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#CareerAdvice : #JobSearch – The Surprising Ways Companies Assess Job Applicants…

December 10, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

For every job seeker looking for their dream job, there is also a company hoping to find its dream employee. In order to find the perfect match, companies are learning to get more creative during the hiring process to streamline the search for the perfect candidate.

But with so many applicants applying to a position, how does a company really zero in on the standout applicants? Recruiters and hiring managers are screening candidates both ahead of time and during in-person interviews looking for red flags and the right fit — and sometimes you may not even be aware of how they are screening you.

Here are a few new and unique ways that companies are testing applicants. In short, be prepared for anything!

1. Conduct a skill-based test

Companies are often looking for specific traits in potential candidates, such as being detail-oriented. Matthew Ross, co-owner and COO of RIZKNOWS and The Slumber Yard, says he presents potential video editors with a unique assessment test before hiring. During the interview, he will give the candidate raw footage and a set of pre-made graphics and ask them to create a short, one-minute video.

“We evaluate the flow and quality of the video but what most potential candidates don’t realize is that the pre-made graphics we give them are incorrect (i.e. we purposely misspell a word, use the wrong color scheme, etc.,). Basically, we want to see if they’ll actually see the mistake and fix it,” says Ross. “This gives us good insight into their attention to detail, which is a key trait we want in our video editors.”

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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2 . Scope out your social media channels

Since we live in a digital, social-media heavy age, it’s not uncommon for companies to ask applicants for their Instagram or Twitter handles, as well as a link to their Facebook profile. Recruiters and hiring managers will look at your social channels to better understand your personality and to catch any red flags (i.e., foul language, risqué photos, etc.,) and anything that might not align with the company’s culture and values.

Moreover, don’t be surprised if an interviewer wants to look at your profiles with you during the interview! When you’re applying to a job, it’s always better to be safe than sorry with your social media sites: so clean up your online act because your future employer may be watching!

3. Invite you to spend a day in the role

Believe it or not, you might get to test out the job before you get hired. A “day in the life” visit also gives the company a chance to see how you’d perform, both in the role and with your potential co-workers.

Matt Dodgson, Director of Market Recruitment, says he has worked with clients who will first email a short screening test to a candidate and, if they pass, they will be invited to spend a “mini-workday” in the proposed position.

“This usually entails being given a project that can be accomplished within four hours (the candidate is given some prep materials beforehand), and then lunch with the team afterward,” explains Dodgson. “We then conduct an in-depth interview with the candidate the next week to evaluate their performance and ask focused follow-up questions. We’ve found that this puts candidates on the hot seat, but it gives us and clients better insight as to how the candidate would fit within the position and the team.”

4. Interview via text message

Since texting is the dominant form of communication for Americans under the age of 50, it’s becoming increasingly more common for interviews to take place or be schedule directly through texting.

In fact, tech company Canvas is dedicated to helping employers conduct text-based interviews. If a recruiter asks you to interview via text, don’t be shy – this may be an easy way for you to shine since, after all, you are probably used to texting! And from the employer and recruiting prospective, a text interview saves time and helps weed out anyone who can’t communicate effectively. So if you find yourself in a text interview, make sure you spell-check your text and respond in a timely manner!

5. Ask you to take personality tests

With fit in mind, some companies use personality tests like Myers-Briggs to determine if a candidate will be a good cultural fit.

“During the hiring process at finder.com, we’re focused on finding the right person for the role, not just a person who excels at the required competencies,” says Jon Brodsky, Country Manager at Finder.com. “Our personality tests provide insight into whether someone might be a good fit culturally. It’s crucial that we find the right person for the company and role, because the right fit will flourish and grow while someone who may be considered ‘the best’ will be frustrated and only deliver standard work.”

6. Video record interview answers

During the application process, an assessment might begin with video recordings of yourself answering the questions. While this usually occurs online in the application portal, it’s possible a recruiter will film your in-person interview to playback later or share with those in the interview loop who could not attend.

The more common scenario is that, during the online application, you will be asked to answer a question while being recorded. The catch here is that you usually have to record the video in their online system, meaning you may not be able to edit or reshoot the video. The aim of this exercise is to get a genuine response and answer out of you, as well as to test how well you think on your feet and to get a sense of your personality. Also, for some industries like healthcare, this is an efficient way for recruiters to evaluate a large number of applicants.

