Hiring the Right Candidate: Pre-Interview Testing
Last week, we focused the topic of our “Hiring the Right Candidate” series on getting the right people to submit their resumes to you by making sure they can follow simple instructions. In other words, we put in our job position ad a series of instructions that they must follow before we will even consider bringing them in for an interview.
The next step in this hiring process involves testing and initial interviews. You now have a small pile of candidates that followed the instructions in the ad to a “T” and it’s time to invite them in to do an initial interview. I recommend that you do the interviews all in one day with 25-minute interviews with 5 minutes in between.
DO THEY RETURN YOUR CALL?
The first test in doing this is contacting the candidate and asking them to come in to conduct an interview. Most of the time you are leaving a message on their cell phone. The first test is seeing if they return your call. Do not call them more than once. If they can’t return your call, well, I suppose the answer is obvious – do not waste time chasing after a candidate. If they are interested they will return your call.
As I said earlier in this post, I recommend scheduling all the interviews on one day. We will talk about the actual interview process in a future blog post as well. When you schedule a candidate for an interview, I advise you send them two tests to complete and directions to the interview location including a phone number in case of emergency or they get lost.
WILL THEIR PERSONALITY COMPLIMENT THE CURRENT TEAM?
The second two tests are a typing test and a DiSC profile test.
Since everything we do today involves typing, we need to make sure our people can not only follow directions but also be able to type directions.
The DiSC profile test can be found online in a number of places. Here is one we personally like. This is a critical test. You need to match the personality of the person you are hiring to the team he/she will be joining. That of course infers that you already know the personality profiles of those you work with.
If you have a company full of High D personalities, you will not want to be hiring a C or an S. They will be eaten alive and quit very soon after being hired. On the contrary, you do not want to hire a D if you have a company full of C and S personalities because the D will disrupt your peaceful environment. Please ask the candidates to bring these tests with them to the interview.
DO THEY ARRIVE TO THE INTERVIEW ON TIME?
The third and final test in this pre-interview process is seeing if they show up on time.
Showing up on time infers 5 minutes early. Can they follow your instructions to get to the interview location and show enough courtesy to be there early? This says so much about their desire for the job and their character. The key to the interviewee showing up on time is to show them the courtesy of being ready when they show up. We will talk much more about that in a future blog post. If an interviewee does not show up on time and does not call to indicate why they will be late, do not give them an interview. If they can’t show up on time for an interview, they likely will not show up on time for a regular workday.
This process may seem complicated, but it is necessary when we can get hundreds of resumes’ for one job. You have to have a weeding out process.
The leadership and staff at Trust Services can help you with this process. We are experts in the hiring process and love to help with screening and interviewing.
NEXT WEEK – Making sure your website reflects your culture so that the hiring process doesn’t have a breakdown.
About the Author, Jim Brangenberg
Jim's Mission: We are called to be examples of Christ to those around us. With that in mind, Jim is passionate about helping Christ followers connect their faith to their work!