How to Turn Off a Top Candidate in an Interview

Years ago, hiring companies didn’t care so much about the candidate experience and about turning candidates off in the process. Now, however, the tides have turned and it’s become a candidate-driven job market. Today’s companies have to work harder than ever to attract top talent. Then, once they have them in person at an interview, employers must do their best to impress an outstanding candidate enough so that they will enthusiastically accept the job offer.

How can you know if you are impressing the best candidates or if you are simply turning them off? If you are having problems getting top talent to call you back or accept job offers, this could be a clear sign that your interviewing process has issues. Here are some ways you could be ruining your chances of hiring the best.

Making the application process far too complex and time consuming

One of the biggest pet peeves of candidates is that they are often forced to spend way too much time filling out job applications, taking online assessments, and answering pre-interview screening questions. An overreliance on applicant tracking systems leads to candidates who would rather walk away than go through the hassle.  If the candidate does “jump through all the hoops,” often weeks go by without any response from the company.  When this happens, the professionalism of the company is in jeopardy.

Being unprepared or disconnected during job interviews

When the candidate comes to your office for an interview, is the environment welcoming? There is nothing more annoying for a top candidate than to be shuffled into an interview room to face an unprepared and unprofessional interviewer. Reading through canned interview questions, not taking notes or talking about things of relevance with the candidate is recruitment suicide.

Requiring candidates to endure group interviews or coming back for multiple interviews

This can be a huge waste of time that many candidates will not put up with anymore. Make interviews straightforward, intimate, and focused on the outcome.  Try to schedule the candidate’s time effectively to meet with the key players at your organization on the same day.  A top candidate’s time is important, too.  Even worse, after the first interview the candidate does not get a response from the company, or the company calls him back many weeks later for another interview.

Doing all of the talking and asking all the questions during interviews

Another way that so many recruiters turn candidates off is by doing all the talking and not creating a dialogue. This is never a good idea. Don’t make the candidate feel like they are being interrogated in an interview. By creating a dialogue, you get to know your candidate better and the candidate gets to know the goals and mission of your organization, and how he/she can help you achieve these goals.

Rushing the candidate through interviews, form completion and background checks

Once you have a top candidate on board, don’t make the mistake of then rushing them through the hiring process. Respect that they will likely have to provide notice to their current employer, may need to relocate, and a whole slew of other responsibilities before they can come work for your company.

If you have noticed that some of these areas are a problem, take steps to correct your approach to hiring top talent. You’ll find that a staffing agency can also help to reduce losing good people.

Casey Accounting & Finance Resources, a winner of Inavero’s Best of Staffing® Client Award for the second consecutive year, can help your company meet all of its financial staffing needs for jobs in Chicago and more. Contact our award-winning team today to get started!

Behavioral Interview – Are You Ready?

Do you have a behavioral interview scheduled with a company that might hire you for an available position? If so, there is no reason to stress about the interview, or downright fear it either.

Many people worry about behavioral interviews, because they don’t know what to expect. Companies and recruiters are using behavioral interviews more often to determine which candidate might be the best for the available position. Why? Because past behavior could lead to future behavior.

Here’s some expert insight into behavioral interviews, so you can confidently handle them if and when they come up in your job search process.

What Happens During a Behavioral Interview?

You might be wondering what happens during a behavioral interview. First off, the interviewer will ask you to describe a situation in which you had to deal with a difficult co-worker who was not pulling their weight on a project or ask about another situation at a previous job. The interviewer will want you to explain the situation and how you handled it without generalizations or theorizing the issue. The interviewer will likely take notes, and you might not be able to discuss any stories you might have prepared.

How to Prepare for a Behavioral Interview

The next step here is to prepare for a behavioral interview as much as possible, in order to succeed the next time you have a job interview scheduled. The following steps are how you should prepare for a behavioral interview:

  • Think about past experiences that show leadership, teamwork, planning, education, customer service and more from your career.
  • Prepare to describe the situation, the action you took and how the situation came to a conclusion. An easy way to remember this is with the STAR acronym – situation, task, action and results.
  • Have short descriptions of each situation prepared, and have details ready in the event that the interviewer asks for them.
  • Make sure the outcome of the situation reflects positively on you, even if the overall outcome was negative.
  • Never generalize about these events. Be as specific as possible.
  • Never leave out any details, or embellish true ones, because the interviewer will be able to find out what is true and what is false.

Avoid Short Answers

Do your best to avoid giving interviewers short answers when taking part in a behavioral interview. Short answers give the impression that either you are not prepared, or you do not have any experience with the type of situation the interviewer is asking you about in your career. Both of these could lead the interviewer to remove you from consideration for the job, especially if the position requires you to handle tough situations with co-workers or subordinates. The more you offer in the answer, the better the interviewer can understand what type of worker and problem solver you have been in the past.

There is absolutely no reason to fear the behavioral interview, especially if you have had to deal with tough situations in the past. Just follow the tips above and you will shine in any interview.

Casey Accounting & Finance Resources, a winner of Inavero’s Best of Staffing® Client Award for the second consecutive year, can help your company meet all of its financial staffing needs. Contact our award-winning team today to get started!

The Power of Networking!

Career advancement is not only about what you do, but even more importantly, who you know.  Having a strong network and nurturing it will help you take the next steps necessary to have a career that is challenging and gives you the opportunities for advanced roles in your career.

Networking is an art.  Dictionary.com’s definition of networking is:  “To cultivate people who can be helpful to one professionally, especially in finding employment or moving to a higher position”.  Wherever you are, talk to people who surround you and have a defined plan in place.

According to “Becoming a Master Networker” webinar by Amy Bingham, Bingham Consulting, follow this roadmap:

  1. Prepare – Conduct research on where like-minded people congregate, select ideal groups (in-person business meetings and social networking sites such as LinkedIn Groups).  Understand what is important to these groups, so you will be able to make contributions that are helpful to each group.
  2. Engage – Have a few good conversations with people and take good notes verses just collecting business cards.  Make sure people can understand in simple terms what you do when you introduce yourself and how they can help you.
  3. Position Value – Be able to articulate what makes you different and why people enjoy working with you and/or your company.  People need to understand how they will benefit.
  4. Assist – Networking is a two way street, so let the people you network with know you are looking for referral partners.  Find out what they do and how you might be able to assist them.  Be sincere and a good listener!
  5. Follow Up – Within 48 hours, follow up with the person’s referral as well as with the person who had helped you with your network and gave you the referral.
  6. Nurture – Stay in touch and share information that might be helpful to your network.  Examples would be hiring tips and thought leadership articles on their industry.  Use Google Alerts to obtain articles weekly and keep up to date on current trends.

Get started today in becoming a power networker!  The easiest way to begin is to make a list of all the people who can help you achieve the success you are looking for:  friends, co-workers, and groups you can join both online and in-person.  Make sure you know why each person and group is important to you.  Every opportunity that you meet a new person or even someone you have known for awhile, can turn into a powerful referral.  Think about your last job or the last item you purchased, was it through a referral?