By using Montage Interview Software, nursing candidates at SSM Health are able to express interest in a job, discuss their skills and background, plus showcase their personalities in a way that phone interviews didn’t allow for. Through on-demand interviewing, candidates can complete video interviews on their own time.

The good news is that most applications like this will give you adequate support to prepare for the video interview.

7. Quiz your knowledge

Similar to a personality test, a company might ask you to take a specific data-driven test in order get specifics on your technical skills. For example, a company hiring for a sales position might ask prospects to take a 90-minute online test that will measure sales leadership competencies and client fit. It’s essentially a quiz to test your knowledge and ability and to determine if you will be the right fit for a specific client.

“I am a recruiter and recently worked with a client that used a sales assessment as the initial filter for screening candidates,” says Candie Fisher, Founder of Candie Fisher Consulting and Partner and VP of Client Engagement at Notogroup Executive Search. “It made my job a little more difficult, as it knocked out some people that had strong industry experience, but it allowed the client to have confidence that every candidate moving forward had met a data-based hurdle.”

GlassDoor.com | December 10, 2018 | Posted by Isabel Thottam

#CareerAdvice : #PhoneInterview Coming Up? Don’t make These Mistakes…Phone Interviews have Become an Inevitable Part of the #JobHunting Process. Here are 12 Things to Keep in Mind to Make Sure you Succeed.

September 19, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

These days, phone interviews are an unavoidable part of the job interview process, and for good reason: They save everyone involved time and effort. But that doesn’t mean that phoners require zero energy on the part of the candidate.

Yes, you should spend more time preparing for an in-person interview, but many companies treat phone screens as the official first round of the hiring process. That means candidates are expected to go into them prepared with as much information about the company, position, and their own skills and strengths as possible.

1. NEVER TAKE THE INTERVIEW SOMEWHERE NOISY

It might seem like common sense, but you’d be surprised what interviewers say they can hear in the background of their phone interviews—everything from barking dogs to screaming children. “Prepare for the interview by securing a quiet space in advance, even if it means escaping to your car parked in the garage,” advises Chere Taylor, founder of Fulcrum HR Consulting. “If you can lock your home office door, by all means do it. We’ve all been there and sometimes things just happen, but the more time spent anticipating what could go wrong, the better prepared and organized you will appear to the interviewer, and the greater likelihood of success.” That doesn’t mean that if your washing machine beeps once in the background all hope is lost, but the more effort you put into being in a quiet place, the more focused you’ll be.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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2. DON’T TALK ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL LIFE . . .

. . . unless you’re directly asked a question about what you like to do in your off hours. “The point of a phone interview is to focus on getting to know a candidate’s professional experience and goals,” says Mckenzie Roark, campus talent specialist at Lithko Contracting. “A recruiter is trying to qualify them to see if they are the best fit for a role, and learning about their personal life doesn’t help. For example, when asked where you see yourself in five years, we don’t want to know that you hope to be married or that you want to buy a new house. That is nice, but that isn’t relative to anything professional.”

3. RESIST THE URGE TO MULTITASK

It might be tempting to cross something off your to-do list while on a phone interview, but recruiters and hiring managers can easily tell if your attention is elsewhere. “My No. 1 pet peeve is people who decide to multitask while on the phone interview,” says Dan Krupansky, talent acquisition manager at PrimePay. “I have heard candidates washing dishes, making lunch in the microwave, going for walks, letting their dog out, and grocery shopping during the interview. I even had one person use the bathroom and flush the toilet while speaking with me.” Needless to say, this doesn’t reflect well on your level of interest in the position you’re interviewing for.

4. SKIP THE MONEY CONVERSATION

To put it bluntly, it’s simply too early in the process for you to be the one who brings up salary expectations. “Chances are if a candidate is participating in a phone interview, this is the first time they have talked with the company, and the first call isn’t the appropriate time to talk about ‘what’s in it for you,’” says Justina Strnad, the Talent Acquisition Manager for Shiftgig. “Trust me, if you are a great candidate and make it to next steps, the hiring team is going to be very transparent about what’s in it for you later on.”

