Posts Tagged ‘Candidate Screening’
Next Step after first Executive Job Interview
From a Yahoo Answers question about executive job interviews:
My dad applied for a job at alcon and he passed all the tests and they promised him a second interview.?
Does that mean he got the job?
Well, here are my thoughts for you, from 20 years of giving executive job interview tips:
Corporate recruiters have a process to follow, and that includes several steps that are done iteratively per candidate and concurrently with other candidates who are in the same process for the same job. This makes it a numbers game in many cases — similar to a sales funnel. They need to push X number of candidates through the first screening step to produce X number for the second screening step and so on.
Having said that, this process of recruiting is highly influenced by the humans who are running the process, including their personal preferences (often called their "gut feel"), their inside knowledge of the hiring manager's personal preferences, and the overall corp
What many people on the outside don't know: recruiting is as much an art as a science. There are really no cut and dried formulas (though some HR software vendors would have you think so) in determining the perfect candidate for a job. In one company, the process may depend heavily on skills tests or a combination of skills and personality tests. In another company, decisions may be made on statistics: GPA, number of sales, number of years of C# experience, or even number of connections in Linkedin! Other firms may screen on intellectual agility in a high-stress group interview. And still others may lean heavily towards team fit.
So, if one person inside a recruiting function tells an executive job interview candidate that they would get a second interview, it could mean different things:
- on to a second screen in a series of X more steps
- on to someone else who will review the first screener's notes and ask more questions
- on to the first round of panel interviews
- on to a final interview with the decision maker
So, if your father passed the first round, you/he may never know exactly why he passed, unless the recruiter tells him specifically.
Tell your father that, at the end of any interview, it is fine to ask what the exact next step will be, and with whom — especially if it is an executive job interview.
I might also add some unfortunate truisms that we find in this economy: job seekers tend to read a smiling comment about next steps as a promise, and internal recruiters tend toward making candidates feel good when they leave an interview. So tell him not to be disappointed if he actually never gets a call back. This economy, as you know, has more great executives vying for job interviews than at any other time in my recollection. And if internal recruiting is a numbers game, then so should your plan be as a candidate!
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The New H.R. Technology for Candidate Screening
Imagine being able to browse through candidates like you can in InterviewStudio… watch the video below to view how easy it is to scan through the candidate’s resume, their endorsements, their video interview, their assessment test scores, their LinkedIn profile… all on one screen using one tool.
Imagine the time you could save by cutting out the phone screens and first interview rounds using a tool like InterviewStudio for your candidate screening.
Yes, it takes a few minutes to screen a candidate this way instead of just looking for keywords on a resume, but what a rich set of due diligence data you now have at your fingertips with which to make quality decisions!
And taking a few more minutes of a recruiter’s time is well worth the weeks’ or even months’ worth of time and money savings to the employer.
The ultimate tool in Candidate Screening . InterviewStudio.
WTIA Partners with InterviewStudio to Showcase Washington State Technology Executives
Washington Technology Industry Association Partners with InterviewStudio to Showcase Washington State Technology Executives
InterviewStudio platform to power special section of WTIA website devoted to tech visionaries and entrepreneurs
SEATTLE, WASH. – July 15, 2009 – The Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) <www.washingtontechnology.org> and InterviewStudio <http://www.interviewstudio.com/> have partnered to offer a special site to showcase Washington state technology executives who have contributed to the success of the local technology community over the last 10 years. Launched today, the “Profiles in Technology” project kicks off by spotlighting local technology innovators such as Ben Elowitz (CEO of Wetpaint and founder of Fatbrain and Blue Nile), Jonathan Sposato (CEO of Picnik), Jeremy Jaech (CEO of Verdiem, formerly with Adobe, Visio and Trumba) and Bill Baxter (CTO of Cozi.com, co-founder of Bsquare). The first profile can be seen on WTIA’s Web site at: <http://www.washingtontechnology.org/pages/resources/resources_profilesintechnology.asp>.
The Washington Technology Industry Association chose InterviewStudio for this project for several reasons, including its relationship with long-standing WTIA member Colleen Aylward, founder of InterviewStudio and the recruiting firm, Devon James Associates. Creator of one of the country’s first vendor recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) services, Aylward has assisted many WTIA member start-up companies with progressive solutions for their recruitment needs over the last 15 years, utilizing her “Onsite Recruiting War Room” methodology, that is still in use today.
“We chose InterviewStudio because its combination of video and other information brings subjects to life like no other platform,” said Ken Myer, president and CEO of the Washington Technology Industry Association. “We see this as a great way to highlight some of the technology and business people who are so important to the success of not only the WTIA, but to the entire technology industry in the Northwest. InterviewStudio is a terrific example of the creativity and innovation that our members are known for.”
Originally designed to create a comprehensive showcase of Devon James’ executive candidates to send to employers, the InterviewStudio showcase can combine any mixture of data, media, text, icons and links in an elegant presentation format displayed all on one screen, in one place and can be emailed via URL link. In an employment application, a showcase may display a candidate’s resume, video interview, reference checks, professional assessment test results, Web page and portfolio, colleague endorsements and other data from Internet search engines and social networking sites like LinkedIn. This process allows hiring managers to view all pertinent data about a candidate in one place on one screen at one time – saving weeks of time and money in the initial candidate screening process.
