Many thanks to all the blog's readers over the past months. I won't be adding any more posts for the rest of 2010, but will be resuming in the first week of January.
In the meantime, I hope you have a good Christmas / New Year break, and here's to 2011.
AGENCY WORKERS REGULATIONS 2010
The Agency Workers Regulations 2010 will come into force in the UK on 1 October 2011. It is easy to think that this can be dealt with nearer the time, but anyone dealing with agency workers would be well advised to start planning now. In this article Rebecca Seeley Harris of Re: Legal Consulting Ltd discusses the implications of the Regulations.
The Regulations have been implemented on the basis of the CBI/TUC agreement of May 2008 that after 12 weeks in a given job an agency worker will be an entitlement to basic employment rights and equal treatment.
The Regulations seeks to protect vulnerable temporary agency workers by giving them basic employment rights and equal treatment after 12 continuous calendar weeks working for the hirer. The key objectives are to achieve protection for temporary agency workers whilst at the same time allowing flexibility in the labour market.
It was announced recently by the Government that they will not be making any changes to the Regulations, despite speculation that they might. The Regulations will, therefore, become effective from 1 October 2011 in their existing form. The Government are now busy setting out industry guidance, but this will apparently not be available in its final form until June 2011. Although the guidance will shed some light on the rather complex arrangements, it does not have any legal standing as such. As with any new piece of legislation, the more complex grey issues will undoubtedly require litigation to provide clarification.
Responsibilities of the agency and hirer
In the meantime, what is already certain is that the Regulations will have a major impact on all parties in the recruitment agency process. Both the recruitment agency and the hirer have liability for breaches of the legislation, to the extent that they are responsible or to blame for the breach or infringement.
The Regulations also apply to agency workers supplied via intermediaries, this is to ensure that agency workers supplied through Master or Neutral Vendor or other ‘chain’ arrangements including umbrella companies are covered. The definitions used also ensure coverage for employees and workers on zero hours contracts.
The Regulations do provide the so called “Swedish Derogation” which exempts the agency from complying with the Regulations, but only as they relate to pay. To take advantage of the derogation the agency worker must, amongst other conditions, have a permanent contract of employment with the agency and must be paid between assignments at a minimum rate. The contract must also have been entered into prior to the beginning of the first assignment.
Rights of the temporary agency worker
A temporary agency worker is defined as an individual who is supplied by a temporary work agency to work temporarily for and under the supervision and direction of the hirer. Under the Regulations the agency worker can benefit from basic employment rights and equal treatment after the qualifying period of 12 continuous calendar weeks working for the hirer. This does not mean, however, that they become a permanent employee but, it entitles the worker to equal treatment to that of a comparable employee during the currency of the contract or assignment.
The Regulations do not apply to those individuals who are providing their services to the agency or the hirer as an independent contractor carrying on a business undertaking. There is no actual ‘opt-out’ or exemption for limited company contractors or the genuinely self-employed, so establishing whether they are in fact running a business, will be determined by the employment status case law. The Regulations, however, will only come into play if the agency worker takes the matter to the employment tribunal, and the complaint has to be presented within three months of the alleged infringement of a right conferred by the Regulations.
Worker’s rights and equal treatment
The Regulations apply mainly to conditions regarding pay and equal treatment for the agency worker after the qualifying period of 12 weeks. The agency worker is entitled to the same basic working and employment conditions as a comparable employee or worker doing the same job for the hirer.
The agency worker will be entitled to the basic terms and conditions that are contained in a comparable employee’s employment contract. The relevant terms and conditions being those relating to pay, the duration of the working time, night work, rest periods, rest breaks and annual leave. Pay, in this respect, will include any fee, bonus, commission, holiday pay or other payments with reference to the employment, although certain payments are excluded.
The liability of the agency and hirer
In terms of liability, both the agency and the hirer are liable to the extent that they are responsible for the particular breach. Where the breach relates to basic working and employment conditions, the hirer will have sole liability if the agency has acted reasonably and taken reasonable steps to obtain the necessary information from the hirer, using the ‘reasonable steps’ defence. Both the agency and hirer are ‘equally responsible’ for their part in the act of unfair dismissal or subjecting the agency worker to a detriment.
In relation to equal treatment claims where the hirer is solely responsible (e.g. access to canteens, child care, etc) the agency will not be held liable because the agency have no role in delivering these entitlements.
Although the legislation sets out the liabilities, it does not address the issue of indemnity clauses. This would have been an unprecedented step for Government to take to intervene in private commercial arrangements to protect the commercial interests of a particular party. It does, however, leave the agency in a position where the client (the hirer) could include an indemnity in their terms and conditions, giving the agency sole liability in spite of the reasonable steps defence.
Although the Regulations do not come into force until October 2011, it is essential to start planning early. Any year long contracts signed now will need to address the issue regardless of whether the Government guidance has been given. Unlike previous legislation which has applied to the recruitment sector, these Regulations require that both parties take responsibility and particularly the hirer or end client.
Rebecca Seeley Harris
Re: Legal Consulting Ltd
Tel: +44 (0) 1392 876428
Email: rebecca@relegalconsulting.co.uk
Rebecca is a specialist legal consultant who specialises in the law relating to independent contractors and the non-standard workforce. Rebecca has over 10 years experience in dealing with issues such as IR35, employment status, the EAA Conduct Regulations, and other issues relating to contract or the recruitment or coaching industries.
The Regulations have been implemented on the basis of the CBI/TUC agreement of May 2008 that after 12 weeks in a given job an agency worker will be an entitlement to basic employment rights and equal treatment.
The Regulations seeks to protect vulnerable temporary agency workers by giving them basic employment rights and equal treatment after 12 continuous calendar weeks working for the hirer. The key objectives are to achieve protection for temporary agency workers whilst at the same time allowing flexibility in the labour market.
It was announced recently by the Government that they will not be making any changes to the Regulations, despite speculation that they might. The Regulations will, therefore, become effective from 1 October 2011 in their existing form. The Government are now busy setting out industry guidance, but this will apparently not be available in its final form until June 2011. Although the guidance will shed some light on the rather complex arrangements, it does not have any legal standing as such. As with any new piece of legislation, the more complex grey issues will undoubtedly require litigation to provide clarification.
Responsibilities of the agency and hirer
In the meantime, what is already certain is that the Regulations will have a major impact on all parties in the recruitment agency process. Both the recruitment agency and the hirer have liability for breaches of the legislation, to the extent that they are responsible or to blame for the breach or infringement.
The Regulations also apply to agency workers supplied via intermediaries, this is to ensure that agency workers supplied through Master or Neutral Vendor or other ‘chain’ arrangements including umbrella companies are covered. The definitions used also ensure coverage for employees and workers on zero hours contracts.
The Regulations do provide the so called “Swedish Derogation” which exempts the agency from complying with the Regulations, but only as they relate to pay. To take advantage of the derogation the agency worker must, amongst other conditions, have a permanent contract of employment with the agency and must be paid between assignments at a minimum rate. The contract must also have been entered into prior to the beginning of the first assignment.
Rights of the temporary agency worker
A temporary agency worker is defined as an individual who is supplied by a temporary work agency to work temporarily for and under the supervision and direction of the hirer. Under the Regulations the agency worker can benefit from basic employment rights and equal treatment after the qualifying period of 12 continuous calendar weeks working for the hirer. This does not mean, however, that they become a permanent employee but, it entitles the worker to equal treatment to that of a comparable employee during the currency of the contract or assignment.
The Regulations do not apply to those individuals who are providing their services to the agency or the hirer as an independent contractor carrying on a business undertaking. There is no actual ‘opt-out’ or exemption for limited company contractors or the genuinely self-employed, so establishing whether they are in fact running a business, will be determined by the employment status case law. The Regulations, however, will only come into play if the agency worker takes the matter to the employment tribunal, and the complaint has to be presented within three months of the alleged infringement of a right conferred by the Regulations.
Worker’s rights and equal treatment
The Regulations apply mainly to conditions regarding pay and equal treatment for the agency worker after the qualifying period of 12 weeks. The agency worker is entitled to the same basic working and employment conditions as a comparable employee or worker doing the same job for the hirer.
The agency worker will be entitled to the basic terms and conditions that are contained in a comparable employee’s employment contract. The relevant terms and conditions being those relating to pay, the duration of the working time, night work, rest periods, rest breaks and annual leave. Pay, in this respect, will include any fee, bonus, commission, holiday pay or other payments with reference to the employment, although certain payments are excluded.
The liability of the agency and hirer
In terms of liability, both the agency and the hirer are liable to the extent that they are responsible for the particular breach. Where the breach relates to basic working and employment conditions, the hirer will have sole liability if the agency has acted reasonably and taken reasonable steps to obtain the necessary information from the hirer, using the ‘reasonable steps’ defence. Both the agency and hirer are ‘equally responsible’ for their part in the act of unfair dismissal or subjecting the agency worker to a detriment.
In relation to equal treatment claims where the hirer is solely responsible (e.g. access to canteens, child care, etc) the agency will not be held liable because the agency have no role in delivering these entitlements.
Although the legislation sets out the liabilities, it does not address the issue of indemnity clauses. This would have been an unprecedented step for Government to take to intervene in private commercial arrangements to protect the commercial interests of a particular party. It does, however, leave the agency in a position where the client (the hirer) could include an indemnity in their terms and conditions, giving the agency sole liability in spite of the reasonable steps defence.
Although the Regulations do not come into force until October 2011, it is essential to start planning early. Any year long contracts signed now will need to address the issue regardless of whether the Government guidance has been given. Unlike previous legislation which has applied to the recruitment sector, these Regulations require that both parties take responsibility and particularly the hirer or end client.
Rebecca Seeley Harris
Re: Legal Consulting Ltd
Tel: +44 (0) 1392 876428
Email: rebecca@relegalconsulting.co.uk
Rebecca is a specialist legal consultant who specialises in the law relating to independent contractors and the non-standard workforce. Rebecca has over 10 years experience in dealing with issues such as IR35, employment status, the EAA Conduct Regulations, and other issues relating to contract or the recruitment or coaching industries.
PSYCHOMETRICS ... WHO NEEDS THEM?
This article by Sean Hutton, Managing Director of Human Capital Development, introduces psychometric testing and explains its value to business large and - especially - small. In future editions of this blog, Sean will be providing more detail about this aspect of recruitment.
For 20 years I was a psychometric cynic, believing that ‘gut instinct’ was all I needed to make reliable hiring decisions. Then a meeting with a highly respected profiling expert changed my mind: a five minute questionnaire and he had me down to a t. The shock was he talked about the man behind the façade, my strengths, my weaknesses, my timescales … he talked about me! The penny dropped - this was so much better than intuition; it added reliable information to recruitment decisions. That day I literally bought into the company.
Who needs them?
If truth be told, every company from the biggest PLC to the smallest SME should be using psychometric tools to help them in their selection process. It could be argued that the SMEs need them the most because a poor recruitment decision can have catastrophic results for a small company, but be an expensive inconvenience for a larger company.
What Exactly Are Psychometric Tools?
The term covers a raft of business aids based around candidates completing a questionnaire that can measure everything from honesty to sales ability, literacy to numerical skills and, of course, personality. Some tools are classified as ‘tests’ which means people can fail them; others - particularly those that evaluate personality - are often measurements, so there is no pass or fail judgement as such.
Do They Have Any Greater Validity Than Astrology?
In short, yes. They are normally well researched by psychologists and have been reviewed by their peers to establish that they are ‘valid and reliable’. That is to say, they give accurate information.
When Should They Be Used?
Ideally, prior to interview so you have all the necessary information before you meet a candidate and can discuss any issues that have arisen.
Do I Need To Be Trained To Use Them?
Not necessarily. Many reputable test publishers offer a bureau service where they help you interpret and understand the results.
Can I Afford Not To Use Them?
Generally, it's a good rule of thumb that the cost of a failed hire is a minimum of one year’s salary, once disruption, training and all the other hidden costs are taken into account. On the other hand psychometric tools are relatively inexpensive, typically costing around £100 per candidate.
Do They Eliminate The Interview?
In a word, no. These tools should give you additional information and should not replace any part of a professional selection process.
When you next start planning a recruitment process, add a little science to the process - add some psychometric tools …You will be surprised how the additional information they provide makes the final selection so much easier.
Next Time:
The new Agency Workers Regulations and what they might mean for you.
About Sean Hutton.
Sean has over 25 years experience in sales, marketing and people development. After a successful career within Encyclopaedia Britannica's executive management team and head of a subsidiary company, he left in 1997 to join the board of a successful group who specialized in HR business tools and consultancy.
As group Sales Director he played a major role in reorganising their marketing and product strategies, working with companies such as Bristol Myers Squibb, IBM, BT, N Power and British Gas to improve their sales selection and management processes.
Sean has over 25 years experience in sales, marketing and people development. In 2003, Sean set up a training and development company with its own range of business tools, to help businesses recruit the right staff and realise the full potential of their existing staff.
HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT
t: 01264 861031
e: info@human-capital-development.com
w: www.human-capital-development.com
For 20 years I was a psychometric cynic, believing that ‘gut instinct’ was all I needed to make reliable hiring decisions. Then a meeting with a highly respected profiling expert changed my mind: a five minute questionnaire and he had me down to a t. The shock was he talked about the man behind the façade, my strengths, my weaknesses, my timescales … he talked about me! The penny dropped - this was so much better than intuition; it added reliable information to recruitment decisions. That day I literally bought into the company.
Who needs them?
If truth be told, every company from the biggest PLC to the smallest SME should be using psychometric tools to help them in their selection process. It could be argued that the SMEs need them the most because a poor recruitment decision can have catastrophic results for a small company, but be an expensive inconvenience for a larger company.
What Exactly Are Psychometric Tools?
The term covers a raft of business aids based around candidates completing a questionnaire that can measure everything from honesty to sales ability, literacy to numerical skills and, of course, personality. Some tools are classified as ‘tests’ which means people can fail them; others - particularly those that evaluate personality - are often measurements, so there is no pass or fail judgement as such.