5. NEVER PUT YOUR INTERVIEWER ON HOLD

Phone interviews don’t take that long, and there probably isn’t anything else going on that is really truly so urgent that you need to pause your interview. “Do not put me on hold to take an important call that just beeped in,” advises Jeremy Payne, head of people operations at Remote Year. “I am your important call. If you are expecting extremely urgent news (like information about a family illness), be sure to preface that in the early minutes of the interview, so the recruiter is aware of the situation, and so you can work with them to reschedule if that interruption does occur,” he says.

6. NEVER SKIP THE Q&A

“After wrapping up a phone interview, it is typical that the interviewer will ask the candidate if they have any questions. I can’t stress this enough: ALWAYS ask questions,” says Roark. “If we have had a great phone interview and then we wrap up and they don’t have any questions for me, it pretty much ruins the whole interview. It tells me that the candidate is uninterested in the role, which in reality, might not be the case at all,” she notes. But surely, if you’re interested in a job, you can think of something to ask your interviewer.

7. DON’T BE LATE

It seems basic, but surprisingly, a lot of people are late to phone interviews. “About a quarter of the people with whom I schedule phone interviews aren’t on time,” says Sophie Cikovsky, who handles U.S. recruiting for Infinite Global. “While this bothers me personally, it’s also indicative of someone who isn’t very detail-oriented,” she explains. “In order to identify this early in the hiring process, I started asking all candidates a few years ago to call me as opposed to calling them at an agreed-upon time. That way, if I hear from them at 1:13 p.m. or 12:49 p.m. instead of our planned 1:00 pm interview time, I have an early indicator that they might not be a great fit.”

8. DON’T ASSUME RECEPTION IS GOOD

“Make sure you test your headset and connection before dialing in,” recommends Payne. “There is nothing more frustrating for a recruiter who has a structured interview guide in place having to repeatedly ask the same question over and over because they could not understand your answer due to static or dropped signals.” Test-call a friend beforehand, or even call yourself from a landline if necessary; it will take less than a minute.

9. NEVER TALK OVER THE INTERVIEWER

You might be eager to get your point across or talk about your experience, but interrupting the interviewer is awkward and rude when you’re speaking on the phone, even more so than in face-to-face interviews. “Interviewing can be stressful, and sometimes that stress manifests itself in speaking too fast, speaking too loud, talking over the interviewer, or attempting to answer the interviewer’s question before they have actually finished asking the question,” says Taylor. “Don’t do this.” There’s a big difference between being assertive and being aggressive, and interviewers can always recognize it.

10. SKIP FILLER WORDS

It’s tough not to say things like “um,” “uh,” and “like” in everyday speech, but these verbal habits become much more pronounced when speaking on the phone, says Chris Dardis, a recruiting expert and HR professional with Versique Executive Search. “In face-to-face interviews, they’re not as noticeable, because there are other things like your hair, suit, or body language to distract people,” he explains. But in a phone interview, the only thing you have to go on is what you say and how you say it. “That’s why it’s so important to eliminate these words from your speech when doing a phone interview.”

11. DON’T GO IN BLIND

Not knowing anything about the company or job you’re interviewing for is way more obvious than you’d think. “Many people think that a phone interview means they’re getting away with something, that they don’t have to put as much effort into researching the role or company,” says Steve Pritchard, HR consultant for giffgaff. And if you have your laptop in front of you during the interview to do a few quick searches, they won’t know the difference, right? Not exactly. “Seasoned interviewers will know whether an interviewee is researching while on the phone; they will take too long to answer the question and punctuate their answers with a lot of ‘ums’ and ‘errs’ as they type. The interviewer can often even hear the typing as they ask the question,” he adds.

12. NIX LONG-WINDED ANSWERS

“The key to success during a phone interview is clear and concise answers,” says Dardis. “People’s attention spans tend to be shorter over the phone. You don’t want your future employer to lose interest in the conversation.” He recommends practicing answers to questions you know will be asked ahead of time in order to be clear on what you’re going to say. That way, you can prevent rambling before it starts.

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