For the Washington Technology Industry Association project, InterviewStudio combines executive bios, video interviews, company overviews, press releases and other links in one presentation format that can be easily displayed and viewed in a Web 2.0-type “showcase.”
“InterviewStudio is really a mash-up that combines several of the most advanced technologies in multi-media and presentation tools with your product or service highlight info,” Aylward said. “As video technology and man-on-the-street interviewing becomes the more popular way to present bios, we’ll see more of this type of media combined with clickable icons for product and service information that replace the paper brochure. As the globe shrinks, large and small vendors alike need to get their story out, and an InterviewStudio showcase is a faster, easier way to create a marketing deliverable than a traditional Web site or brochure. Additionally, you’re able to simply email your showcase link around the world immediately to promote yourself or your product and or company.”
About InterviewStudio
InterviewStudio.com is a ground-breaking technology platform that can be used to display multiple forms of data all at once on one screen: videos, data, text, images, icons, links – that appear instantly when clicked by the viewer. This is the NEXT STEP in programs that allow anyone to showcase themselves and their accomplishments, products, services, to a vast market instantly and elegantly. Visit http://www.interviewstudio.com. And follow their blog about this technology here: http://www.interviewstudioblog.co.
About the WTIA
Washington Technology Industry Association is the largest state-wide association of technology companies and executives in the world. With more than 1,000 member companies representing more than 100,000 technology sector employees in Washington State, Washington Technology Industry Association is a catalyst for setting new industry directions, sharing expertise, fostering collaboration, delivering key business services, and advancing the economic value and global impact of technology companies doing business in Washington: http://www.washingtontechnology.org
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InterviewStudio Endorsement: Stream Interview of Irene Hepburn
Irene Hepburn, Head of Administration at Optimum Energy, explains how InterviewStudio saved time and money for her company during a recent search for a top sales executive. With only 2 months to conduct an extensive search during the holidays last year, they turned to InterviewStudio to have candidates submitted to them quickly via stream interviews. In this way, they were able to do all their initial candidate screening in the first month, and avoid any wasted time on unqualified finalist interviews. Visit www.interviewstudio.com or email info@interviewstudio.com to determine whether the use of stream interview tools would be valuable to your own organization.
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Video Job Interview Data is Crucial Addition to Keyword Search for Candidate Screening
Traditional screening technology has created some obstacles for the Job Seeker that the video job interview just might relieve. Currently candidates with an electronic resume can shoot it off to an electronic job description with an electronic screening set of rules and take their chances that they included the right KEYWORDS.
Job Seekers also gamble that the human who is looking through the “screened” resumes will understand all the jobs on the resume and what that experience could mean to a new employer.
For the infrastructure employee, or those who will perform specific repeatable tasks, this is not a bad way to save time in screening. But a search for anyone who can think outside the box, bring new and interesting solutions to old problems, create new revenue streams by discovering new channels, cut product development time by 50% by revamping the architecture, or structure inventive alliance partnerships to get around old commerce rules… this KEYWORD recognition thing just doesn’t cut the mustard.
Employers are still struggling to find and hire the right candidates… and have been doing so for the past 20+ years.
Let’s look at the real problems in the market. Employers are still struggling to find and hire the right candidates… and have been doing so for the past 20+ years. “No keyword searching tool has solved the iterative process that is inherent in a thorough due diligence process.” A partial answer to this problem that has huge value could be the video job interview.
Whereas Keyword searching provides a good “first pass” at a stack of 200 applicants by narrowing the pool according to “the 3 S’s”:
- Skills (which keyword skills are on the resume, e.g. C++, sales, project management)
- School (which college, degree, and date of graduation)
- Status (employed, unemployed, recently laid off, re-entering the workforce)
…the Video Job Interview can provide tremendous value-add in “the 3 C’s” to a recruiter or hiring manager.
- Composure/Poise
- Communication Skills
- Corporate Culture Match
Granted, the traditional first in-person interview would provide these 3 C’s, but at what cost? Business moves too fast in today’s world to wait days to reach a candidate, and to coordinate the interview team’s schedules for that first meet — or even for that first video job interview conference. And how many times has a candidate been brought in for a day’s worth of team interviews, only to find in the first 10 minutes of the day that the 3 C’s are lacking
There really is a 4th “C” on this list: Convenience.
There really is a 4th “C” on this list: Convenience. Schedules don’t always match up nicely in order to coordinate an in-person interview, or even a Live Video Job Interview. A stored “on-demand” video interview that can be viewed at any time along with the other due diligence (resume, endorsements, etc) can save weeks of time, particularly for executives who travel often.
The convenience afforded to all interview team members by offering a stored video job interview for screening at any time, day or night, (and repeated visits to the same video job interview) offers the freedom of screening at a time when the team member can focus and concentrate on all the factors that may affect a critical quality hire — especially for the executive job interview. Imagine being able to choose “finalist candidates” in a matter of 2 weeks instead of 3 months. And calculate the savings:
- Fewer airline tickets for candidates
- Fewer hotel rooms for interview travel
- Fewer workday hours spent on first interviews by productive team members
- Fewer hours spent on phone screens by recruiting staff
In the spirit of progressive technology solving difficult problems, the video job interview has lots going for it, provided it’s done correctly.
Stay tuned for the next blog installment on this subject…
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