Do They Have Any Greater Validity Than Astrology?
In short, yes. They are normally well researched by psychologists and have been reviewed by their peers to establish that they are ‘valid and reliable’. That is to say, they give accurate information.
When Should They Be Used?
Ideally, prior to interview so you have all the necessary information before you meet a candidate and can discuss any issues that have arisen.
Do I Need To Be Trained To Use Them?
Not necessarily. Many reputable test publishers offer a bureau service where they help you interpret and understand the results.
Can I Afford Not To Use Them?
Generally, it's a good rule of thumb that the cost of a failed hire is a minimum of one year’s salary, once disruption, training and all the other hidden costs are taken into account. On the other hand psychometric tools are relatively inexpensive, typically costing around £100 per candidate.
Do They Eliminate The Interview?
In a word, no. These tools should give you additional information and should not replace any part of a professional selection process.
When you next start planning a recruitment process, add a little science to the process - add some psychometric tools …You will be surprised how the additional information they provide makes the final selection so much easier.
Next Time:
The new Agency Workers Regulations and what they might mean for you.
About Sean Hutton.
Sean has over 25 years experience in sales, marketing and people development. After a successful career within Encyclopaedia Britannica's executive management team and head of a subsidiary company, he left in 1997 to join the board of a successful group who specialized in HR business tools and consultancy.
As group Sales Director he played a major role in reorganising their marketing and product strategies, working with companies such as Bristol Myers Squibb, IBM, BT, N Power and British Gas to improve their sales selection and management processes.
Sean has over 25 years experience in sales, marketing and people development. In 2003, Sean set up a training and development company with its own range of business tools, to help businesses recruit the right staff and realise the full potential of their existing staff.
HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT
t: 01264 861031
e: info@human-capital-development.com
w: www.human-capital-development.com
INDUCTING YOUR NEW STAFF (PT 2)
In this edition I will continue to look at how to ensure you induct your new recruit successfully.
What Should Be Included As Part Of A Simple Induction?
Create a short first morning induction plan which can be run-through by you or a member of staff who has been properly prepared. This is easy and quick to write and helps to bed the person in. It should include the following:
After the formal introductions etc, the employee can be taken to their desk or office and shown how any systems and IT works and given any passwords or login instructions they might need to carry out their role.
Next, it is useful then for their role to be explained in detail by someone who is trusted within the organisation and who complies with the company processes, so that the new employee can be shown how your organisation carries out its tasks, reports-back and so forth. In virtually all cases, there will either be documentation in existence that will help the new member of staff get up to speed on the project or work that they are being employed for, or there will be someone who can sit down with the new employee and show them what to do in practice. Either way, it is crucial that the new employee is carefully looked-after at this point - they must never be allowed to feel they've been thrown in the deep end and left to sink or swim.
What Is Your Specific Role In The Induction?
Ideally the information detailed below should be presented by you to the new employee so that they feel that they can approach you in the future. This will help ensure issues can be picked up early and addressed rather than allowed to fester with the new employee feeling they have nobody to raise the problem with.
(However, time is not always permitting and many larger organisations have an HR department that will take on some of these tasks.)
A 60 to 90 minute conversation with you, ideally on day one of their employment, should include:
Do bear in mind that the best time to ask a new employee for referrals of other people to work with your business is during the induction and the first couple of days of employment. Assuming the employee has been looked after well they will be thinking highly of the business, be keen to impress and will have very few concerns. Consequently, they will be most likely to provide names of people who could work well within your business.
Other areas which can be included by you or managed by HR include:
In Summary:
Having spent time and money ensuring that you recruit the right member of staff, it is important that sufficient time and effort is put in to ensure that they feel welcome, wanted and expected, especially in the first few days of employment. This attentiveness to their needs, coupled with ensuring that they know what is expected of them, will produce great dividends down the line in terms of productivity, morale and future loyalty.
Next Time:
In future articles we will look at different aspects of the induction process in greater detail. During the next couple of editions, however, I will be introducing a couple of guest writers who I have worked closely with for many years and who are renowned in their fields. They will be providing articles within their specialisations so the full breadth of the recruitment process is comprehensively covered.
The first of these will be an article introducing psychometric testing by Sean Hutton, who will explain why it should be seriously considered as part of the recruitment process.
What Should Be Included As Part Of A Simple Induction?
Create a short first morning induction plan which can be run-through by you or a member of staff who has been properly prepared. This is easy and quick to write and helps to bed the person in. It should include the following:
Welcoming the new employee, offering them a drink to break the ice and showing them where the office facilities are - things such as toilets, the kitchen area and anything else which they will need.These are all statutory requirements in the UK. Once they are in writing they can form part of your staff handbook and this can be added to as new processes are formalised within the business. Over time the handbook will form the bulk of the induction literature.
Formal introductions to each existing member of the team, in the course of which you should explain - in outline the roles of both the new employee and the existing team members.
There is written information which has to be made available to new employees, which should be (briefly) run through:
- Health and Safety information which relates to your particular environment
- Details of your Disciplinary Procedures
- Details of your Grievance Procedures
- Details of your Appeals Procedure
After the formal introductions etc, the employee can be taken to their desk or office and shown how any systems and IT works and given any passwords or login instructions they might need to carry out their role.
Next, it is useful then for their role to be explained in detail by someone who is trusted within the organisation and who complies with the company processes, so that the new employee can be shown how your organisation carries out its tasks, reports-back and so forth. In virtually all cases, there will either be documentation in existence that will help the new member of staff get up to speed on the project or work that they are being employed for, or there will be someone who can sit down with the new employee and show them what to do in practice. Either way, it is crucial that the new employee is carefully looked-after at this point - they must never be allowed to feel they've been thrown in the deep end and left to sink or swim.
What Is Your Specific Role In The Induction?
Ideally the information detailed below should be presented by you to the new employee so that they feel that they can approach you in the future. This will help ensure issues can be picked up early and addressed rather than allowed to fester with the new employee feeling they have nobody to raise the problem with.
(However, time is not always permitting and many larger organisations have an HR department that will take on some of these tasks.)
A 60 to 90 minute conversation with you, ideally on day one of their employment, should include:
- A personal welcome from you.
- Running through the expectations of the role. This can be taken from the job and behaviour specification that you created at the start of the hiring process.
- Talking about your career with the organisation and why you joined and have stayed.
- Reinforcing the options available to the new employee if they perform ahead of expectations.
Do bear in mind that the best time to ask a new employee for referrals of other people to work with your business is during the induction and the first couple of days of employment. Assuming the employee has been looked after well they will be thinking highly of the business, be keen to impress and will have very few concerns. Consequently, they will be most likely to provide names of people who could work well within your business.
Other areas which can be included by you or managed by HR include:
- Detail the salary and the individual aspects of the package such as pension contributions and how they work, medical cover and any of the other benefits that were provided in the offer.
- Run through the key points in the contract so that they clearly understand what is required - issues such as discipline through to booking holidays etc.
In Summary:
Having spent time and money ensuring that you recruit the right member of staff, it is important that sufficient time and effort is put in to ensure that they feel welcome, wanted and expected, especially in the first few days of employment. This attentiveness to their needs, coupled with ensuring that they know what is expected of them, will produce great dividends down the line in terms of productivity, morale and future loyalty.
Next Time:
In future articles we will look at different aspects of the induction process in greater detail. During the next couple of editions, however, I will be introducing a couple of guest writers who I have worked closely with for many years and who are renowned in their fields. They will be providing articles within their specialisations so the full breadth of the recruitment process is comprehensively covered.
The first of these will be an article introducing psychometric testing by Sean Hutton, who will explain why it should be seriously considered as part of the recruitment process.
INDUCTING YOUR NEW STAFF (PT 1)
Over previous issues we have analysed building a solid platform upon which to recruit the best possible candidate - someone who will be able to make a substantial difference to your business. We have looked at running the process right up until the job offer, and staying in touch until they actually start with you.
Having come this far, the next key issue in their success (and consequently your success) is the impression they receive in their first few days with you and hence how well they settle in.
Are Inductions Necessary?
Most of us can look back through our own careers and recall an experience when we have joined a new business or department, not knowing anyone or anything and, quite frankly, been very nervous. Imagine being in that state and discovering that you are not expected, there is no desk and nobody knows who you are.
It is always worth remembering that the first couple of hours at a new employer are intimidating for almost everyone, and disorganisation and lack of warmth at the outset will exacerbate the nerves and discomfort. If this happens to a new employee, their subconscious minds will be saying “I don’t like this and I'd much rather not be here.” Of course, over time they will get to understand the company and their role but that initial feeling of “I don’t like this” will linger and their new place of work will never feel quite right, irrespective of what happens subsequently. As a result, the 100% commitment proffered during the interview just doesn’t quite materialise and a few months later they will be considering their job options and feeling that the grass turned out to be not so green when they moved employer and joined you.
My advice is to always remember how you have felt in the past on your own 'first days in the job'. With that in mind, it is vital that the first few days are positive for a new employee because first impressions stick and are difficult to change if they are not particularly good. You should view the induction as not just a necessary chore but something of real importance that will help ensure your new employee settles in, is happy with their decision and works to the best of their ability for you.
With that in mind, below I will look at how to conduct an induction and what to include within it but I will also be realistic. I know it is also important to minimise the time that you have to spend on it so there isn’t a major impact on your own workload whilst they settle in.
Experience has shown me that the larger the organisation, the more detailed the induction tends to be and this is also true in environments where health and safety issues are at their highest. However, a good induction should be viewed as vital for all companies, large and small. So, how do we create a simple induction?
First - Ensure The New Employee Is Expected.
This is the most basic of things and you would think that this was obvious but I am writing it because recruitment usually occurs due to time pressures within a business and it is amazing how often the employee turns up to find everyone running around trying to work out what is happening and what they are there for. Further, it's not unusual for the manager not to be around at the appointed time, which only adds to the confusion.
So, the absolute basics to ensure a smooth start are:
Next Time:
What to include in the induction, and your role.
Having come this far, the next key issue in their success (and consequently your success) is the impression they receive in their first few days with you and hence how well they settle in.
Are Inductions Necessary?
Most of us can look back through our own careers and recall an experience when we have joined a new business or department, not knowing anyone or anything and, quite frankly, been very nervous. Imagine being in that state and discovering that you are not expected, there is no desk and nobody knows who you are.
It is always worth remembering that the first couple of hours at a new employer are intimidating for almost everyone, and disorganisation and lack of warmth at the outset will exacerbate the nerves and discomfort. If this happens to a new employee, their subconscious minds will be saying “I don’t like this and I'd much rather not be here.” Of course, over time they will get to understand the company and their role but that initial feeling of “I don’t like this” will linger and their new place of work will never feel quite right, irrespective of what happens subsequently. As a result, the 100% commitment proffered during the interview just doesn’t quite materialise and a few months later they will be considering their job options and feeling that the grass turned out to be not so green when they moved employer and joined you.
My advice is to always remember how you have felt in the past on your own 'first days in the job'. With that in mind, it is vital that the first few days are positive for a new employee because first impressions stick and are difficult to change if they are not particularly good. You should view the induction as not just a necessary chore but something of real importance that will help ensure your new employee settles in, is happy with their decision and works to the best of their ability for you.
With that in mind, below I will look at how to conduct an induction and what to include within it but I will also be realistic. I know it is also important to minimise the time that you have to spend on it so there isn’t a major impact on your own workload whilst they settle in.
Experience has shown me that the larger the organisation, the more detailed the induction tends to be and this is also true in environments where health and safety issues are at their highest. However, a good induction should be viewed as vital for all companies, large and small. So, how do we create a simple induction?
First - Ensure The New Employee Is Expected.
This is the most basic of things and you would think that this was obvious but I am writing it because recruitment usually occurs due to time pressures within a business and it is amazing how often the employee turns up to find everyone running around trying to work out what is happening and what they are there for. Further, it's not unusual for the manager not to be around at the appointed time, which only adds to the confusion.
So, the absolute basics to ensure a smooth start are:
- Ensure that the new employee knows who to ask for when they arrive, that this nominated person is aware of their role, and also that there is a back-up person to contact in case the original nominee is late or ill. Provide contact numbers too, so that the new employee can get in touch if they are running late or delayed. They will realise that being delayed is not a good start but there is no need to compound their trepidation by not providing them someone who they can let know.
- Let your staff know the name of the new employee, where they will be sitting or based, the role of the new employee and their start date and time. In a large team this can be conveyed via an email and takes very little time. However busy an environment and however low staff morale may be, new employees will be looked after if they are expected and they will feel more comfortable.
- Ensure that the new employee has a desk and the tools for their role so that the first impression is of friendly efficiency. This includes a workstation they can access and a business email address. The number of complaints I have taken from new placements about not having anywhere to sit or a PC, or that after a week or so that they can still not log on to the new employer's system. This definitely undermines all the work that went into making the hire in the first place.
Next Time:
What to include in the induction, and your role.
ENSURING THE NEW EMPLOYEE ACTUALLY DOES JOIN YOUR COMPANY
Even though the job offer you've made has been accepted, there are still potential risks which may mean that the candidate will not actually start with you. The key risks are:
The Unacceptable Contract Of Employment:
In my experience this happens very rarely. Normally, the employer is aware of parts of the contract or expectations which may be troublesome and will cover them during the interview so that the employee is expecting and accepting-of the requirements.
For instance, many IT consultancies require that the employee is flexible on where they will work, meaning they could spend several months at a time working away and coming home at weekends only. For many this is acceptable and for those for whom it is not, it should have been made very clear at the outset of the process so they will not have even been interviewed.
If the contract is an issue and cannot be resolved by an amendment by the employer or an explanation to the candidate, it is, in my experience, generally because the candidate is not too keen on the role and the issue with the contract is being used as the reason not to take the role.
Accepting A Counter-Offer From Their Existing Employer:
If the candidate is going to be a key employee for you then it is very likely that they will be a key employee for their existing employer. Thus, it will be a surprise and an issue for the employer when they resign.
