Candidate Preparation

Weighted Scoring

In our last post, we discussed easy to use scoring techniques used to evaluate your candidate’s response. The evalution methods covered rates candidate responses based on criteria such as problem solving, communication, teamwork and so forth. However, not all job requirements are the same. For example, suppose your client has asked you to fill a customer service job. For this job order, the client has identified that the interpersonal and conflict resolution skills are more important than problem solving and analytical perhaps. So understanding these client priorities, how can you adjust your evaluation scoring grid that we showed you on our last post? In this post, we will show you how to weight your evaluation grid.

When the criteria is not weighted the assumption is that one requirement is worth the same as the other. Sometimes, hiring managers will value one skill or job requirement more than the other for a particular position. Weighting your rating scale will allow you to reflect your client’s priorities for the job. While weighting adds some additional complexity to the evaluation process, there are some benefits of doing so.

The exercise of weighting job requirements will help you to put a realistic framework around managers with unrealistic expectations. Weighting will help you make better hiring decisions especially when a candidate does not meet ALL the job requirements. In these situations, you can still determine if the candidate meets the job requirements your client values most. This will prove beneficial especially in situations when working with unrealistic clients on a job order for a difficult to fill position.

To weight the job requirements you can rank all the requirements or simply assign a value to each job requirement. Using the example above, we will illustrate focusing on the position specific portion of the evaluation form.

Example: Weighted Evaluation Form

Total:
	Poor (1)	Weak (2)	Average (3)	Good (4)	Excellent (5)
Position Specific: Behavioural Based
Teamwork (2) Please describe your experience in working with an individual to help that person succeed on a particular project or in their daily assignments? Probes: · How did you ensure that you gained the individual’s input with regard to how they could be successful? · What was the process you used to assist the individual in going from their current situation to one where they were successful in completing projects/daily assignments? · What was the outcome?				X
Ethics (3) Describe a situation in which you demonstrated a strong ethical stance at work, despite pressure to do otherwise? Probes: · What were the risks involved in taking the strong stance that you did? · How did you overcome the pressure to change or weaken your stance? · How did the position you took affect the relationships that you have with the others involved?					X
Conflict Resolution (1) Tell us about a time when you dealt with a client or co-worker who was irate and perhaps even verbally abusive? Probes: · How did you ensure your understanding of the person’s concerns? · What was your approach to dealing with the angry person? · What was the outcome of the situation?		X
Total:		2		8	15
Total Evaluation Score:	25

Above we have provided an example to illustrate an actual scoring situation.

Scoring Example:

Teamwork = 8 [Good (4) x weight (2)]

Ethics = 15 [ Excellent (5) x weight (3)]

Conflict Resolution = 2 [ Weak (2) x weight (1)]

Conclusion

Consistent scoring methodology is important not only from a legal perspective but because it will go a long way in helping you send better candidates to your clients more consistently.  This is important because at the end of the day, your candidates represent you and your company to your clients.  Also to ensure your candidates best represent you, ensure they are well-prepared.  A thorough candidate preparation, will give your candidate a better chance to speak to their skills and demonstrate the quality of your service.

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Improve the quality of your applicants by providing them with online candidate preparation tools. Click on continue in demo below to find out how EmployPrep software can help you.

Introduction:

In this next post, we will discuss how you can implement a scoring and evaluation method within your Staffing and Recruitment agency. The major benefit of having a reliable way of assessing your candidates is that you can send better candidates to your clients more consistently.

Job Interview Scoring:

Although every organization may have their own job interview evaluation & scoring process, here are a few processes we have implemented with success within Recruitment and Staffing.

Rating Scale:

Prior to creating an evaluation checklist, you require a scoring scale. Although you may see anything from a 5-10 point rating scale, we prefer and suggest the 5 point rating scale The 5 point rating scale is the simplest and easiest to use when rating candidates. Designing a scale with an equal number of positive and negative statements can prevent the problem of bias, since consent on positively keyed items will balance consent on negatively scaled items, but central tendency and social desirability can become more problematic.

