Conducting A Better Interview - Quick Tips

Over at American Banking News they have a great article with tips for conducting more successful interviews. They suggest three basic strategies for conducting a better interview. First, let the interviewee talk. People hate long silences, resist the temptation to fill a lull in the conversation instead give the candidate an opportunity to fill the silence. You may learn something important. Secondly ask open ended questions, don't give the interviewee the opportunity to answer with a simple yes or no. If you get a one or two word answer to any of your questions, press the interviewee by asking them to clarify or expand their answer. Finally, utilize behavioral questions to bring out the style and personality of the candidate.
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Corporate Culture At Zappos.Com

Over at the New York Times they have posted an interview with Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh. In the interview Tony talks about why he is so passionate about defining and maintaining the Zappos.com corporate culture. It turns out he had to learn the hard way. In Tony's first business, LinkExchange, the focus had been on hiring people who could do the job rather that people who fit the culture. As the company grew, it changed into a place Tony didn't even want to work any longer. After the sale of LinkExchange in 1998 Tony got involved in Zappos.com and quickly decided that the first thing to do would be define the corporate culture. He didn't make an arbitrary decision about the culture, instead he asked the entire company to comment. Eventually the company decided on 10 core values. The 10 core values at Zappos.com are so important that people are hired and fired based on how well they fit the culture.
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More employers using screening and recruiting firms

According to an article at the Triangle Business Journal more and more companies are adding steps to screen candidates to their hiring process. With so many people out of work, companies are getting inundated with resumes. To help find the best candidates they are utilizing behavioral and skills tests to ensure the candidate is a good fit.

To meet the needs of companies like these, Execuserve is now offering full service recruitment consulting and outsourcing. Execuserve will screen and rank your applicants and even send a video interview of candidates right to your inbox. To learn more about Execuserve's new full service offering contact us today at (800)385-1993 or sales@execuservecorp.com.
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The Worst Interviews Ever???

Something a little lighter for today, at the CookeVilleTimes.com there is an article that made me laugh out loud. The article entitled "They Said That In An Interview?" chronicles some of the worst candidate interviews I have ever heard of. I think the quote I like the best is "I only ever worked with one other person and I pretty much told him that he was an (expletive deleted) and he left me alone after that." Leave a comment and let us know about some of your worst candidates.
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Online Recruitment At KFC Saves Time And Brings Better Employees

In an article over at HR Magazine David Woods discusses the success KFC has had in rolling out a new online recruiting system. KFC estimates it has saved its managers 16.2 years worth of man-hours since the chain began testing in 100 of its stores in the UK and Ireland. There is a great quote from the head of recruitment Dan Hayward, "By providing online competency tests and helping managers focus on the most promising applicants, the system helps KFC find and hire the cream of the crop."

Dan really understands the point of behavioral testing and employment screening. By using pre-employment tests KFC has not only saved valuable time, but also made sure they hire the best candidates for their organization.

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Conduct A Better Interview - Uncomfortable Questions

Over at the Wall Street Journal, blogger Alina Dizik has written an article on dealing with uncomfortable interview questions. It seems many candidates are surprised by the types of questions and situations that are presented to them during interviews. While candidates might not perceive this a beneficial, it is a good thing for both the interviewer and the candidate.

One of the biggest problems with interviews is that everyone knows what to expect and how they should answer the standard questions. How many times have you asked the question "What is your greatest fault?" only to get a pat answer like "I work too hard." or "I care too much."? When candidates prepare for an interview they put on a nice suit and a nice persona to match. This works great for the candidate during the interview, but it makes the interviewer's job much more difficult.

By the time a candidate comes in for an interview, their skills and experience should already have been evaluated, so really what we are looking for is whether or not they will fit well in our company culture, or in the team they would be working with. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to tell what the candidate is really like underneath that polished alter-ego.

To gain better insight into a candidate we use a two part solution. First we give each candidate an in depth behavioral assessment before they come in for an interview. Our assessment Hire-Intelligence creates a customized behavioral interview guide for each candidate based on their answers. Next we use the interview guide Since the interview guide is created specifically to probe the candidate in targeted areas the questions will definitely take the by surprise. This helps to uncover the real candidate.

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Criminal Minds - Preventing Acts Of Greed In Your Business

In a two part article Allan DeKaye discusses 5 types of greed and how they play out in the healthcare industry. Although this article deals with healthcare specifically, his observations apply across disciplines.

Undisciplined Greed relates to an individual who is not interested in profit, but wants to satisfy curiosity. This includes reading of others email, viewing medical records, and other seemingly innocent security breaches. Unfortunately people willing to commit these acts usually become enticed by the possibility for financial gain, leading to the second stage of greed.

Opportunistic Greed occurs when someone who has committed acts of undisciplined greed is tempted by the incentive of financial gain. Often this takes the form of the sale of private information including medical records, social security information, or other private information.

Corporate Greed involves V and C level executives exploiting "loopholes" usually out of a sense of misguided altruism. Surprisingly this is most often seen in Not-For-Profit organizations where a lack of funding can push executives to use "creative accounting".

Scheme Greed is different because it is not situational in nature. Undisciplined, Opportunistic, and Corporate greed usually involve a set of circumstances that push people to do things they may not normally do. Schemes though, are devised intentionally for the express purpose of stealing and profiting from information or committing outright fraud.

Organized Greed takes schemes to the next level. Often fraudsters will involve family members in their plans, training them to handle fraudulent claims, sell information, and commit various other criminal acts creating a network that is much more difficult to pin down than an individual organization.

DeKaye suggests several methods to combat the various forms of greed within an organization. By employing these methods in your organization you can greatly decrease the occurrence of greed related issues.

Drilling can be a very effective deterrent against undisciplined and opportunistic greed. By reminding employees what is and what is not acceptable you imply someone is watching and waiting for a breach to happen. This handily nips curiosity in the bud, and gives opportunists cause to rethink their plans.

Behavioral Assessments offer tremendous insight into an employee or job candidate. Using a behavioral assessment you can quickly check for behaviors and attitudes that may indicate risk. For example someone who is very open, rebellious, casual, and open-minded will be much more likely to be tempted by undisciplined greed.

Background and Credit Checks can help organizations to discover risk factors for greed. People who have committed crimes in the past are obviously much more likely to do so again. People who are in the midst of a financial crisis are also more likely to succumb to opportunistic greed.

Protocols and Processes should be put in place to monitor employee access to sensitive data. Even employees who have the right to access sensitive data should be monitored for frequency of access. For example a billing clerk who accesses 150 records per day, should have a good explanation as to why they accessed 500 records in a similar time period. While this kind of monitoring may seem burdensome to the employee, it serves to protect them as well. What if that billing employee's account had been hacked? IT would be able to remedy the situation fairly quickly without the employee necessarily becoming suspect.

Greed and Bad Behavior have plagued businesses since the beginning of time. Both situational and intentional acts of greed can harm or even destroy your business. By utilizing better screening techniques and stricter protocols you can protect yourself from most if not all forms of greed and its effects on your bottom line.

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