The typical thought process for the existing employer will be along the lines of: “how will I manage these activities and replace the employee?”, followed by “how can I keep them?”
The existing employer will have a very good idea about how to keep the employee because they will have worked with each other for some time and the employee will probably have been open about the reasons for moving when handing in their resignation. If the employer offers some more money and a change of role and plays on the loyalty that will have been engendered over time, there is a high risk it will result in the employee opting to stay with their existing employer and you having to carry out the search all over again.
To try and prevent this happening it is worth talking about the potential of a counter- offer in the interview and actively helping the candidate resign.
The time to talk about a possible a counter-offer is towards the end of the interview. The candidate will be comfortable with you by then and you will have been running through the opportunities for their personal development within your business and the goals for the business overall. Talking about the risks of accepting a counter-offer at this point can be the most effective way to dissuade the candidate from taking such an offer if it arises.
It is difficult to script this type of conversation because each circumstance is different but the chronology of the conversation would be as follows:
Dealing with the issue openly and pro-actively at this stage can save you a lot of trouble later.
The Candidate Accepting Your Offer But Continuing To Look For 'Better Opportunities':
With the best will in the world this will happen from time to time.
When you look back later and ask yourself what else you could have done, you will invariably remember having a gut feeling that everything didn’t feel quite right but you weren't able to put your finger on why. Your lesson will be to listen to this gut feeling and explore it further.
This is another reason not to make a job offer there and then at the end of an interview but to sleep on the decision overnight. When the niggle arises you can then replay events whilst they are fresh and you'll be able to pin down why they did not feel right.
It will usually be because the candidate was non-committal on a point or hesitated at the wrong time. Basically, it means they were not convinced about your opportunity. Unfortunately, if they accept the offer and continue looking at better opportunities there is little that you can do other than be slightly relieved because this is a reflection on the candidate’s integrity and may well have saved you from problems further down the road.
A caveat to the above statement is that sometimes the candidate will have multiple opportunities when accepting your offer and yours may not have been their first choice. Your questions at the end of the interview should have established this but that the candidate felt the favoured opportunity was dead because there had been no feedback. If the favoured opportunity subsequently comes back to the candidate then they will have a dilemma and they might well have a difficult decision.
The difference this time is how you find out about the other role being taken.
The candidate who was actively searching may not let you know that they are taking the other role or at best will send an email and will become difficult to contact. The candidate who has been presented with the tough dilemma will probably call you and talk you through the situation and why they are making the decision they are making. Neither particularly helps you but you would still be prepared to talk to the latter candidate in the future if a further opening arose and the timing was better.
The KEY Element To Ensuring That The New Employee Starts:
This is very easy: stay in touch! Don't receive the acceptance, send the contract out and ignore them until they start because they may not. Stay in touch throughout their resignation period, right up until they start.
Your aim should be to maintain their enthusiasm for joining you and you can do this by checking they have received the contract, regularly updating them on what is happening, telling them about day-to-day aspects of their new job such as where they will be sat, asking how they would like to be addressed on their business cards and what they will need to do their work (e.g. specific software or whatever), outlining what they will be doing when they start, and so on..
Next Time:
It is vital that the first few days with you are positive for a new employee as this is their first impression of you and your business and these impressions are difficult to change if they are not particularly good. Therefore, the induction is important and can be set up and run so that your new employees settle in and are very happy with their decision.
- The contract of employment not being acceptable.
- The candidate accepting a counter-offer from their existing employer.
- The candidate accepting your offer but continuing to look for 'better opportunities'.
The Unacceptable Contract Of Employment:
In my experience this happens very rarely. Normally, the employer is aware of parts of the contract or expectations which may be troublesome and will cover them during the interview so that the employee is expecting and accepting-of the requirements.
For instance, many IT consultancies require that the employee is flexible on where they will work, meaning they could spend several months at a time working away and coming home at weekends only. For many this is acceptable and for those for whom it is not, it should have been made very clear at the outset of the process so they will not have even been interviewed.
If the contract is an issue and cannot be resolved by an amendment by the employer or an explanation to the candidate, it is, in my experience, generally because the candidate is not too keen on the role and the issue with the contract is being used as the reason not to take the role.
Accepting A Counter-Offer From Their Existing Employer:
If the candidate is going to be a key employee for you then it is very likely that they will be a key employee for their existing employer. Thus, it will be a surprise and an issue for the employer when they resign.
The typical thought process for the existing employer will be along the lines of: “how will I manage these activities and replace the employee?”, followed by “how can I keep them?”
The existing employer will have a very good idea about how to keep the employee because they will have worked with each other for some time and the employee will probably have been open about the reasons for moving when handing in their resignation. If the employer offers some more money and a change of role and plays on the loyalty that will have been engendered over time, there is a high risk it will result in the employee opting to stay with their existing employer and you having to carry out the search all over again.
To try and prevent this happening it is worth talking about the potential of a counter- offer in the interview and actively helping the candidate resign.
The time to talk about a possible a counter-offer is towards the end of the interview. The candidate will be comfortable with you by then and you will have been running through the opportunities for their personal development within your business and the goals for the business overall. Talking about the risks of accepting a counter-offer at this point can be the most effective way to dissuade the candidate from taking such an offer if it arises.
It is difficult to script this type of conversation because each circumstance is different but the chronology of the conversation would be as follows:
- Ask about what happens to staff at the candidate’s current employer when someone resigns? Depending on the company it could be that 'they are escorted from the premises immediately' (this often happens within a sales environment), through to 'they work their notice period'.
- Next, ask what happens to key employees when they resign? The answer may well be 'they work their notice' or 'the employer tries to persuade them to stay'.
- Even if the candidate does not talk about counter-offers, this is the time to discuss it and a statement similar to the following will work well to make the candidate realise that once he/she has resigned they should not take the counter-offer:
"I want this to be the right decision for both of us and it's important, if we both agree to move forward, for it to work out well. Of course, you can decide at any stage during the process that this is not the right job option for you but if we make an offer and you accept it then I would like us to both be clear that we are agreed that you are starting and there is no changing your mind. Is that okay?
"Another thing I want to cover, more for your benefit than anything else, is that as a key employee your existing employer may well make a counter-offer to you to stay as they will have been caught on the hop and will have problems if you leave, whether it's to work with me or somewhere else. To keep you, changes will probably be promised, a new role offered and maybe more money too. What I have seen time and time again in the past is that people who accept these counter-offers are looking again six months later, when the changes haven’t actually materialised. And, of course, by this time the opportunity they originally wanted will have gone - as will any trust from their existing employer because they tried to resign in the first place. You may have come across situations like this before? Anyway, I’m mentioning it now, more for your benefit so that you're aware of this kind of situation than any specific reason."
The Candidate Accepting Your Offer But Continuing To Look For 'Better Opportunities':
With the best will in the world this will happen from time to time.
When you look back later and ask yourself what else you could have done, you will invariably remember having a gut feeling that everything didn’t feel quite right but you weren't able to put your finger on why. Your lesson will be to listen to this gut feeling and explore it further.
This is another reason not to make a job offer there and then at the end of an interview but to sleep on the decision overnight. When the niggle arises you can then replay events whilst they are fresh and you'll be able to pin down why they did not feel right.
It will usually be because the candidate was non-committal on a point or hesitated at the wrong time. Basically, it means they were not convinced about your opportunity. Unfortunately, if they accept the offer and continue looking at better opportunities there is little that you can do other than be slightly relieved because this is a reflection on the candidate’s integrity and may well have saved you from problems further down the road.
A caveat to the above statement is that sometimes the candidate will have multiple opportunities when accepting your offer and yours may not have been their first choice. Your questions at the end of the interview should have established this but that the candidate felt the favoured opportunity was dead because there had been no feedback. If the favoured opportunity subsequently comes back to the candidate then they will have a dilemma and they might well have a difficult decision.
The difference this time is how you find out about the other role being taken.
The candidate who was actively searching may not let you know that they are taking the other role or at best will send an email and will become difficult to contact. The candidate who has been presented with the tough dilemma will probably call you and talk you through the situation and why they are making the decision they are making. Neither particularly helps you but you would still be prepared to talk to the latter candidate in the future if a further opening arose and the timing was better.
The KEY Element To Ensuring That The New Employee Starts:
This is very easy: stay in touch! Don't receive the acceptance, send the contract out and ignore them until they start because they may not. Stay in touch throughout their resignation period, right up until they start.
Your aim should be to maintain their enthusiasm for joining you and you can do this by checking they have received the contract, regularly updating them on what is happening, telling them about day-to-day aspects of their new job such as where they will be sat, asking how they would like to be addressed on their business cards and what they will need to do their work (e.g. specific software or whatever), outlining what they will be doing when they start, and so on..
Next Time:
It is vital that the first few days with you are positive for a new employee as this is their first impression of you and your business and these impressions are difficult to change if they are not particularly good. Therefore, the induction is important and can be set up and run so that your new employees settle in and are very happy with their decision.
MAKING THE JOB OFFER (PT 2)
In the previous issue we looked at what to do prior to making the offer so that you've ensured you've established all the aspects of the package, so that the offer you can make is as attractive as possible.
We then looked at how best to make the offer and manage the acceptance and also how best to ensure that your offer is accepted if it is below the candidate’s expectations.
In this issue, we carry on with the steps involved in make a job offer, right through to the candidate starting with you.
Confirm The Offer In Writing:
Once the candidate has said 'yes' it is important to follow up with the written confirmation of the offer and the contract of employment.
Most candidates accept a position on the proviso that it is subject to contract and therefore the letter and contract must be sent quickly to prevent the hire unravelling. If you run your own department or business this should be very straightforward. In larger organisations it can take a couple of weeks to send out the paperwork via the official channels and this provides plenty of time for the candidate to become disillusioned with the new employer and - potentially - to therefore continue to look at other options in the market place. I have seen numerous appointments not happen because of the delay in issuing the offer letter and contract and my firm advice is to avoid this at all costs!
The Offer Letter:
The offer letter is a positive document that welcomes the candidate to the team and provides a summary of the package and expectations as detailed in the verbal offer you've already given.
It should detail all the benefits that come with the job - that is, all the aspects that you brought together prior to contacting the candidate to make the offer: annual holiday entitlement, guaranteed bonuses and annual bonuses, allowances and so forth. (All the points detailed in the previous edition of this blog.)
And, of course, the offer letter also needs to detail the expectations that come with the job - again, as you pulled together earlier. (Things such as working hours, dress code and so on.)
The offer letter should also have two copies of the contract of employment enclosed.
The Contract Of Employment:
This section has been written specifically to help people who are just starting their own businesses and those who do not have contracts of employment. Larger / established employers will have a standard contract of employment with a schedule to add the salary, holiday entitlement and any special conditions.
For anyone reading this who is just starting out - of course it is important to be legally compliant but it is also vital to conserve money wherever possible and paying solicitors for an employment contract is an expense which you may want to put off until it is absolutely necessary.
Employees are entitled to be given a Written Statement Of Particulars within two months of their starting date. Below, please find a link to a sample of a Written Statement Of Particulars, provided by BERR and Business Link:
BERR / Business Link
What's The Difference Between A Contract And A Written Statement Of Particulars?
A contract of employment exists as soon as an employee starts work. Starting work proves that they accept the terms and conditions offered by the employer. Both employer and employee are bound by the terms offered and accepted. Often the contract is verbally agreed and not written down.
However, employees are entitled by law to be given a written statement setting out the 'main particulars' of their employment within two months of their start date. The Business Link tool linked-to above enables you to meet your legal requirement to provide these statements.
There are other optional contractual terms that you may need for your business, for example covering who owns the intellectual property created by your employee, or confidentiality agreements. If this is the case, you may want to consider including these within a written contract.
If employers want to change the terms of an employee's contract of employment, they need to get his or her prior consent to the changes. Employers are not required to issue a new written statement each time one or more of these particulars change. However, they are required to give employees written notification of any changes within one month of the change occurring.
It is important to understand that the Written Statement Of Particulars is not a contract of employment. However, a standard contract of employment template can be purchased from about £15.00 on Internet - for example from this site.
Rejection Letters:
Once you've succeeded in filling the vacancy, then you should either phone the rejected candidates and/or write to them to let them know that they have not been successful. You should approach this in a similar way to the way we rejected unsuccessful candidates at CV stage in Issue 10 of this blog (Protecting your Reputation and Setting up Interviews (Pt1). The conversation/letter should be polite and constructive, so that the unsuccessful candidates remain positive about your business and would entertain looking at you again in the future if applicable, or recommend your business to other people as potential customers or employees.
Next Time:
Taking steps to ensure that the new employee actually does join your company.
We then looked at how best to make the offer and manage the acceptance and also how best to ensure that your offer is accepted if it is below the candidate’s expectations.
In this issue, we carry on with the steps involved in make a job offer, right through to the candidate starting with you.
Confirm The Offer In Writing:
Once the candidate has said 'yes' it is important to follow up with the written confirmation of the offer and the contract of employment.
Most candidates accept a position on the proviso that it is subject to contract and therefore the letter and contract must be sent quickly to prevent the hire unravelling. If you run your own department or business this should be very straightforward. In larger organisations it can take a couple of weeks to send out the paperwork via the official channels and this provides plenty of time for the candidate to become disillusioned with the new employer and - potentially - to therefore continue to look at other options in the market place. I have seen numerous appointments not happen because of the delay in issuing the offer letter and contract and my firm advice is to avoid this at all costs!
The Offer Letter:
The offer letter is a positive document that welcomes the candidate to the team and provides a summary of the package and expectations as detailed in the verbal offer you've already given.
It should detail all the benefits that come with the job - that is, all the aspects that you brought together prior to contacting the candidate to make the offer: annual holiday entitlement, guaranteed bonuses and annual bonuses, allowances and so forth. (All the points detailed in the previous edition of this blog.)
And, of course, the offer letter also needs to detail the expectations that come with the job - again, as you pulled together earlier. (Things such as working hours, dress code and so on.)