Five Point Scale:

1	2	3	4	5
Poor	Weak	Average	Good	Excellent

Creating the Evaluation

With all evaluations, the recruiter should evaluate everything from a candidate’s appearance, body language and handshake to specific competencies required for the position.

Process #1: First Impression Points

Create generic points to evaluate for all positions regardless if it’s junior to senior level. These are known as “first impression” evaluation points. Some of these include:

· Grooming

· Attire

· Handshake

· Eye contact

· Tardiness

· Gum Chewing

· Preparation (has portfolio)

· General Attitude (enthusiastic, passive, opinionated etc.)

For many of these you can also add a “Yes” or “”no” rating scale along with the 5 point rating scale.

Eg: Candidate chewing gum?

Yes:

No:

Process #2: General Assessment – Candidate Resume and their Preparation

Here you want to go through a candidates resume to confirm and validate that they actually have the knowledge, skills and abilities specified in their resume. You also want to find out if the candidate took the time to prepare and know more about the position posted and company.

General Assessment Includes:

· Knowledge of the position, did the candidate take the time to read and understand the requirements?

· Knowledge of the company, did the candidate take the time to research the company prior to the interview?

· Years of experience in specific field related to position posting?

· Working knowledge of specific technologies (have the required technologies listed from position posting)

· When asked to go through resume, does the candidate confirm all information is valid? (E.g. Gaps in employment, working knowledge or general knowledge of specific experience?)

Example: Rating Scale To Assess Years of Experience:

How many years have you worked as an accountant (senior position)?

Years of experience

Poor	1	0-1
Weak	2	2-3
Average	3	4-5
Good	4	6-7
Excellent	5	8+

We have provided you an example of how to assess and score the General Assessment, see our Sample Evaluation Form that we have provided in the following pages.

Process #3: Position Specific Points.

In this process you want to ensure the candidate has all the required competencies for the position. In most cases, you will want to use behaviour based questions to capture responses. Using behavioral questions is a good idea since most employers use them. By listening to specific examples of your candidate’s past work experience, this provide you a stronger validation. Look for more than a “yes” or “no” response to any of these questions.

Probing Questions:

Many times the candidate may not provide the specific response to the initial question. This may be a result of nervousness, lack of preparation or experience or perhaps poor question design. Recruiters should always have additional probing questions to ask along with the behavioural question. The probing question acts as a bit of a “push” when a recruiter is not happy with a candidate’s response. Probing questions encourage the candidate to elaborate and provide critical information. Remember, with probing questions recruiters the goals is encourage the candidate, give them some help without actually giving the candidate the answer.

Example: Using Probing Questions

Tell me about a time during a project you have managed when a team member came to you with a complex issue that they needed to talk about? How did you resolve the issue?

Probing question:

· What was the specific project?

· How did the complex issue start?

· What steps did you take to resolve the issue? Follow-up? End result?

What is the recruiter looking for in the response?

· Described the project, lead a large group.

· Took appropriate steps necessary to resolve the issue.

· Handled the issue well, and resolved the issue.

· Team member is satisfied with the results. Result is positive.

If the candidate’s response meets all the criteria the candidate will score high on the 5 point rating scale. If specific information is either missing or response is average, the candidate will score average or poorly. This Position Specific section of the checklist, recruiters use behavioral questions to weed out the good candidates from the poor . A thorough interview will result in sending strong candidates to your clients.

Sample of Evaluation Form:

