It’s you, not me: How to recruit effectively in 2022

We’ve recently covered how candidates have the balance of power in recruitment these days, with so much demand and jobs available wherever they turn, they can afford to be choosy and go to the highest bidder. Here we cover how you need to change your interview style to move with the times.

Gone are the days of the good cop bad cop interview style, be too aggressive and your candidate might even find an excuse to leave midway through the interview and it will do nothing for your employer branding.

Here are our top interview mistakes that you should avoid to ensure that you keep talent interested and don’t trip over

Time

Be respectful of their time particularly in 2022.

Yes you have a busy schedule and you are trying to do the job of two or three people but your candidate also has their own responsibilities. They have taken time out of their busy day to meet with you. Candidates have long had to endure late interview meetings while smiling sincerely stating that it is fine, when really being over 45 minutes late to an interview while keeping a candidate waiting in reception is anything but fine.

Things can happen but try to remember to respect your candidate’s time. Glassdoor now has a rating where candidates can leave a review of recent interviews and the last thing you want to do is amass a list of bad reviews at your poor time keeping, or lack of sincerity or even mixing up diaries and being a no show.

Keep to time too, with virtual interviews being late is just as noticeable as in person interviews and even more frustrating as a candidate.

Keep the interview process realistic

Don’t overdo it and string out your process for weeks on end and don’t try and get them to meet everyone in the business. They will have lost interest by stage 3. Ideally be upfront with them about requirements and how many stages you expect there will be. Here is our rule of thumb:

• Junior to mid - 2 stages

• Senior 2 - 3 stages

• Executive - 3 - 4

If you want to keep talent interested and make sure that they are still around, keep it simple. Don’t leave weeks between interview stages if you can avoid it. Your competitors might just be able to run the interview process quicker in a week or two. If you leave it too long, they may forget what was great about you, which gives your competitors time to remind them what is great about them. Before you know it, your ideal talent has been snapped up. Remember to relay to hiring managers the need to respond to candidate submissions within 24 hours and schedule interviews shortly after.

Make sure you’ve read their CV

The power lies with the candidate these days so make sure you do your homework too and read their CV. Take an interest in what they have done previously, even ask them a question about it. Find some common ground that you can start talking around, it all helps to ensure that you can start to build a rapport and it helps smooth the awkwardness of an interview between strangers.

Set the scene and tell them about the opportunity

Try not to repeat what someone else might have said in a previous stage, you want each interview stage to provide new information and the opportunity for the candidate to find out more. The approach needs to be that you are being interviewed - are you and your business the right fit for them, as much as you want to know if they are the right fit for you. Interviews are a false environment and it can be hard to identify everything you need to know to make a decision - so try and lead with the best information you can share with them. Particularly if you have talent you want to take the job, you’re going to want to be complementary to them on their abilities, their knowledge and strengths and identify how they might fit really well into the business and what they will enjoy about working there. Be honest about any of the challenges too - so that they feel they are getting the full picture. We’re all grown ups and know that work is never 100% straight forward. So share with them where there might be blockers or challenges, as well as the positives too.

Ask thoughtful questions

Don’t stick to the age-old questions and don’t try and trip candidates up. You should make the process as comfortable as possible. I have a rule that if someone asks me “what my strengths and weaknesses are” they aren’t the company for me. Harsh maybe, but there are so many questions that you can ask a candidate these days. Stuck for inspiration, take a look at the thousands of resources available online.I was also being asked that question 18 years’ ago so if you’re still asking the same one question, then you haven’t moved with the times, you are unlikely to have any training or tried to improve your interview game and it tells me quite a lot about what it might be like to work with you.

Looking for recruitment support?

Talk to Auxeris today about how we partner with businesses in their recruitment process. We will provide the initial screening ensuring that we find you the best suited talent to your business. You will have candidates to review, ensuring that you have a neat shortlist of ideally matched prospective employees to talk to.