HR professionals may joke about the job candidate who fails to come prepared for an interview, but too often its interviewer who's utterly unprepared for that crucial discussion. Here are five tools to get HR-ready.
HR professionals may joke about the job candidate who fails to come prepared for an interview, but too often its interviewer who's utterly unprepared for that crucial discussion. Here's that necessary homework.
“What you’re trying to do is encourage good candidates to work for you, and if you don’t have the proper tools, frankly, you look unprepared,” says Tom Riebock, director of Human Resources for Wick Communications in Sierra Vista, Ariz. “And you can’t put the sales pitch on if you’ve got somebody really good in front of you that you want to hire.”
Riebock believes that every HR manager should have five specific tools in their tool belt when they embark on the quest for the next best employee. It all starts with the job description posted by the HR department. This is followed by a properly written advertisement, a structured interview and signed applications.
“This is probably the most important decision you make as a supervisor or manager, and that’s who you pick for your team,” he said. “So you have to go through a process to pick the best people, who have a good opportunity to succeed, and screen out people who are not desirable.”
Managers must also ensure they steer clear of certain legal hassles. When posting the application, it must be written in a manner that is neither discriminatory nor explicitly exclusive.
And of course, winging it can have potentially dire consequences. A hiring manager who is unprepared to interview candidates is just as bad as an employee who fails to prepare for a job interview.
“You’ll schedule an interview, and the person will show up and you’re off busy doing something and someone will tell you your nine o’clock interview is here, and you’ll say, ‘Oh God, I forgot!,’” Riebock says. “You run to your desk, you bring him in and, because you’re not prepared, you’ll look at him and say, ‘Well, tell me about yourself,’ which is nothing more than, ‘You talk because I’m not ready.’”
Avoiding these and other situations will not only ensure you find the best possible employee, but will also ensure that you, as a manager, are performing your duties in the correct fashion.
If we've left off any other key tools, tell by posting a comment below.