The offer letter should also have two copies of the contract of employment enclosed.
The Contract Of Employment:
This section has been written specifically to help people who are just starting their own businesses and those who do not have contracts of employment. Larger / established employers will have a standard contract of employment with a schedule to add the salary, holiday entitlement and any special conditions.
For anyone reading this who is just starting out - of course it is important to be legally compliant but it is also vital to conserve money wherever possible and paying solicitors for an employment contract is an expense which you may want to put off until it is absolutely necessary.
Employees are entitled to be given a Written Statement Of Particulars within two months of their starting date. Below, please find a link to a sample of a Written Statement Of Particulars, provided by BERR and Business Link:
BERR / Business Link
What's The Difference Between A Contract And A Written Statement Of Particulars?
A contract of employment exists as soon as an employee starts work. Starting work proves that they accept the terms and conditions offered by the employer. Both employer and employee are bound by the terms offered and accepted. Often the contract is verbally agreed and not written down.
However, employees are entitled by law to be given a written statement setting out the 'main particulars' of their employment within two months of their start date. The Business Link tool linked-to above enables you to meet your legal requirement to provide these statements.
There are other optional contractual terms that you may need for your business, for example covering who owns the intellectual property created by your employee, or confidentiality agreements. If this is the case, you may want to consider including these within a written contract.
If employers want to change the terms of an employee's contract of employment, they need to get his or her prior consent to the changes. Employers are not required to issue a new written statement each time one or more of these particulars change. However, they are required to give employees written notification of any changes within one month of the change occurring.
It is important to understand that the Written Statement Of Particulars is not a contract of employment. However, a standard contract of employment template can be purchased from about £15.00 on Internet - for example from this site.
Rejection Letters:
Once you've succeeded in filling the vacancy, then you should either phone the rejected candidates and/or write to them to let them know that they have not been successful. You should approach this in a similar way to the way we rejected unsuccessful candidates at CV stage in Issue 10 of this blog (Protecting your Reputation and Setting up Interviews (Pt1). The conversation/letter should be polite and constructive, so that the unsuccessful candidates remain positive about your business and would entertain looking at you again in the future if applicable, or recommend your business to other people as potential customers or employees.
Next Time:
Taking steps to ensure that the new employee actually does join your company.
MAKING THE JOB OFFER (PT 1)
So far, we have run through how to structure your recruitment process to ensure that you hire only the best candidates. By following the process you can be sure that you are dealing with the candidates you would like to hire, and you will have ensured that they are very keen on the role and to work with and for you.
The final stage of the process is to make the job offer and do all you can to ensure that they accept and start work with you.
Before Making The Offer:
Once you know who you are going to make the offer to, review all the information you have about the candidate’s current salary, overall remuneration package and their expectations. Next, list the benefits associated with working for your company including:
After you have listed the benefits, list the expectations that come with working for you, including:
Making The Offer:
By retaining control of the process and being on top of the candidate’s position regarding both where they stand on other options and any requirements they might have if they are to take the role, making the offer and receiving an acceptance should be very straightforward.
Assuming that you are not working for a large organisation with its own recruitment process which says you can’t proceed in this way, my recommendation is that you phone the candidate with the offer. If you are working with a recruitment consultant then you will have established how competent they are. If they are competent and you are confident in them then it is often better to let them make the offer as it is less pressurised for you and the middle man can sell the benefits more independently for you. If you are not convinced about the recruiter and all they provided was a good CV, then I would recommend that you make the offer personally.
Assuming you make the call; it should be friendly and welcoming, to reinforce the feeling that they will be making the right decision by coming to work for you. You should emphasise that you enjoyed meeting them, that you are sure that they are the best person for your role and that you would like them to join you so that together you can work towards achieving both the business' targets and meeting their aspirations in the longer term.
After confirming you are making the offer, fully explain the salary, package and benefits of joining your business. Your clear prior understanding of the candidate’s requirements will usually ensure that acceptance should be readily forthcoming.
Making An Offer Below Expectations:
Having to make lower-than-the-candidate-hoped-for offers will arise from time to time and this is fair enough if the candidate is looking for a substantial pay increase - say, over 10%, although this could be considerably lower in today’s economy; or if the pay required is outside the scales within your organisation. If the expectations are outside what your firm can meet then this should have been covered during the interview when you discussed the opportunity with them. What would be acceptable in the eyes of the candidate would then have been adjusted so that the lower offer will be acceptable.
A situation I regularly see, however, is the interview process being followed and the hirer knowing what the candidate requires to take the role but then offering a lower amount. The effect of the lower offer is to undo a lot of the positive and motivational feelings the candidate has towards you, your company and the role. Sometimes a candidate may still accept but you will have had a negative impact on their efficacy before they start. Just as frequently, the salary offer has to be increased to obtain their acceptance - but the damage has still been done.
Other risks from a lower-than-expected offer include the candidate not accepting the position or accepting but continuing to look at other roles and maybe taking something else during their notice period. It may not be ethical on the part of the candidate but it does happen and ultimately has been self-inflicted by the hirer.
In my view, offering a lower starting salary 'out of the blue' and contrary to the expectations that you have given the candidate hitherto is always counter-productive and never to be recommended.
The Acceptance:
Ordinarily, the candidate should accept the offer and you can then put it in writing. However, the candidate may ask for some time to think about it and make a final decision. This is reasonable but it should only take a couple of days or perhaps a weekend - for instance, to discuss it with their spouse. Requiring a couple of weeks is unreasonable as they have known about the role for some time and it usually means that they have other options and they don't really want to take the post you're offering but they are trying to keep it alive as a fall-back position in case their preferred job doesn't come through. This is disappointing but it happens sometimes. If this is the case, my advice is to move onto other candidates and not wait.
If the candidate doesn't verbally accept immediately, it is important that a deadline is specified for them to accept or decline the offer. So, for instance, if the offer is made on a Thursday or Friday then state clearly that the candidate must contact you by 10.00 am on the following Monday to accept otherwise the offer will be withdrawn. Remember, you need to fill the role and waiting on the off-chance of an acceptance seldom produces the result you want.
If you are asked for time to think about the role, this can be handled gently by you with a statement to the effect of:
Next Time:
We finish making the offer by looking at the written offer, what has to be given to the candidate in the contract, how to help the candidate resign from their current role and avoid a counter-offer, and how to ensure that they stay committed to starting with you throughout their notice period.
The final stage of the process is to make the job offer and do all you can to ensure that they accept and start work with you.
Before Making The Offer:
Once you know who you are going to make the offer to, review all the information you have about the candidate’s current salary, overall remuneration package and their expectations. Next, list the benefits associated with working for your company including:
- Annual holiday entitlement.
- Any guaranteed bonuses and annual bonuses.
- Any other bonuses which, whilst not guaranteed, are regularly granted such as company performance bonuses.
- Any allowances such as:
- Car, or car allowance, mileage and travel expenses.
- Luncheon vouchers.
- Health insurance and death in service benefits.
- The company pension scheme including how it works and pays out and the contributions made by the company and by the employee.
- CPD or training days.
- Flexible working practices.
- And others that you may have. For instance, at Christmas we close for a week and the time off is added to the annual holiday entitlement so 20 days can become 24 days. It is not officially 'guaranteed' but it has been provided every year to date!
After you have listed the benefits, list the expectations that come with working for you, including:
- the normal working hours;
- the dress code;
- who they will be reporting to; and also
- their expected progression over the next three-to-five years if this has been discussed in the interview process.
Making The Offer:
By retaining control of the process and being on top of the candidate’s position regarding both where they stand on other options and any requirements they might have if they are to take the role, making the offer and receiving an acceptance should be very straightforward.
Assuming that you are not working for a large organisation with its own recruitment process which says you can’t proceed in this way, my recommendation is that you phone the candidate with the offer. If you are working with a recruitment consultant then you will have established how competent they are. If they are competent and you are confident in them then it is often better to let them make the offer as it is less pressurised for you and the middle man can sell the benefits more independently for you. If you are not convinced about the recruiter and all they provided was a good CV, then I would recommend that you make the offer personally.
Assuming you make the call; it should be friendly and welcoming, to reinforce the feeling that they will be making the right decision by coming to work for you. You should emphasise that you enjoyed meeting them, that you are sure that they are the best person for your role and that you would like them to join you so that together you can work towards achieving both the business' targets and meeting their aspirations in the longer term.
After confirming you are making the offer, fully explain the salary, package and benefits of joining your business. Your clear prior understanding of the candidate’s requirements will usually ensure that acceptance should be readily forthcoming.
Making An Offer Below Expectations:
Having to make lower-than-the-candidate-hoped-for offers will arise from time to time and this is fair enough if the candidate is looking for a substantial pay increase - say, over 10%, although this could be considerably lower in today’s economy; or if the pay required is outside the scales within your organisation. If the expectations are outside what your firm can meet then this should have been covered during the interview when you discussed the opportunity with them. What would be acceptable in the eyes of the candidate would then have been adjusted so that the lower offer will be acceptable.
A situation I regularly see, however, is the interview process being followed and the hirer knowing what the candidate requires to take the role but then offering a lower amount. The effect of the lower offer is to undo a lot of the positive and motivational feelings the candidate has towards you, your company and the role. Sometimes a candidate may still accept but you will have had a negative impact on their efficacy before they start. Just as frequently, the salary offer has to be increased to obtain their acceptance - but the damage has still been done.
Other risks from a lower-than-expected offer include the candidate not accepting the position or accepting but continuing to look at other roles and maybe taking something else during their notice period. It may not be ethical on the part of the candidate but it does happen and ultimately has been self-inflicted by the hirer.
In my view, offering a lower starting salary 'out of the blue' and contrary to the expectations that you have given the candidate hitherto is always counter-productive and never to be recommended.
The Acceptance:
Ordinarily, the candidate should accept the offer and you can then put it in writing. However, the candidate may ask for some time to think about it and make a final decision. This is reasonable but it should only take a couple of days or perhaps a weekend - for instance, to discuss it with their spouse. Requiring a couple of weeks is unreasonable as they have known about the role for some time and it usually means that they have other options and they don't really want to take the post you're offering but they are trying to keep it alive as a fall-back position in case their preferred job doesn't come through. This is disappointing but it happens sometimes. If this is the case, my advice is to move onto other candidates and not wait.
If the candidate doesn't verbally accept immediately, it is important that a deadline is specified for them to accept or decline the offer. So, for instance, if the offer is made on a Thursday or Friday then state clearly that the candidate must contact you by 10.00 am on the following Monday to accept otherwise the offer will be withdrawn. Remember, you need to fill the role and waiting on the off-chance of an acceptance seldom produces the result you want.
If you are asked for time to think about the role, this can be handled gently by you with a statement to the effect of:
“Okay, I can understand that. It is an important decision for both of us and it is important that you and your family are happy with the decision. I am happy to let you have a couple of days to decide but will need a relatively quick decision. You are the person I want to join me but there was another candidate who was very strong and I need to let him/her know shortly whether we are moving this forward or not. I can’t afford to lose you and the other candidate as well, so I need to close this off fairly quickly. So, if it is all right with you, would you be able to confirm 'yes' or 'no' by X day at 10.00 am?”Presuming that's met in the affirmative, you can then close the conversation by saying something positive, along the lines of:
The deadline sets clear expectations and should also form part of the written confirmation to the candidate. It also helps ensure that the candidate will not feel pressurised with the decision making process.“Excellent, I will confirm the details of the offer in writing to you now and hopefully you will accept and then we can sort the contract out in the coming days. If you have any questions please call me and I will be happy to discuss them with you. I look forward to hearing from you and to working with you during the coming years.”
Next Time:
We finish making the offer by looking at the written offer, what has to be given to the candidate in the contract, how to help the candidate resign from their current role and avoid a counter-offer, and how to ensure that they stay committed to starting with you throughout their notice period.
TAKING REFERENCES (PT 2)
Taking references is a key element to ensuring that you are hiring somebody who will help you drive your business forward and demonstrate good aptitude and attitude within the role.
In the previous issue we established why we take references, who to talk to at organisations for the references and how to establish if the former employer would have the candidate back if the former employer isn't willing or able to confirm any more than the dates worked by the candidate.
In this issue we look at the questions to ask in order to obtain a comprehensive reference.
How To Ensure A Thorough And Detailed Reference Can Be Taken:
When a person provides a referee they are expecting that you will be given a good reference. Usually this expectation is justified because the candidate has impressed the former/current employer or colleague, but you need to be sure.
The person providing the reference on a former employee or colleague may have reservations about the candidate but will be concerned about the potential implications of giving a poor reference. Litigation and potential confidentiality concerns are real and you need to be able to make the referee confident that any information they impart will be handled with care and discretion.
Having introduced yourself to the referee and explained the reason for the call, I suggest making a statement along the following lines:
“This reference will be treated confidentially between you and I only. I would really appreciate your candour and honest appraisal of X so that I can make the right decision with the appointment. If there are areas that are negative about X and result in me deciding not to make the appointment, I will advise X that we have hired a candidate who was a better match and leave it at that, so that our conversation remains confidential.”
The aim of this statement is to put the referee at ease and allow you to receive the answers that will help you establish whether you should be making the appointment or not. Even if you obtain a poor reference you must still comply with the assurance you made to the referee.
The Reference:
I use a generic reference form when talking to referees as I find that helps me structure the conversation and achieve the results I need.
The form can be downloaded here.
The questions I use are designed to provide me with a broad overview of the candidate and their expertise. Additional questions regarding the specific activities and behaviours that you are looking for in your candidate can be added to the ones I've suggested, so that you obtain the detailed answers you are looking for.
How To Obtain Detailed Information When Taking The Reference:
It is important to realise that the questions I use when taking references and any additional questions that you ask should each be mini-conversations. You want to avoid asking the question, receiving a one word answer or a small statement and moving onto the next question.
Try to use 'open' questions so that “yes” or “no” are not suitable answers. Ideally, in response to your questions a statement will be made and if you then ask a follow-up question about the statement the referee will be providing the detail you require.
