The hiring process is often an unnerving one – for both the interviewer and the interviewee. Interviewees wonder if the company will like them, interviewers wonder if they’re making the right choice and both wonder how good of a fit the applicant will be. In addition to traditional interviewing techniques, there are a few innovative strategies that will help you to hire the best in the business.
Interview applicants by seeing them in action
Scott Wintrip, writer of High Velocity Hiring, suggests that the best way to identify great potential in candidates is to watch them doing the job their applying for. He recommends that interviewers give candidates sample work, or real work, to see how they perform in a real life situation.
For example, if you’re hiring a leasing agent, take them with you on a few property tours and see how they do. If you’re hiring a maintenance tech, let them work with the lead maintenance tech for a day or two. Note that if applicants are helping you do real work, you’ll be required to pay them, however, if they do sample work you’re not obligated to. This will give you a better indication of how they will perform as an employee than a traditional interview would.
Encourage a two-way interview
Keep in mind that applicants are also interviewing your company when they come in for an interview. If they’re not excited about their future job, it’s unlikely that they will perform well in their position.
Invite candidates to ask questions to you either at the beginning or the end of the interview. The questions they ask will tell you a lot about them. Do they ask about sick days and time off or do they ask about continuing education programs and what you’ve learned during your time in the industry?
The questions that candidates ask you will shed light on their true personality, desires and productivity as one of your future employees.
Look into a candidates background
We all know people who act differently during an interview than they do in real life. They might try to put on a front and give all the right answers, but in the end they won’t work out. Learning about your candidates from other sources than themselves will help you to see the whole picture rather than nothing more than a facade.
Background checks are common practice and will help you to determine whether or not an applicant is an upstanding citizen or a potential liability.
Many companies visit the social media accounts of their interviewees to see what type of people they are outside of the only setting they’ve seen them in.
The age-old tactic of contacting former employers for honest recommendations is a wonderful way to identify how well an applicant has performed in various professional settings. You will quickly be able to recognize if the person you’ve spoken with matches with the person you’ve researched.
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Taylor Fish
Taylor is a staff writer for Multihousing Friends and a student at Brigham Young University.