group

Through a tool called Knack, this global insurance brand has implemented gamification in its hiring process. This tool builds various types of assessment games to identify the abilities, struggles and personality traits of candidates that might not be obvious in an interview or on a resume. Among the games that serve this intended purpose are, Wasabi Waiter and Balloon Brigade. These games collect several megabytes of data on potential hires to measure against successful employees already within the company.

Domino’s Pizza

Through an interactive software called Domino’s Pizza Mogul, this company is able to build a brand awareness with a particular appeal to young people in search of exciting jobs in a fun and innovative work environment. This game allows users to personally create and name Pizza ideas and Toppings and then market it. The users also earn monetary rewards for every Pizza sold.

Formapost

This French postal service was constantly faced with the challenge of retaining new hires. They were losing a quarter of their new recruits and this was costing a lot in their recruiting and hiring budgets. In a bit to resolve this challenge, they wielded the tool of gamification.

Having launched a gaming platform called Jeu Facteur Academy, they are now able to walk candidates through a routine day as a postal carrier and get them familiar with the job. By using this platform to prepare potential employees for the job, they were able to cut down the dropout rates from 25% to 8%.

Considering these companies, it is obvious that gamification is a reliable tool that you can use to achieve your company’s recruitment goals, attract people with the right skills set and increase your chances of keeping them for a long time.

Employer

How will Artificial Intelligence Impact the Future of Recruiting

November 6, 2018 Comments Off Roxana read

The field of Artificial Intelligence is a fast-evolving one, gaining influence in many spheres of human existence. It is the intelligence demonstrated by machines which have over time, proved its accuracy and dependability. This intelligence includes; decision making, visual and vocal recognition, and translation, – among other things. One aspect that is being influenced by Artificial Intelligence is that of recruiting people for jobs.

The reason behind the incorporation of A.I. into this field is not far-fetched, as it helps to reduce the workload of employees by making the mundane tasks of hiring and recruiting easier. It is expected to be a faster and more efficient alternative for companies to employ as a part of their Human Resource (HR) efforts. Contained in this article are some expected impacts of Artificial Intelligence in the future of recruiting.

Improved Efficiency and Experience

By optimizing AI, companies will be able to scan resumes, schedule interviews, and send routine emails, ultimately improving their efficiency and effectiveness. Also, via AI, candidate experience will be improved by making it more personalized and sincere and enabling the formation of real relationships between candidates and companies.

Faster and Smarter Hiring Process

As we all know, computers are built to perform tasks faster and more accurately. With the ability of bots to scan and identify the top resumes in a batch of applicants, the process of scheduling will be automated and predictive analytics will be able to capture quantitative and qualitative data to ensure a suitable and appropriate match.

Ability to predict employee success

AI is able to establish the past achievements of successful employees and search for candidates with similar backgrounds to those of such workers. This way, it can predict the success rate of potential incoming employees.

Minimization of Biases in Hiring

By developing algorithms that are fair and ethical for use in the hiring process, biases such as; gender, age, and race can be well minimized.

Interview Automation

By capitalizing on the automation AI offers via its facial recognition tool that can record and determine emotion from facial expressions, companies will be able to handle screening processes without the physical presence of humans.

Ease and Speed of scheduling meetings with candidates

With the availability of AI software that can automate appointment setting by performing simple tasks such as; looking at your calendar, asking a few basic questions and offering viable options to the candidate, recruiters will be able to quickly and easily schedule meetings with them.

Clarification of Expectations

AI is built with an objective algorithm which will give very clear and precise expectation. By using it, time and resources will be saved and one can be quite assured of accuracy. We must, however, keep in mind that AI only simplifies the process, leaving the completion and verification to we humans.

Inability to identify the most suitable person for the job

Understanding that Artificial Intelligence at its best, works based on computer programs written by humans, we should realize that it cannot identify the best person fit for a job.

Human behavior varies across different individuals, and AI might be making logical decisions where intuitions by humans are required.