4employers

Crazy Interview Idea . . .that I love.

This is a great article by Seth Godin. Seth is better known for his marketing genius but I have to say he is onto something here. And what is the most important of the marketing "P's" if it's not "People". As a provider of psychometric testing I am very aware of the people factor. The scenario painted by Seth does more to figure out the person than the skill. Skills are relatively easy to evaluate. People and their personality fit, are much more complex.

Distance based interviewing

It's more and more common to find that you and your best candidates are separated by long distances, adding to the cost and inconvenience of interviewing. Using an online personality profiling tool such as PeopleMaps, enables you to learn more than the CV will tell you without the inconvenience. I have clients that are recruitment agencies based in England interviewing candidates in USA for jobs in Poland. When geography becomes irrelevant your candidate pool gets significantly bigger.

What the CV doesn't tell you.

So much of the decision making by employers is dependant on the candidate's CV but what does it really tell you? And how well does it tell the story? And how accurately? There are people who are employed full time just to sive through CVs to create a short list (or at least a long list).

CVs tend to focus on the persons skills and it will try and illustrate these skills by demonstrating experience of their application. A CV will rarely tell you something about the kind of person they are. and let's not forget the old adage, "Hire on skill, fire on atitude".

CVs are usually necessary, though I confess that I do not use them when I am recruiting. It is more important to me that I first have a feeling for the person. I want to know who I will be working with. Thereafter I will consider their skills base. It is usually evident from the job description what skills are needed and most candidates have them in varying degrees. It's easy enough to filter them down. The hardest bit it figuring if they will fit in with my team, cause if I get it wrong then everybody suffers. The InterviewAssist Gold report is great for interviewing new candidates, even if you have little experience of doing so. It is the perfect accompaniment to a CV.