The 4 Questions Your Recruiters Need to Ask Their Candidates!
Recruitment owners have a duty of care to their clients and candidates.
On the one hand, they need to ensure their consultants are ironing out the briefs with clients to really understand the roles they’re marketing. While on the other, their consultants need to ask the searching questions of candidates that reveal what they truly think - the sorts of answers that can’t be practiced in the mirror.
When a consultant asks a candidate a question, it has to get to the core of who they are.
Too many recruiters ask candidates the obvious questions that are already highlighted on their CVs. What did you achieve here? What did you learn from this? What are your key skills? Etc, etc. An element of basic questioning to set the scene is fine, but to get to the crux of what makes someone tick, you have to investigate not what was done but why it was done. When you are talking about motivations rather than actions, any potential fit with a future job is so much easier to discern.
I can only speak from the point of view of a business owner who has quadrupled his workforce over the past year, but for me, the following questions would hit home hard:
What makes you give up?
Everybody values grit and determination but when the cause is hopeless or damaging to a business, there has to be a tipping point where you admit something is not working.
The real question centres around when that point comes and what a person learns from it.
Candidates may miss an opportunity if they turn tail at the first sign of real struggle, but on the other hand, if they’re the kind of person to go down with a sinking ship, then they might be a drain on productivity?
In business, admitting that something is not working is not always as detrimental as sticking with a lost cause.
How do you go about winning in life?
Everyone’s definition of success is different, but rather than asking candidates about a past success, it’s far more revealing to ask them about how winning feels and how they go about seeking that success.
It might be hard work, it might be by influencing others, but nearly everyone will have some sort of recipe for success in their mind’s eye. If they can talk about it confidently, you know that they have tasted success and have a desire for more.
What do you get up to in your spare time?
This is a controversial one and a potential Pandora’s box. Many recruiters would stick to professional questions, but as the work to life balance becomes increasingly blurred, employers need to be interested in the person behind the employee.
If a recruiter finds a snippet of information that’s of interest to a hiring company, then that might make the difference between securing the candidate for an interview or losing the placement.
It should go without saying not to get too personal, but any information that helps a candidate stand out from the crowd will be useful.
Read more | linkedin.com
On the one hand, they need to ensure their consultants are ironing out the briefs with clients to really understand the roles they’re marketing. While on the other, their consultants need to ask the searching questions of candidates that reveal what they truly think - the sorts of answers that can’t be practiced in the mirror.
When a consultant asks a candidate a question, it has to get to the core of who they are.
Too many recruiters ask candidates the obvious questions that are already highlighted on their CVs. What did you achieve here? What did you learn from this? What are your key skills? Etc, etc. An element of basic questioning to set the scene is fine, but to get to the crux of what makes someone tick, you have to investigate not what was done but why it was done. When you are talking about motivations rather than actions, any potential fit with a future job is so much easier to discern.
I can only speak from the point of view of a business owner who has quadrupled his workforce over the past year, but for me, the following questions would hit home hard:
What makes you give up?
Everybody values grit and determination but when the cause is hopeless or damaging to a business, there has to be a tipping point where you admit something is not working.
The real question centres around when that point comes and what a person learns from it.
Candidates may miss an opportunity if they turn tail at the first sign of real struggle, but on the other hand, if they’re the kind of person to go down with a sinking ship, then they might be a drain on productivity?
In business, admitting that something is not working is not always as detrimental as sticking with a lost cause.
How do you go about winning in life?
Everyone’s definition of success is different, but rather than asking candidates about a past success, it’s far more revealing to ask them about how winning feels and how they go about seeking that success.
It might be hard work, it might be by influencing others, but nearly everyone will have some sort of recipe for success in their mind’s eye. If they can talk about it confidently, you know that they have tasted success and have a desire for more.
What do you get up to in your spare time?
This is a controversial one and a potential Pandora’s box. Many recruiters would stick to professional questions, but as the work to life balance becomes increasingly blurred, employers need to be interested in the person behind the employee.
If a recruiter finds a snippet of information that’s of interest to a hiring company, then that might make the difference between securing the candidate for an interview or losing the placement.
It should go without saying not to get too personal, but any information that helps a candidate stand out from the crowd will be useful.
Read more | linkedin.com