Time to Hire!

Time to Hire!

February is traditionally one of the biggest months for job seekers to be out in force. If things go as planned with mitigating COVID, it is speculated that more people will re-enter the workforce in 2021 than in any single year on record!

If you are getting ready to hire, the information is this blog is intended to keep you out of Sticky Situation (by hiring the wrong person and realizing that later!) and to make the most out of the interview. Two good things if you ask me!

When you ask interview questions, try and avoid Yes and No responses – because they share little insight into the person’s skills and experiences.

Ideally, you want to get at 5 pieces in the answers from candidates to your interview questions:

1. Situation: You want them to describe the role they were in so you as the interviewer understand how this could apply to your workplace.
2. Task: You want them to describe the task they were doing and what issue they encountered.
3. Action: What specific action they did to produce the desired result from the task.
4. Result: You want to know how it all ended up! It’s similar to a story – you want them to set the scene, lay out the plot, and then share how it all turns out in the end.
5. Attitude (My favorite!): Attitude is so important! Even if someone can do the job, a poor attitude can make them miserable to work with. Look for signs of how their attitude was towards the situation they described in the 4 steps above. What things did they say when they answered your interview question to give you an idea of how they would handle something similar in your workplace? Did they handle it with a positive/upbeat attitude or did they get to resolution because they “had to” and you could tell they were frustrated about what transpired?

Heck, you can even tell the candidate upfront that you are looking for these 5 things when you start the interview. It never hurts to set the expectation of how you would like them to reply. Starting here will put you on track to get solid and helpful answers to your interview questions!