(This works in much the same way as the probing during the interview, discussed earlier, where you continue to probe until you are confident that you are not making assumptions about the candidate.)
Framing questions as 'closed' questions can provide a misleading reference. For instance, asking “Did X have any weaknesses?” makes it very easy for the referee to say "no" and to not provide the additional information you require, despite you setting up the conversation correctly at the outset.
That said, if you have specific behavioural questions then these can be 'closed' questions requiring "yes" or "no" answers. For instance: “Did the candidate carry out the (specified) task?”
"Yes" or "no" is the answer you want. If the answer is "yes" then you can probe about the candidate’s particular role in the activity and how they performed it. If the answer is "no", then establish why it is a "no" if the interview provided information which led you to believe it should be a "yes".
Pauses:
Quite often you will ask a question and will be met with silence. It is important not to interject until the referee says something. For instance, “What were X’s weaknesses?”
often generates a silence, but this pause is thinking time and means that the referee is engaged in helping you with the reference.
Generally there are two types of answer that you will receive, either "Sorry, I can’t think of any weaknesses", or some specific concerns will be revealed. Interrupting the pause could produce an answer of "there are no weaknesses" and you won't have obtained a true opinion about your candidate, again despite having set up the conversation properly at the start.
Additional Questions:
If you are taking the reference, it is likely that you are positive about the candidate and are looking to make the appointment subject to good references. If the referee has provided a good reference then ask additional questions along the lines of:
How Long Does It Take To Take A Good Reference?
Normally a good conversation about the candidate will last a minimum of 10 minutes and by the end of the conversation you will have detailed answers about the tasks and behaviours. If the referee is talkative then the conversation can last for 20 minutes and will usually end with you being very comfortable with the candidate and having no further questions.
Finishing The Reference:
Needless to say, once you've asked all your questions, be gracious and thank the referee for being so forthcoming and let them know that you will tell the candidate that they provided an excellent reference if they did; or that if you choose not to make the hire that no reference to this conversation will be made.
Next Time:
Making the job offer.
In the previous issue we established why we take references, who to talk to at organisations for the references and how to establish if the former employer would have the candidate back if the former employer isn't willing or able to confirm any more than the dates worked by the candidate.
In this issue we look at the questions to ask in order to obtain a comprehensive reference.
How To Ensure A Thorough And Detailed Reference Can Be Taken:
When a person provides a referee they are expecting that you will be given a good reference. Usually this expectation is justified because the candidate has impressed the former/current employer or colleague, but you need to be sure.
The person providing the reference on a former employee or colleague may have reservations about the candidate but will be concerned about the potential implications of giving a poor reference. Litigation and potential confidentiality concerns are real and you need to be able to make the referee confident that any information they impart will be handled with care and discretion.
Having introduced yourself to the referee and explained the reason for the call, I suggest making a statement along the following lines:
“This reference will be treated confidentially between you and I only. I would really appreciate your candour and honest appraisal of X so that I can make the right decision with the appointment. If there are areas that are negative about X and result in me deciding not to make the appointment, I will advise X that we have hired a candidate who was a better match and leave it at that, so that our conversation remains confidential.”
The aim of this statement is to put the referee at ease and allow you to receive the answers that will help you establish whether you should be making the appointment or not. Even if you obtain a poor reference you must still comply with the assurance you made to the referee.
The Reference:
I use a generic reference form when talking to referees as I find that helps me structure the conversation and achieve the results I need.
The form can be downloaded here.
The questions I use are designed to provide me with a broad overview of the candidate and their expertise. Additional questions regarding the specific activities and behaviours that you are looking for in your candidate can be added to the ones I've suggested, so that you obtain the detailed answers you are looking for.
How To Obtain Detailed Information When Taking The Reference:
It is important to realise that the questions I use when taking references and any additional questions that you ask should each be mini-conversations. You want to avoid asking the question, receiving a one word answer or a small statement and moving onto the next question.
Try to use 'open' questions so that “yes” or “no” are not suitable answers. Ideally, in response to your questions a statement will be made and if you then ask a follow-up question about the statement the referee will be providing the detail you require.
(This works in much the same way as the probing during the interview, discussed earlier, where you continue to probe until you are confident that you are not making assumptions about the candidate.)
Framing questions as 'closed' questions can provide a misleading reference. For instance, asking “Did X have any weaknesses?” makes it very easy for the referee to say "no" and to not provide the additional information you require, despite you setting up the conversation correctly at the outset.
That said, if you have specific behavioural questions then these can be 'closed' questions requiring "yes" or "no" answers. For instance: “Did the candidate carry out the (specified) task?”
"Yes" or "no" is the answer you want. If the answer is "yes" then you can probe about the candidate’s particular role in the activity and how they performed it. If the answer is "no", then establish why it is a "no" if the interview provided information which led you to believe it should be a "yes".
Pauses:
Quite often you will ask a question and will be met with silence. It is important not to interject until the referee says something. For instance, “What were X’s weaknesses?”
often generates a silence, but this pause is thinking time and means that the referee is engaged in helping you with the reference.
Generally there are two types of answer that you will receive, either "Sorry, I can’t think of any weaknesses", or some specific concerns will be revealed. Interrupting the pause could produce an answer of "there are no weaknesses" and you won't have obtained a true opinion about your candidate, again despite having set up the conversation properly at the start.
Additional Questions:
If you are taking the reference, it is likely that you are positive about the candidate and are looking to make the appointment subject to good references. If the referee has provided a good reference then ask additional questions along the lines of:
”What was the most effective way of managing X for you?”, orThese additional questions can provide great insight in to how to engage well with the candidate when they start with you and how to get the most out of them.
“If you wanted (name the task) carried out, how would you manage X to achieve the result?”
How Long Does It Take To Take A Good Reference?
Normally a good conversation about the candidate will last a minimum of 10 minutes and by the end of the conversation you will have detailed answers about the tasks and behaviours. If the referee is talkative then the conversation can last for 20 minutes and will usually end with you being very comfortable with the candidate and having no further questions.
Finishing The Reference:
Needless to say, once you've asked all your questions, be gracious and thank the referee for being so forthcoming and let them know that you will tell the candidate that they provided an excellent reference if they did; or that if you choose not to make the hire that no reference to this conversation will be made.
Next Time:
Making the job offer.
TAKING REFERENCES (PT 1)
In recent issues we have run through how to conduct the interview, deal with the most likely issues that will occur during an interview and how to close the interview.
Regarding closing the interview, I strongly recommended that you don’t make the offer at the time but give yourself the opportunity to read through the notes that you took during the meeting to make certain that you have all the information you need. An additional benefit is that this provides time to check references too.
Why Take References?
This is one of the most crucial aspects of the hiring process and will ensure that you are as certain as you can be that the candidate is the right person for you to hire. As such, references should be taken with every hire even if the candidate has been referred by someone already working for your firm.
The interview process is very strong at establishing what the candidate can and cannot do and the behaviours they exhibit whilst carrying out the tasks. The CV and the questions on the development and progression of their career will establish whether they will be a good fit, and the rapport you build during the interview will provide a good idea as to whether you will be able to work well with the candidate.
What the interview may not be able to conclusively establish is the candidate’s attitude and aptitude on a daily basis and how they deal with their colleagues in pressurised situations. What this means is that you could hire someone who can carry out the role but could create a poor overall working environment.
If handled correctly and in confidence, the candidate's references will provide the information to truly understand their attitude and aptitude and convince you to make the hire or not. Also, they will detail the most effective ways to manage and get the most out of the candidate if you do hire them.
Which Referees Should You Be Talking To?
Always aim to take a minimum of two references, with at least one coming from the manager and one coming from a colleague who worked alongside your candidate. Personal references don’t hold any value so only business references should be obtained. The exception to this may be when someone is first starting out and has no prior work experience.
If possible, always seek to obtain references from the last two employers.
Taking references from the current employer can be challenging if the candidate still works there. In this circumstance ask the candidate: "who is there at your current employment that is aware you are looking to move and that I could talk to?"
A candidate who has worked at the same employer for a number of years will probably be more cautious as they might well have a lot to lose if the employer found out that they were looking. Under these circumstances, if the interview has provided the confirmation that the candidate can carry out the tasks you require and has the right behaviours, you would have to consider making the offer on the basis that it is subject to satisfactory references.
How To Obtain Referee Details:
This is straightforward: ask the candidate to provide the information. Ask for the name, position, working relationship with them and the contact phone numbers, ideally the mobile or, failing that, the direct dial as a minimum.
To make this easier you can ask the candidate to bring this information with them to the interview so that on the assumption that you are both happy after the interview the rest of the process can run smoothly. There can be delays otherwise, while the candidate seeks to track down the referees.
To expedite matters further it is helpful if the candidate has prepared the referees to receive the call so that they are willing and able to talk to you.
What Do You Do If You Are Unable To Obtain The Information You Require?
Society is litigious. Many managers are advised not to provide references and despite your assurances on confidentiality will not confirm more than the dates worked, or they will refer you to their HR department who will also only confirm the dates worked and also not detail what the candidate carried out in their role!
When the above situation arises with potential new recruit's manager, you do need to establish whether they are hiding behind the HR screen to avoid giving a bad reference or whether they simply feel that a strict company policy on references should be complied with. In this situation, without sounding confrontational, ask the following question:
It is the role of the candidate to ensure that you are provided with referees who are prepared to talk to you. If the referees are not prepared to, then ask the candidate to provide contact details for suitable alternatives, and suggest that he/she speaks to them first to ensure that they are willing to act as referees.
What If The Candidate Advises That The Referees Are Not Contactable?
Ordinarily this should set alarm bells ringing but it can occasionally be true, particularly for contractors. If the candidate has come from overseas you should still insist on speaking to appropriate referees and be prepared to make the international calls necessary to confirm that the candidate is who you want to hire. (Although language can be an issue here.)
If the candidate is unprepared or unable to provide referees, even colleagues, then my recommendation would be to not make the hire.
If referees are a problem but the candidate has ticked all the boxes and, from the interview process at least, appears to be the ideal candidate then if you are prepared to make an offer make it very clear that there is a probation period so you have a get-out. In countries where it is difficult to remove staff once they have started work, then my guidance again would be to not make the hire.
Next Time:
We will discuss the questions to ask referees and how to probe to obtain a really strong insight into the candidate’s performance, attitude and behaviour, so that you know you are making the best hire.
Regarding closing the interview, I strongly recommended that you don’t make the offer at the time but give yourself the opportunity to read through the notes that you took during the meeting to make certain that you have all the information you need. An additional benefit is that this provides time to check references too.
Why Take References?
This is one of the most crucial aspects of the hiring process and will ensure that you are as certain as you can be that the candidate is the right person for you to hire. As such, references should be taken with every hire even if the candidate has been referred by someone already working for your firm.
The interview process is very strong at establishing what the candidate can and cannot do and the behaviours they exhibit whilst carrying out the tasks. The CV and the questions on the development and progression of their career will establish whether they will be a good fit, and the rapport you build during the interview will provide a good idea as to whether you will be able to work well with the candidate.
What the interview may not be able to conclusively establish is the candidate’s attitude and aptitude on a daily basis and how they deal with their colleagues in pressurised situations. What this means is that you could hire someone who can carry out the role but could create a poor overall working environment.
If handled correctly and in confidence, the candidate's references will provide the information to truly understand their attitude and aptitude and convince you to make the hire or not. Also, they will detail the most effective ways to manage and get the most out of the candidate if you do hire them.
Which Referees Should You Be Talking To?
Always aim to take a minimum of two references, with at least one coming from the manager and one coming from a colleague who worked alongside your candidate. Personal references don’t hold any value so only business references should be obtained. The exception to this may be when someone is first starting out and has no prior work experience.
If possible, always seek to obtain references from the last two employers.
Taking references from the current employer can be challenging if the candidate still works there. In this circumstance ask the candidate: "who is there at your current employment that is aware you are looking to move and that I could talk to?"
A candidate who has worked at the same employer for a number of years will probably be more cautious as they might well have a lot to lose if the employer found out that they were looking. Under these circumstances, if the interview has provided the confirmation that the candidate can carry out the tasks you require and has the right behaviours, you would have to consider making the offer on the basis that it is subject to satisfactory references.
How To Obtain Referee Details:
This is straightforward: ask the candidate to provide the information. Ask for the name, position, working relationship with them and the contact phone numbers, ideally the mobile or, failing that, the direct dial as a minimum.
To make this easier you can ask the candidate to bring this information with them to the interview so that on the assumption that you are both happy after the interview the rest of the process can run smoothly. There can be delays otherwise, while the candidate seeks to track down the referees.
To expedite matters further it is helpful if the candidate has prepared the referees to receive the call so that they are willing and able to talk to you.
What Do You Do If You Are Unable To Obtain The Information You Require?
Society is litigious. Many managers are advised not to provide references and despite your assurances on confidentiality will not confirm more than the dates worked, or they will refer you to their HR department who will also only confirm the dates worked and also not detail what the candidate carried out in their role!
When the above situation arises with potential new recruit's manager, you do need to establish whether they are hiding behind the HR screen to avoid giving a bad reference or whether they simply feel that a strict company policy on references should be complied with. In this situation, without sounding confrontational, ask the following question:
“Okay I appreciate the guidelines you work to and will speak to HR to confirm the dates that the candidate worked with you. I have one last question so that I don’t have to class this as a bad reference - would you have the candidate back to work for you?”The referee will understand the implication of the question and will answer “yes” if the candidate was good. An answer of “no” or “you must speak to HR” should be ringing alarm bells, prompting you to carry out thorough background checks on the candidate.
It is the role of the candidate to ensure that you are provided with referees who are prepared to talk to you. If the referees are not prepared to, then ask the candidate to provide contact details for suitable alternatives, and suggest that he/she speaks to them first to ensure that they are willing to act as referees.
What If The Candidate Advises That The Referees Are Not Contactable?
Ordinarily this should set alarm bells ringing but it can occasionally be true, particularly for contractors. If the candidate has come from overseas you should still insist on speaking to appropriate referees and be prepared to make the international calls necessary to confirm that the candidate is who you want to hire. (Although language can be an issue here.)
