Anyone who has ever tried to recruit or hire new employees knows it can be a real nightmare and sometimes ridiculously funny. Ask any recruiter to share some of their best stories and you’ll be crying, laughing and gasping in disbelief. But there are some lessons behind the laughter.
Hiring can be tough, but don’t fret–there’s still hope. There are some great tips and strategies to finding good employees. As you will see, none are foolproof but some may give you an edge. The best thing to remember is learn to laugh at the ridiculous and be patient. Here are some tips, strategies, and some funny stories to help you recruit the best people.
1. Enjoy The Silence.
One of the best tips when interviewing a potential employ is to let those really awkward silences linger. I have found this tip to be very effective and sometimes really entertaining. The silence is awkward, it’s suppose to be. A good employee will find a way to initiate relevant conversation on their own, while others will melt down from the tension.
Once while interviewing a potential employee there was a pause between questions. In reality it was only a minute or two, but in the heat of the moment it seemed like a lifetime. The potential new hire was getting visibly nervous as the seconds ticked by.
I sat in complete silence pretending to write while occasionally looking up and making eye contact, in actuality I was doodling stick figures, waiting for the interviewee to initiate conversation.
The interviewee shuffled back and forth in their chair then finally said, “I feel like I’m in my Narcotics Anonymous Meeting, and I hate being judged!” Then exclaimed, “I don’t understand what are you writing down.” Needless to say, they didn’t make the cut.
2. Throw Some Curve Balls.
I have found that the best new hires are the people who are willing to do any task at any time regardless of their job descriptions. A great hiring strategy is to ask an employee to preform a strange task outside of their normal job duties and see what they do.
Once I was hiring for a biotech company. The position was for a lab technician. I explained to the potential employee that the biotech company works with a biomaterial moving company to help move lab samples.
I asked the potential employee, “Do you feel comfortable working outside of their department to help facilitate the labs needs?”
The new hire asked, “Like what?”
I said, “Like answer the phone and help coordinate lab needs on the fly.”
The potential employee remarked, “I guess. If i had too. Don’t you guys have a secretary that does that? I have a doctorate degree. I didn’t go to school for six years to answer phones all day, but if I had to I guess I could.”
Some scientists can be a bit “high and mighty”. Of course we were looking for a scientist, but no one wants to hear an employee say, “That’s not my job, find some one else to do that.” You want someone proactive and willing to do anything at anytime.
3. Find out what they did last weekend.
Many recruiters are starting to look at potential employees social networking pages as a valid hiring strategy. I personally don’t really like the feeling of reading through someone’s social networking pages looking for personality flaws. It can seem a bit weird and intrusive to me. But it can make for some funny and illuminating moments in an interview.
I was recruiting for a new person to take over a company’s HR department. This position meant this employee would be dealing with employee behavior and office conduct issues. The potential employee had an amazing resume, great phone interview, and good references. They seemed like the perfect person for the job.
I looked at the potential employees social media profile and found that it was full of late night debauchery and inappropriate comments that most people would of considered sexists and slimy. Now I’m a believer that what you do when you’re off the clock is your business. As long as you conduct yourself in a professional manor at work were good, but some of these situations seemed a bit over the top.
So during the interview I casually asked the potential employee, “What did you do last weekend?”
The employee looked a bit taken back at the personal question, took a second, then said, “Not too much really. Hung-out with some friends I guess?”
To which I said, “Your Facebook page made it look like you had a very interesting weekend.”
The employee’s face turned bright red as the panic washed over their face. They remarked, “Oh?! My Facebook page? That was just some old work friends, they were throwing me a going away party. I’m not usually like that!”
I looked up, and said, “Work friends? Aren’t you looking to head our HR department? Do you usually party that hard with coworkers? Don’t you find that kind of behavior a conflict of interest?”
They replied, “Well I was quitting. I’m not working there any more.”
I said, “Fair enough.” Then thought to myself, You won’t be working here either.