Recruitment Ideas: How to Know if You’ve Found The ‘One’

Based on an article written by Adam Bryant at The New York Times, he shares his interview experiences with top industry players about the best approaches in getting right to the core of who a candidate is and how they work with a team.

Let’s explore the strategies these industry players have developed to hire more creative and effective team members. If you’re on the other side of the job hunt, learn what your interview is really looking for in a candidate.

1. Keep it casual, modernize the standard job interview setting:

Basic principles for a successful interview:

• Get creative – Find new ways to understand how your candidate thinks.
• Challenge them – Put the candidate in situations where they are more likely to show their true selves.
• Allow your employees to help – You won’t be the only one working with this candidate. Take a team of employees you trust, who will be associating with this candidate everyday. Their opinion is just as crucial.

2. Show them around the workplace

Get a better idea of how your candidate will behave by showing them around – there are two key qualities to keep an eye out for:

• Does this candidate show genuine interest in your organisation’s work?
• Do they treat people equally, regardless of their title?

Stay in the building and show the candidates around your company, and maybe introduce them to some colleagues. Pay attention to:

• Their curiosity
• The kind of questions they have – “What does everyone do?”, “How do things work around the office?”
• Their mannerism towards everyone else

For Patty Stonesifer, the former President and CEO of Martha’s Table, a Washington nonprofit, the tour is an essential test for any job candidate.

“I can get a really good sense of whether I want to be working with somebody when I walk them through the place… I’ll stop and introduce them to a half-dozen people, and see if it’s just a handshake or whether there’s some curiosity and interest.” Patty Stonesifer

3. Have a meal together

The quickest way to reveal clues about a person’s behaviour is having a meal together. For many leaders, this is the most important part of the interview process.

Watch whether the candidate is considerate of others – it’s an essential quality of effective team players.

Pay attention to:

• Are they polite towards servers?
• Do they make eye contact? (A sign of respect)
• Do they seem irritated or flustered by problems?
• Can they keep a conversation going, with smart questions?
• Do they barrel through the restaurant, or let others go first?

For Carol Smith, the senior VP of Harper’s Bazaar, explains how much you can learn in a meal.

“Are you going to connect with us? Are you going to be part of the team, or are you going to be one of these independent players who wants to take all the credit? Are you good with assistants?” Carol Smith

4. Ask unusual questions

Well-prepared candidates anticipate standard interview questions and find ways to turn any negatives into positives to avoid showing any form of weakness or vulnerability. However, this strategy comes as a setback among chief executives as it makes the candidate seem less honest and trustworthy.

Many chief executives have developed their own interview questions to better understand what a candidate is really like.

Former senior VP of people operations at Google, Laslo Bock said that while the company (Google) had used those types of questions once upon a time, they realised that it was a complete waste of time.

They serve primarily to make the interviewer feel smart. Laslo Bock

Conclusion

Author, Adam Bryant concludes that many executives have occasionally made the mistake of not listening to their gut about their candidate.

You may feel pressured to fill the vacant role as quickly as possible – so you may feel more inclined to hire one of the first candidates you meet but you have to trust the process. Once you’ve completed the interviewing process, borrow some of the strategies above, you’ll improve your chances of finding the right candidate.

Looking to streamline your organization’s recruitment process? Explore Worksy’s recruitment management solution or get in touch with us today!