If the candidate is unprepared or unable to provide referees, even colleagues, then my recommendation would be to not make the hire.
If referees are a problem but the candidate has ticked all the boxes and, from the interview process at least, appears to be the ideal candidate then if you are prepared to make an offer make it very clear that there is a probation period so you have a get-out. In countries where it is difficult to remove staff once they have started work, then my guidance again would be to not make the hire.
Next Time:
We will discuss the questions to ask referees and how to probe to obtain a really strong insight into the candidate’s performance, attitude and behaviour, so that you know you are making the best hire.
CLOSING THE INTERVIEW (PT 2)
During the previous issue we looked at how to move the interview towards a close and within this how to sell the opportunity and your company as well as answer the candidate’s questions thoroughly, especially if you are keen on hiring them.
We'll now carry on with the remaining elements of closing the interview effectively so that you maximise the likelihood of the candidate taking-up the offer if you decide they are the right person for the post.
Establish What Else Is Happening For The Candidate:
Both parties have had an open and frank conversation. Now is the time to establish where the candidate stands in relation to other options so that you know if you have to do more to secure them, if you want them. Ask the following questions and probe further if the initial answers aren't clear:
Where do you stand on your other options at the moment? Assuming they have other avenues they're pursuing, you want to understand how far down the line they are and when decisions are likely to be made. If the answer is that they have no other options at present then it is easy to move on.
If they have other options and you have established the timelines, ask “based on what you have heard about our opportunity and X opportunity (you have to ask where you stand in relation to each option they may have) what are your thoughts about them?”
This is a non-confrontational way of establishing where you stand and finding out whether the opportunity you're offering is being perceived as better than the alternatives or not as good. It is much better to know where you stand even if you don’t like the answer.
Once you have run through the other options, or if the candidate has said there are none, there is one more key question to ask: "If you were to take our role and resign from your current employer how will they react?"
There are a number of reasons to ask this. Firstly, it is to try and establish whether the candidate will be expected to work their full notice, a proportion of it or whether they will be released immediately. More importantly, if they know (or suspect) they are valued by their existing employer, they might also know there is the potential of a counter-offer being made. Loyal employees find such offers difficult to turn down, even though their current employer is only reacting after they resign and merely assuming they are happy rather than actively looking after them up until then.
I will come back to this issue in a future article as it is broad and a few, simple-to-teach sales techniques can turn these situations around. If you are in a position at the moment where guidance would be appreciated, email me in person and I will be pleased to help.
Run Through What Will Happen Next:
This is simple and just literally does just mean telling the candidate what will be happening next and when.
For the candidate that you are interested in, I suggest stating that you are very impressed and think they could be a good fit but just need to run through your notes, and that you will be in touch by XXX time or date.
For the candidate you are not interested in or are not sure about you can either:
Whatever your thoughts about the candidate, it is vital to treat them professionally and with respect - in the same way as you would want to be treated. You want a positive message out there about you and your company and you never know when your paths may cross again. If circumstances change in the future, you would like them to be a 'yes'.
The interview is effectively concluded now, so ask for any more questions from them and thank them for their time, reiterate that it was good to meet them and - if appropriate - reassure them that you will be in touch by the agreed time.
Next Time
Referencing before making an offer.
We'll now carry on with the remaining elements of closing the interview effectively so that you maximise the likelihood of the candidate taking-up the offer if you decide they are the right person for the post.
Establish What Else Is Happening For The Candidate:
Both parties have had an open and frank conversation. Now is the time to establish where the candidate stands in relation to other options so that you know if you have to do more to secure them, if you want them. Ask the following questions and probe further if the initial answers aren't clear:
Where do you stand on your other options at the moment? Assuming they have other avenues they're pursuing, you want to understand how far down the line they are and when decisions are likely to be made. If the answer is that they have no other options at present then it is easy to move on.
If they have other options and you have established the timelines, ask “based on what you have heard about our opportunity and X opportunity (you have to ask where you stand in relation to each option they may have) what are your thoughts about them?”
This is a non-confrontational way of establishing where you stand and finding out whether the opportunity you're offering is being perceived as better than the alternatives or not as good. It is much better to know where you stand even if you don’t like the answer.
Once you have run through the other options, or if the candidate has said there are none, there is one more key question to ask: "If you were to take our role and resign from your current employer how will they react?"
There are a number of reasons to ask this. Firstly, it is to try and establish whether the candidate will be expected to work their full notice, a proportion of it or whether they will be released immediately. More importantly, if they know (or suspect) they are valued by their existing employer, they might also know there is the potential of a counter-offer being made. Loyal employees find such offers difficult to turn down, even though their current employer is only reacting after they resign and merely assuming they are happy rather than actively looking after them up until then.
I will come back to this issue in a future article as it is broad and a few, simple-to-teach sales techniques can turn these situations around. If you are in a position at the moment where guidance would be appreciated, email me in person and I will be pleased to help.
Run Through What Will Happen Next:
This is simple and just literally does just mean telling the candidate what will be happening next and when.
For the candidate that you are interested in, I suggest stating that you are very impressed and think they could be a good fit but just need to run through your notes, and that you will be in touch by XXX time or date.
For the candidate you are not interested in or are not sure about you can either:
a/ conclude the meeting there and then and, rather than maintain their expectations, explain where they were not quite what we were looking for. It is very important to be professional and polite about this as they can still market your company.or
b/. Answer in the same way as for the candidate you were interested in.My preference is to be upfront but you can run with whichever scenario sits most comfortably with you.
Whatever your thoughts about the candidate, it is vital to treat them professionally and with respect - in the same way as you would want to be treated. You want a positive message out there about you and your company and you never know when your paths may cross again. If circumstances change in the future, you would like them to be a 'yes'.
The interview is effectively concluded now, so ask for any more questions from them and thank them for their time, reiterate that it was good to meet them and - if appropriate - reassure them that you will be in touch by the agreed time.
Next Time
Referencing before making an offer.
CLOSING THE INTERVIEW (PT 1)
During the last few editions we have run through the interview questions to ask and how to construct them; how to spot and deal with issues which could lead you to lose control of an interview; and how to guard against information being gathered which is inaccurate or does not provide guidance as to the suitability for the role.
It will only take a couple of interviews to become confident and competent with this process. You will then be able to ascertain whether the person in front of you is the right person for the post, and you will have eliminated the “he looked and sounded the part and we got on well” approach to interviewing which can and has resulted in so many recruiting calamities.
So, What Now?
Once you have the required information you're in a position to close the interview with a high level of certainty as to whether the candidate is the right person for you or not.
My recommendation is that you do not make an offer at this stage and instead give yourself some time afterwards, just to run through the answers that were given, to ensure that you have not missed anything. I would particularly advocate this if this is one of your first interviews. (The only exception would be if you are hiring a temp or a contractor and they have to start the next day.) However, taking this approach doesn't mean that you can’t close the interview so that the candidate is left feeling very keen on working for you, over and above any other opportunities they may have.
When I have the detailed answers I require from my questions I move the interview towards the close with a statement along the lines of:
Sell The Opportunity And Your Company:
'Selling' the job you're offering and your company is very important, but by waiting and only doing this at the end of the interview, then
When presenting the opportunity and your company remember to talk about where the role will take the candidate in the longer term, so that they have some objectives beyond completing the role you have today. This is very important in securing the very best people. (Always remember, the top candidates will almost certainly have other options as you will not be the only person to spot a highly motivated, talented individual.)
Be honest and talk about any aspirations that have been expressed by the candidate that may not be met within the role or within their expected timeframe. Talk about why they won’t and discuss alternatives, with the aim of making those alternatives just as attractive. The candidate is sat with you, so this is the best time to have this conversation. If you make an offer and they accept you want them to settle in well and if they discover that important information was not forthcoming from you, their motivation will plummet. (A new recruit is at the greatest risk of leaving in the first few months of employment, so it's always worth doing as much as you can to stop this happening.)
Make sure you cover the financial package, any other benefits and holiday entitlement well. Candidates always want to know this but many are reluctant to ask as it may convey the wrong message about their motivation. By presenting and discussing what is and isn’t available the candidate will gain a clear understanding and will either a) leave the interview happy with what's on the table or b) leave you knowing there is an aspect to what you're offering that you may have to think further about if you choose to make an offer to this particular candidate.
The detailed, probing and well-informed questions asked by you during the interview will have demonstrated to the top candidates that you know what you want and that things are happening at your company. This, combined with the discussion about the opportunity at the end, will hopefully create a stronger desire for the post you're offering vis-à-vis any alternatives.
Answer The Candidate’s Questions:
Candidates are advised to have some questions to ask at the end of an interview so you can be sure that a well prepared candidate will have some. Now is the time to take them.
If you sell the company and opportunity well, many of the questions will have been covered but take as long as needed to answer the questions of the good candidate so that they have all the information they require. Remember, recruitment is a two way process so both parties have to be sure that this is a good idea for them. (For a candidate I am not so interested in, I will answer the questions satisfactorily but I won't spend the same amount of time on them.)
Bear in mind that questions arise through interest. You can sensibly conclude that there is interest by the candidate in the job you're offering on the basis of good questions being asked of you about the role and future developments. Answering these questions well means that you are still selling the opportunity and your company.
Next Time:
Establishing whether the candidate has other options, and what happens next.
It will only take a couple of interviews to become confident and competent with this process. You will then be able to ascertain whether the person in front of you is the right person for the post, and you will have eliminated the “he looked and sounded the part and we got on well” approach to interviewing which can and has resulted in so many recruiting calamities.
So, What Now?
Once you have the required information you're in a position to close the interview with a high level of certainty as to whether the candidate is the right person for you or not.
My recommendation is that you do not make an offer at this stage and instead give yourself some time afterwards, just to run through the answers that were given, to ensure that you have not missed anything. I would particularly advocate this if this is one of your first interviews. (The only exception would be if you are hiring a temp or a contractor and they have to start the next day.) However, taking this approach doesn't mean that you can’t close the interview so that the candidate is left feeling very keen on working for you, over and above any other opportunities they may have.
When I have the detailed answers I require from my questions I move the interview towards the close with a statement along the lines of:
“Well thanks for answering the questions in such good detail for me. It provides a really good insight into how you can contribute to our business. Before we conclude, I will talk you through the opportunity with us and discuss the company background and where we are going. Then I will answer any questions you have, although I may cover some of them in the next few minutes anyway. Once we have covered your questions then I will quickly run through what happens next. Is that okay? Do you have any questions before I start?”Then I talk about the opportunity and the company. I will take longer and go into greater detail with the good candidates than with the candidates I am sure that I will not be progressing with.
Sell The Opportunity And Your Company:
'Selling' the job you're offering and your company is very important, but by waiting and only doing this at the end of the interview, then
- You'll know what the candidate wants from their next career move and you can now focus on these needs as you 'sell' the position to them. It is very difficult to sell at the beginning of the interview when you don’t know what the candidate wants or expects.
- You'll be able to lessen the focus on the specific opportunity if you know you're not going to hire the candidate. You should still aim to sell your company overall, so that it is spoken of positively and further - as we discussed in earlier editions - by doing so there's always the chance that the candidate will refer someone they know who is a better fit for the specific post.
When presenting the opportunity and your company remember to talk about where the role will take the candidate in the longer term, so that they have some objectives beyond completing the role you have today. This is very important in securing the very best people. (Always remember, the top candidates will almost certainly have other options as you will not be the only person to spot a highly motivated, talented individual.)
Be honest and talk about any aspirations that have been expressed by the candidate that may not be met within the role or within their expected timeframe. Talk about why they won’t and discuss alternatives, with the aim of making those alternatives just as attractive. The candidate is sat with you, so this is the best time to have this conversation. If you make an offer and they accept you want them to settle in well and if they discover that important information was not forthcoming from you, their motivation will plummet. (A new recruit is at the greatest risk of leaving in the first few months of employment, so it's always worth doing as much as you can to stop this happening.)
Make sure you cover the financial package, any other benefits and holiday entitlement well. Candidates always want to know this but many are reluctant to ask as it may convey the wrong message about their motivation. By presenting and discussing what is and isn’t available the candidate will gain a clear understanding and will either a) leave the interview happy with what's on the table or b) leave you knowing there is an aspect to what you're offering that you may have to think further about if you choose to make an offer to this particular candidate.
The detailed, probing and well-informed questions asked by you during the interview will have demonstrated to the top candidates that you know what you want and that things are happening at your company. This, combined with the discussion about the opportunity at the end, will hopefully create a stronger desire for the post you're offering vis-à-vis any alternatives.
Answer The Candidate’s Questions:
Candidates are advised to have some questions to ask at the end of an interview so you can be sure that a well prepared candidate will have some. Now is the time to take them.
If you sell the company and opportunity well, many of the questions will have been covered but take as long as needed to answer the questions of the good candidate so that they have all the information they require. Remember, recruitment is a two way process so both parties have to be sure that this is a good idea for them. (For a candidate I am not so interested in, I will answer the questions satisfactorily but I won't spend the same amount of time on them.)
Bear in mind that questions arise through interest. You can sensibly conclude that there is interest by the candidate in the job you're offering on the basis of good questions being asked of you about the role and future developments. Answering these questions well means that you are still selling the opportunity and your company.
Next Time:
Establishing whether the candidate has other options, and what happens next.
INTERVIEW ISSUES (PT 2)
Last time we started to look at some of the unplanned issues that arise during an interview, with the focus on candidates providing too much or too little information, or wandering off on tangents. We'll now continue the theme and look at how to handle some other curve balls that can derail your well planned interview, so that you can still find out the information you need.
The Candidate Avoids The Question:
This is quite common, particularly amongst sales people: the candidate avoids your question or provides an answer to a question they would rather you had asked. This might be a good trait if you are looking to hire a politician but it doesn't help you in the slightest if you are trying to decide if they have the right experience and behaviours for your role.
If this happens in an interview you're conducting, don't be afraid to interrupt them and ask the same question again. Do this a second and third time if necessary - until they do answer the question you have asked. The information is important to you, otherwise you would not have asked for it.
If obtaining an answer to the question is proving very problematic then don't hesitate to be upfront and ask for an explanation as to why they're not answering your question. Interviews shouldn’t descend into a battle of wills but you need the information and you now need to know why it's not forthcoming.
A candidate answering the wrong question once or maybe twice during an interview can be acceptable because it could be the result of their enthusiasm to impart information that they believe will help them win the role. If this is the reason, they should be easy to bring on track by asking the same question again.
Looking at judging whether you'd employ someone who's been hard to get straight answers out of, you will have to consider how easy it will be to manage them and obtain straight answers when they are working for you. To reiterate, avoiding questions once or maybe twice is probably going to be OK, but if it happens several times it should raise concerns about their listening skills or - even worse - their integrity.
If these concerns are starting to arise, then tackle them during the interview with follow- up questions which probe their listening skills and integrity.
I believe that most people are honest and think that most of the time the information received during an interview is true, but you do need to be primed to spot the untruths or the exaggeration of their contribution to particular pieces of work.
The key is in your preparation - this will ensure that that you are armed with your probing questions and requests for plenty of examples. By listening closely and asking questions during the candidate’s answers you will be able to get to the level of detail that will spot untruths or exaggerations. Asking for more than one example will provide validation. Most people can create one example but creating more which are congruent is very difficult and will frequently generate anomalies. Remember, we are not making assumptions. To prevent issues arising further down the line, keep questioning and obtaining detail until you are sure you have received all the information you need.
Differentiate between 'I did' and 'we did'. 'We' can conceal the candidate’s individual contribution. Letting it go means that you are assuming their contribution and making judgements on poor information. Interrupt when 'we' is used, and ask what the candidate specifically did. A couple of such interruptions and the candidate will provide “I” answers from thereon and talk about their contributions only.
Volunteered Information:
Discussing information that is proffered by the candidate is a great way of losing control of the interview and allowing the candidate to tell you what they want to tell you. You have your questions and these are what you want answered to ascertain whether they have the experience and behaviours suitable for your requirements.
Most volunteered information will not help much and as such will be a distraction. Interrupt the candidate politely, along the lines of: “Many thanks for this, it may be useful and if so we can come back to it but it is important for you and I that we both make the right decision and as such I have some questions to run through first to help me with my decision making. We can run through your questions and any additional information that you think will help afterwards. Is that OK?” Then you can come back to your questions and you have control of the interview again.
Candidate Nerves:
We have looked at this in previous issues but it is worth highlighting again. The candidate will be nervous even though you put them at ease before you started the interview. They will provide you with a clear picture of whether they are the right person for you as long as they remain positive during the interview so there are some dos and don'ts to ensure that this happens:
Even worse, if you do decide that the candidate is the ideal person you want, if you've failed to keep the interview positive you may find that they decide against working with you, which would leave you having to either accept second best (which you shouldn’t) or start the whole process again.
In Summary:
If, despite your best efforts, an interview remains hard to control in terms of establishing what the person has and hasn’t done then there is a good chance that your working life with this person will be challenging too. So if the interview has been a struggle to keep on track there are two areas to consider:
Closing the interview for maximum effect.
The Candidate Avoids The Question:
This is quite common, particularly amongst sales people: the candidate avoids your question or provides an answer to a question they would rather you had asked. This might be a good trait if you are looking to hire a politician but it doesn't help you in the slightest if you are trying to decide if they have the right experience and behaviours for your role.
If this happens in an interview you're conducting, don't be afraid to interrupt them and ask the same question again. Do this a second and third time if necessary - until they do answer the question you have asked. The information is important to you, otherwise you would not have asked for it.
If obtaining an answer to the question is proving very problematic then don't hesitate to be upfront and ask for an explanation as to why they're not answering your question. Interviews shouldn’t descend into a battle of wills but you need the information and you now need to know why it's not forthcoming.
A candidate answering the wrong question once or maybe twice during an interview can be acceptable because it could be the result of their enthusiasm to impart information that they believe will help them win the role. If this is the reason, they should be easy to bring on track by asking the same question again.
Looking at judging whether you'd employ someone who's been hard to get straight answers out of, you will have to consider how easy it will be to manage them and obtain straight answers when they are working for you. To reiterate, avoiding questions once or maybe twice is probably going to be OK, but if it happens several times it should raise concerns about their listening skills or - even worse - their integrity.
If these concerns are starting to arise, then tackle them during the interview with follow- up questions which probe their listening skills and integrity.
- For listening skills try: “Describe the last time a miscommunication at work arose?” Or “Talk me through the last time you misunderstood a client requirement?” Then probe the answer.
- For integrity try: “How far have you gone in order to close a deal?” Or “Talk me through the rules in your current role that you do not agree with?” Then probe the answer.
I believe that most people are honest and think that most of the time the information received during an interview is true, but you do need to be primed to spot the untruths or the exaggeration of their contribution to particular pieces of work.
The key is in your preparation - this will ensure that that you are armed with your probing questions and requests for plenty of examples. By listening closely and asking questions during the candidate’s answers you will be able to get to the level of detail that will spot untruths or exaggerations. Asking for more than one example will provide validation. Most people can create one example but creating more which are congruent is very difficult and will frequently generate anomalies. Remember, we are not making assumptions. To prevent issues arising further down the line, keep questioning and obtaining detail until you are sure you have received all the information you need.
Differentiate between 'I did' and 'we did'. 'We' can conceal the candidate’s individual contribution. Letting it go means that you are assuming their contribution and making judgements on poor information. Interrupt when 'we' is used, and ask what the candidate specifically did. A couple of such interruptions and the candidate will provide “I” answers from thereon and talk about their contributions only.
Volunteered Information:
Discussing information that is proffered by the candidate is a great way of losing control of the interview and allowing the candidate to tell you what they want to tell you. You have your questions and these are what you want answered to ascertain whether they have the experience and behaviours suitable for your requirements.
Most volunteered information will not help much and as such will be a distraction. Interrupt the candidate politely, along the lines of: “Many thanks for this, it may be useful and if so we can come back to it but it is important for you and I that we both make the right decision and as such I have some questions to run through first to help me with my decision making. We can run through your questions and any additional information that you think will help afterwards. Is that OK?” Then you can come back to your questions and you have control of the interview again.
Candidate Nerves:
We have looked at this in previous issues but it is worth highlighting again. The candidate will be nervous even though you put them at ease before you started the interview. They will provide you with a clear picture of whether they are the right person for you as long as they remain positive during the interview so there are some dos and don'ts to ensure that this happens:
- Do compliment achievements during the interview. The candidate feels good and happily provides the rest of the information you require. You can then accurately assess whether this is what you want.
- Do show that you are 'on their side'. Some of your questions will be seeking responses to negative questions and you want the candidate to be open with you. Instead of asking; talk me through the last time you had to deal with an angry client? Make an empathetic statement first, for example: "Despite our best efforts we all have events that conspire against us which result in an angry client. What were the circumstances around your last angry client?"
- Don’t put down a candidate. The information is what it is and even if it seems insignificant to you it may be important to the candidate. The quickest way to have an ineffective interview is to damage the confidence of the candidate. If the experience and behaviour is not what you want then you have the information you need to make your decision but the candidate should leave feeling pleased they met you and keen to extol the virtues of you and your company, even if you do not move forward with them.
Even worse, if you do decide that the candidate is the ideal person you want, if you've failed to keep the interview positive you may find that they decide against working with you, which would leave you having to either accept second best (which you shouldn’t) or start the whole process again.
In Summary:
If, despite your best efforts, an interview remains hard to control in terms of establishing what the person has and hasn’t done then there is a good chance that your working life with this person will be challenging too. So if the interview has been a struggle to keep on track there are two areas to consider:
- Were the interview questions you prepared prior to the interview not specific enough? Did that mean the candidate did not have enough information to understand what you were looking for, so was it the case that they answered as best they could.
- Was it the case that the candidate was reluctant to provide the specifics you were looking for and this happened throughout the interview, despite your questions being clear and appropriately specific. If this is the case then the candidate will be unlikely to have the experience or the behavioural patterns you're looking for. Ultimately, you would have to ask yourself whether you want to have someone working for you who cannot communicate clearly with you and is reluctant to let you know what and how they are doing?
Closing the interview for maximum effect.
INTERVIEW ISSUES
In recent weeks we have looked at your preparation to conduct the interview, the type and style of questions to ask and how to prepare them so that you can be sure that you are making a fully informed decision. There you are, all set and ready to go ... and then the curve balls arrive. In this and the next edition we will look at how to deal with the main issues that can arise to derail an interview, despite your best preparation.
Crucially, whilst making sure you're controlling an interview so you get what you want out of it (the ability to ask the questions you need, to elicit the information you require to make informed an decision), you should always remember that (generally) a candidate will never intend to derail the process. However, they may be nervous and the feedback they get from you during the course of the interview, if it is going awry, might be making that nervousness even worse, which can all contribute to an interview going wrong. If that happens, then it's not just bad for the candidate - it can mean you don't see all they have to offer, with the result that you may end up not employing the best candidate.
What all this means is that keeping control of proceedings is as vital as any other aspect to making sure you employ the best person you can. The good news is that it is easy to bring an interview back on track - as long as you are able to recognise that you are losing control of it.
So, what situations can arise that could derail the information gathering process?
Too Much Information:
One of my employees, in many ways an absolutely exemplary member of staff, would always provide me with the whole 'back-story' to any information I ask about, and only then tell me what I needed to know. Bluntly, it was frustrating, but over time we worked out an effective communication process to resolve the issue.
Many candidates will be similar and, understandably, seek to impart as much information as possible. They might feel it will help make themselves look good, or it might just be their nature to provide lots of information that they feel is relevant. It doesn’t mean they won't be able to do the job (although you may want to satisfy yourself about their likely productivity and ability to stay focused on one task if they continually ramble). However, in an interview you neither have the time to work out a sensible modus operandi to get over this kind of problem, nor to listen to a lot of rambling about a topic that isn't telling you anything you need to know.
If you feel a candidate is saying too much about nothing, you must firstly be clear in your own mind that that is what's occurring and secondly then be assertive and interrupt the candidate to bring them back on track. To do this, simply interrupt with a new question or re-frame the original question so they provide the information that you are specifically looking for.
Quite possibly, you might be at least partially at fault in not asking a sufficiently specific question - it's easily done. If you've made the mistake of asking a general question such as "Can you please talk me through your career to date?" and in response the candidate has just spent five minutes discussing a job they've done which has no relevance to the role you're interviewing for, step in with something along the lines of “Sorry, my question wasn’t specific enough. Could you talk about your specific experience doing XXX at YYY company please?”
Too Little Information:
On the other hand, short answers can be equally detrimental to an interview. You end up having to think quickly for the next question which puts you under pressure, and you may not be obtaining enough information to decide whether the candidate can carry out your role.
Experience has taught me that candidates want to provide the information necessary to ensure they are offered the role. That's why they're there! Therefore, if you find you're only getting short answers back, it's most likely to be down to poor questions.
If this is the case, then for future reference you'll need to re-visit how you're framing questions. You may well find you are asking closed questions which can only be answered yes or no with a sentence or so in addition.
However, on the day, if you find yourself only getting brief responses, then you have do something to address the problem there and then to draw the candidate out. These are some follow-on questions and techniques that can help you:
You will find that as your questions become more effective the short uninformative answers happen less often. When you do need more information, an open follow-up question about the too-brief answer will generally help you out of the cul-de-sac.
Tangents:
You ask a question and the conversation shifts to an area you were not expecting or planning to discuss. (My wife is good at this!) My advice is that if the information is useful allow the conversation to proceed, probe in greater detail and ask for examples. Assuming all the candidates turn out to be of a similar calibre, this additional information could be a differentiator.
However, if the tangent is not producing useful information, or even if it is but the question you wanted answering is being avoided, then you could start to lose control. In these instances, politely cut the point they are making short and re-focus the candidate on your question. Ask the same question again and be more specific about the piece of information you want to obtain in the same way as you would if you were being provided with too much information.
Next Time
Dealing with candidates who don’t tell the truth, who avoid answering your questions and who seek to take credit for work they did not carry out.
Crucially, whilst making sure you're controlling an interview so you get what you want out of it (the ability to ask the questions you need, to elicit the information you require to make informed an decision), you should always remember that (generally) a candidate will never intend to derail the process. However, they may be nervous and the feedback they get from you during the course of the interview, if it is going awry, might be making that nervousness even worse, which can all contribute to an interview going wrong. If that happens, then it's not just bad for the candidate - it can mean you don't see all they have to offer, with the result that you may end up not employing the best candidate.
What all this means is that keeping control of proceedings is as vital as any other aspect to making sure you employ the best person you can. The good news is that it is easy to bring an interview back on track - as long as you are able to recognise that you are losing control of it.
So, what situations can arise that could derail the information gathering process?
Too Much Information:
One of my employees, in many ways an absolutely exemplary member of staff, would always provide me with the whole 'back-story' to any information I ask about, and only then tell me what I needed to know. Bluntly, it was frustrating, but over time we worked out an effective communication process to resolve the issue.
Many candidates will be similar and, understandably, seek to impart as much information as possible. They might feel it will help make themselves look good, or it might just be their nature to provide lots of information that they feel is relevant. It doesn’t mean they won't be able to do the job (although you may want to satisfy yourself about their likely productivity and ability to stay focused on one task if they continually ramble). However, in an interview you neither have the time to work out a sensible modus operandi to get over this kind of problem, nor to listen to a lot of rambling about a topic that isn't telling you anything you need to know.
If you feel a candidate is saying too much about nothing, you must firstly be clear in your own mind that that is what's occurring and secondly then be assertive and interrupt the candidate to bring them back on track. To do this, simply interrupt with a new question or re-frame the original question so they provide the information that you are specifically looking for.
Quite possibly, you might be at least partially at fault in not asking a sufficiently specific question - it's easily done. If you've made the mistake of asking a general question such as "Can you please talk me through your career to date?" and in response the candidate has just spent five minutes discussing a job they've done which has no relevance to the role you're interviewing for, step in with something along the lines of “Sorry, my question wasn’t specific enough. Could you talk about your specific experience doing XXX at YYY company please?”
Too Little Information:
On the other hand, short answers can be equally detrimental to an interview. You end up having to think quickly for the next question which puts you under pressure, and you may not be obtaining enough information to decide whether the candidate can carry out your role.
Experience has taught me that candidates want to provide the information necessary to ensure they are offered the role. That's why they're there! Therefore, if you find you're only getting short answers back, it's most likely to be down to poor questions.
If this is the case, then for future reference you'll need to re-visit how you're framing questions. You may well find you are asking closed questions which can only be answered yes or no with a sentence or so in addition.
However, on the day, if you find yourself only getting brief responses, then you have do something to address the problem there and then to draw the candidate out. These are some follow-on questions and techniques that can help you:
- Reply with “Good, and?” Then just be silent and look at them enquiringly.
- Just be silent and leave the candidate to fill in the gaps.
- Ask the candidate: "Please elaborate".
- Ask a specific follow-up question which will require a more detailed answer like “so when you did xxx how did you do it?” or “Take me through the steps you took to carry out this task?”
- Q - How are you today?
- A – Fine.
- Q – What do you mean by fine?
- Q – What did you think of the football last night?
- A – It was good.
- Q – What did you think was good?
You will find that as your questions become more effective the short uninformative answers happen less often. When you do need more information, an open follow-up question about the too-brief answer will generally help you out of the cul-de-sac.
Tangents:
You ask a question and the conversation shifts to an area you were not expecting or planning to discuss. (My wife is good at this!) My advice is that if the information is useful allow the conversation to proceed, probe in greater detail and ask for examples. Assuming all the candidates turn out to be of a similar calibre, this additional information could be a differentiator.
However, if the tangent is not producing useful information, or even if it is but the question you wanted answering is being avoided, then you could start to lose control. In these instances, politely cut the point they are making short and re-focus the candidate on your question. Ask the same question again and be more specific about the piece of information you want to obtain in the same way as you would if you were being provided with too much information.
Next Time
Dealing with candidates who don’t tell the truth, who avoid answering your questions and who seek to take credit for work they did not carry out.
CONSTRUCTING INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
In recent editions we have looked at the right type and style of questions to use to successfully establish whether your interviewee is of the calibre that you are looking for and established that preparation prior to the interview is essential to ensure that you recruit the right person. This preparation culminates in preparing interview questions that will get to the detail of work the candidate actually has done and whether they were successful or otherwise whilst performing other roles.
As I discussed earlier in this blog, when the need to recruit someone originally arises, the sensible thing to do is to create a job description detailing:
The process flows as follows:
Once you have followed this process of finding out whether they have carried out the activity you want and displayed the right behaviours in doing so, you should then seek to obtain as many examples and as much detail as possible. The idea is to guard against making any assumptions.
This style of follow-up example questioning follows a simple process:
If an interviewer is ill-prepared, experience has shown that interviewing last is the best time from a candidate’s perspective they are more likely to be hired (all other things being equal) simply because they are the most fresh in the recruiter's mind. By taking the trouble to prepare and then ask the same questions of every candidate, and then writing down their answers, you will be able to make meaningful comparisons between everyone you've seen.
Next Time:
Situations which can lead the interview astray and how to bring it back on track.
As I discussed earlier in this blog, when the need to recruit someone originally arises, the sensible thing to do is to create a job description detailing:
- the results that we would require from a new employee during their first few months of employment, to enable us to measure whether or not we had made a good hiring decision;
- the behaviours we needed to see from previous roles so that that we could be confident that the candidate would achieve the results we expected.
The process flows as follows:
- The requirement.
- What information do you need?
- Look for a time they had to demonstrate the behaviour.
- Question the behaviour.
- Ask for in-depth detail.
- The requirement:
- So, this means the information we need is:
- And we need to look for a time they had to demonstrate the behaviour:
- With the fact that they have used a database established, this line of enquiry then needs to extend to question the behaviour:
- And you then want to follow this up by asking for in-depth information:
Once you have followed this process of finding out whether they have carried out the activity you want and displayed the right behaviours in doing so, you should then seek to obtain as many examples and as much detail as possible. The idea is to guard against making any assumptions.
This style of follow-up example questioning follows a simple process:
- Ask for the example
- Ask for detail so that you can understand the example and keep the answer on track to provide the information you are looking for.
- Ask about the actions they undertook.
- Ask for more detail so that you understand their actions and why they took them.
- Ask about the results of their actions.
- What was the hardest task you had to carry out in using the database?
- What made this more challenging than the other tasks?
- Can you take me through the steps you had to go through to carry out the task?
- How did you decide that this was the right process?
- What else did you try?
- What was the result?
If an interviewer is ill-prepared, experience has shown that interviewing last is the best time from a candidate’s perspective they are more likely to be hired (all other things being equal) simply because they are the most fresh in the recruiter's mind. By taking the trouble to prepare and then ask the same questions of every candidate, and then writing down their answers, you will be able to make meaningful comparisons between everyone you've seen.
Next Time:
Situations which can lead the interview astray and how to bring it back on track.
THE INTERVIEW (PT 3)
Continuing on from last time, the key to ensuring you find the right person from your interviewing is to ask good questions.
So far we have established the styles of questions to ask and these had five key criteria, namely:
The Right Type
To return to the recruitment consultant example, a specific question I might ask would be: “How many marketing calls that actually connected with people you needed to speak to did you make yesterday?” I will already have obtained a good understanding of what it is they sell and would then follow up with: “How many sales did you make?” or “How many appointments did you set?” This is giving me a picture of their success rates.
Next Time
Constructing questions 'for real'.
So far we have established the styles of questions to ask and these had five key criteria, namely:
- Ask Historic Questions
- Ask Questions Related To The Job
- Ask Work- And Role-Relevant Questions
- Ask Questions That Are Simple To Answer
- Preclude Waffle
The Right Type
- Ask Factual Questions. These are very straightforward and elicit a response with a fact which can then be questioned more closely with additional follow-up questions.
- Ask Behavioural Questions. Remembering that past behaviours are usually duplicated by your candidates, these are vital questions. From them you can deduce how they carried out a task.
- Ask Specific Questions. Experience has taught me that most CVs are quite general and 'broad-brush-stroke' as they are supposed to be no longer than two or three pages long. The candidate's CV will have indicated that they've been involved in various activities and disciplines and this is what made you 'screen them in' in the first place. The second stage phone screening you did then ensured that they were indeed likely to be what was required. Now, in the interview, you should be asking questions which deal with the specific situations they've worked in. These will provide the guidance you need as to exactly what the candidate did in a particular situation and allow you to delve beyond the CV.
To return to the recruitment consultant example, a specific question I might ask would be: “How many marketing calls that actually connected with people you needed to speak to did you make yesterday?” I will already have obtained a good understanding of what it is they sell and would then follow up with: “How many sales did you make?” or “How many appointments did you set?” This is giving me a picture of their success rates.
- Ask Detail Questions. These allow you to gather more information to ensure you know everything you need to know to make the right decision. A cardinal sin is to hear someone talk authoritatively, assume that they will be good in the post and not ask the detailed questions. A sales phrase is “never assume as it makes an ass out of you and me.” It is crass but it is also very true and most mistakes are made through assuming rather than knowing. So, keep asking detailed questions until you are sure that you have made no assumptions. If the interviewee becomes uncomfortable and struggles the chances are you moving away from his/her general answers to specifics and establishing that they might have carried out the roles that their CV mentions, but not necessarily successfully. This is good - it is helping you towards making a decision.
- Ask for Examples. The examples need to be similar to those that the person will face with the post you're trying to fill, so that you can mirror their behaviours against the requirements for your job. (Learning about behaviours that aren’t necessary for your position is not using the interview time effectively and creates clutter in your mind so that it is harder to establish the right person from the wrong person.) The more examples you can obtain against each of your required behaviours, the more informed your decision can be.
Next Time
Constructing questions 'for real'.
THE INTERVIEW (PT 2)
The key to ensuring that an interview produces the right person for your role is to ask good questions. That might sound obvious, but it's amazing how many interviewers do not prepare as well as the interviewees.
If all's gone well in your recruitment process to date, then you'll now be faced with the task of interviewing good quality candidates who are relaxed and ready for a face-to-face meeting with you. And you can be quite sure that the better the quality candidate, the more likely they are to have prepared well.
If you try asking good interview questions without a detailed understanding of the experience, skills, success measures and behaviours you are expecting, that means you'll be relying on little more than 'gut instinct' about a candidate and whether you liked them or not - rather than being certain that they can carry out the role you want them to. It's a brave - or foolhardy - person who'd risk the health of their business on the strength of their instincts alone. What's more, it is impossible to rationally and fairly compare multiple candidates if you don't have a very clear picture of what you've learned about them via their interviews.
Fortunately, if you have been following the steps I have outlined to date, you will have a detailed job description with sets out your expectations for the role, that you created at the start of your recruitment process. It is that job description that you can use to help formulate your questions.
A Question Of Style
This week we will look at the style of questions that should be asked to ensure that you know that the candidate is the right fit for you.
(Next time we'll look at the types of questions and then in the following edition we'll focus on actually constructing interview questions you might use 'for real'.)
So, looking at the style of question to ask, there are five key criteria to ensuring that your questions will be effective and elicit the information you need to make an informed recruitment decision.
With those as the style of question to ask, next time we'll focus on the types of question.
If all's gone well in your recruitment process to date, then you'll now be faced with the task of interviewing good quality candidates who are relaxed and ready for a face-to-face meeting with you. And you can be quite sure that the better the quality candidate, the more likely they are to have prepared well.
If you try asking good interview questions without a detailed understanding of the experience, skills, success measures and behaviours you are expecting, that means you'll be relying on little more than 'gut instinct' about a candidate and whether you liked them or not - rather than being certain that they can carry out the role you want them to. It's a brave - or foolhardy - person who'd risk the health of their business on the strength of their instincts alone. What's more, it is impossible to rationally and fairly compare multiple candidates if you don't have a very clear picture of what you've learned about them via their interviews.
Fortunately, if you have been following the steps I have outlined to date, you will have a detailed job description with sets out your expectations for the role, that you created at the start of your recruitment process. It is that job description that you can use to help formulate your questions.
A Question Of Style
This week we will look at the style of questions that should be asked to ensure that you know that the candidate is the right fit for you.
(Next time we'll look at the types of questions and then in the following edition we'll focus on actually constructing interview questions you might use 'for real'.)
So, looking at the style of question to ask, there are five key criteria to ensuring that your questions will be effective and elicit the information you need to make an informed recruitment decision.
Ask Historic Questions. You want to know about the candidate’s behaviour so you need to know how they have behaved in the past. Future-based questions won't tell you how they will do something. You'll just hear about how they think they would do whatever it is you've asked about or, worse, how they think you might want them to do it.Next Time
Future-based questions ("how will you", "how could you" etc) should only be used towards the end of the interview, once you've established that the candidate has demonstrated the right behaviours for the role by answering historic questions ("how did you") satisfactorily.
Ask Questions Related To The Job. Questions should only relate to the job. This is what you are interested in and behavioural questions around their previous roles will let you know the behaviours you can expect in connection with the role you're trying to fill. Asking personal questions in today’s litigious environment could easily lead to actions against you. Besides, if you think about it, what would you gain from knowing about their personal life? People often have a work persona and a home persona and the two can be quite separate - hence the tidy, organised work environment and the home that looks like a bomb site. (Maybe that was a personal observation!)
Ask Work- And Role-Relevant Questions. The questions have to be relevant. I have heard of many interviews where a tangential question is asked which is totally outside the requirements for the role, with the pretext that it will test the candidates ability to "think outside the box" or "think on their feet".
Perhaps, for a very few specialist roles this approach might be a useful test of somebody’s creativity but even if that's the case, it moves from the scope and format of the interview you explained to the candidate at the start and will make them wary and uncomfortable. This can result in you not obtaining the most constructive answers to your more relevant questions and might well make the candidate think that you're not offering a working environment they would enjoy. It is better to ask questions that have the express purpose of obtaining information around their past behaviours so that you can properly understand whether they can carry out your role or not. If you want to ascertain whether someone can "think out of the box" because that's what the role requires then that's fine - but you don't have to do so by oblique and difficult questions.
Ask Questions That Are Simple To Answer. You are trying to find out whether the person can carry out the role for you or not. Ask simple questions and the candidate can provide the information you require. Ask difficult or multi-part questions and the candidate has to pause and think and carefully frame a response that might well be verging on the theoretical, as opposed to simply replying about how they've acted in the past. Remember, you are looking for evidence from past behaviour that they are able to carry out your role. A number of short and straightforward questions make it easy for the candidate to provide the answers and make it easy for you to deduce whether they are the right person. Long, complicated questions generate long complicated answers which can easily wander off into areas that don't interest you. That can result in you losing control of the interview as well as leaving you at risk of not obtaining the information you require.
Preclude Waffle. Ensure that the questions you ask only have one specific answer. Answering “talk me through your career?” could take 10 minutes and leave you grappling with a long and complicated answer through the fault of the question and not the candidate. Open-ended 'invitations to talk' such as "talk me through your career", also mean you can lose control of the interview. They also mean the candidate can tell you what they want to tell you and not what you want to know. So, instead, be specific about the part of their career you want more information about. A question might be "when you were at X Company how did you carry out this (function or activity)?" "What were your results (in this function or activity)?" You are still asking open questions (as opposed to questions that can be answered with a 'yes' or 'no') but you're ensuring there's only one area to be covered in the answer. Subsequent structured, detailed but simple questioning will mean you'll gain the specific information you require and retain control of the interview at all times.
With those as the style of question to ask, next time we'll focus on the types of question.
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