Candidate: John Smith Position: Web Developer Interviewer(s): Janet Peters, Sandra Burrows, Manjeet Mann Date: July 1st 2008				Poor (1)	Weak (2)	Average (3)	Good (4)	Excellent (5)
First Impression
Grooming
Professional Business Attire
Tardiness
Handshake
Eye Contact
Chewing Gum	Yes:		No:
Business Portfolio	Yes:		No:
Overall Attitude
Total:
				Poor (1)	Weak (2)	Average (3)	Good (4)	Excellent (5)
General – Resume and General Preparation
Knowledge of position, did the candidate take the time to read and understand the requirements?
Knowledge of company, did the candidate take the time to research the company prior to the interview?
Years of experience in specific field related to position posting?
Working knowledge of specific technologies:
		PHP
		Photoshop
		ASP
		.Net
		VBScript
		CSS
		XML
		JavaScript
When asked to go through resume, does the candidate confirm all information is valid? (E.g. Gaps in employment, working knowledge or general knowledge of specific experience?)
Total:
				Poor (1)	Weak (2)	Average (3)	Good (4)	Excellent (5)
Position Specific: Behavioural Based
Please describe your experience in working with an individual to help that person succeed on a particular project or in their daily assignments? Probes: · How did you ensure that you gained the individual’s input with regard to how they could be successful? · What was the process you used to assist the individual in going from their current situation to one where they were successful in completing projects/daily assignments? · What was the outcome?
Tell us about a time when you needed to work closely with a colleague(s) on a project? Probes: · How was the process decided on that would be used for working on the project? · Were there obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? · Tell us about the relationships between you and your colleague(s) working on the project.
Tell us about a time when you dealt with a client who felt that he/she was being treated unfairly? Probes: · How did you ensure your understanding of the client’s concerns? · What was your approach to dealing with the client? · What was the outcome of the situation?
Total:
Total Evaluation Score:

Conclusion

Well this concludes our post on job interview scoring and evaluation techniques that your staffing and recruitment agency can implement. In our next post, we will look a little deeper into job interview scoring and discuss weighted scales as they relate to your candidate’s responses. Until then, we wish you continued success in your recruitment and staffing agency.

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Provide your candidates tools to improve job interview and resume writing skills while allowing you to focus on what you do best – selling them. Click on continue in demo below to find out how EmployPrep software can help you.

Introduction

Behavioural interview questions is a style of interviewing that rests on the theory that past work behaviours are good predictors of future job performance.  To assess past behaviour interviewers using this method ask for examples where candidates demonstrated a certain job related behaviour.  In this post, we will discuss how you can use behavioural interviewing to better assess your candidates.  A sound and reliable interview method will help you ensure that you are sending quality candidates to your clients.

STAR Technique

Before we get into the details of behavioral interviews and evaluating your candidate’s interview responses, let’s take a moment to talk about the STAR method.  STAR is a technique commonly taught by professional recruiters, career counselors and job interview coaches to help candidates structure their answer to a behavioral interview question.  STAR is an acronym that stands for situation, task, action and result.  While it is an excellent technique for candidates, interviewers can use it too.

When listening to a candidate’s answer sometimes you can get lost in the details.  To help you navigate the details, listen for each STAR component when your candidate responds to help you hone in on the most important elements of each answer.  Also when using this structure when taking notes, it will help keep them organized and easy to compare one response to another.

Example Of Interviewer’s Using STAR Method

“Tell me a time when you were on a team and you didn’t see eye to eye with a team member, what did you do?

S Situation- Listen for a particular situation to provide context to the answer.

Candidate:  “In my last job with Global Telecom, I was assigned to the Y25 project team with 10 other members to rollout and implement the new software system-testing tool within a 4-week period. ”

T Task- Listen for a detailed task that your candidate clearly responsible for and had to complete.  Even  though your candidate worked as part of a team, it is important that you are clear on what his or her own responsibilities were.

Candidate: “I was responsible for all n-tier application testing for all systems within the Lower Mainland with one other team member. We had to ensure there wouldn’t be any problems with the application once we started to rollout the systems to other parts of the Province. Problem was this team member and I could not see eye to eye when coming up with a testing process/methodology.”

A Action- Listen for the specific action that your candidate took to complete the task or solve a problem.

Candidate:  “Since this team member was more senior then I, I respected his knowledge but I didn’t agree with his testing process and vice versa he didn’t agree with my ideas. I decided the only way we were going to work effectively is to meet up 1 on 1 during lunch (in a comfortable environment). I explained my frustration and went over both our process plans in detail. I told him if we were going to work effectively, we both have to be on the same page. Basically we discussed everything out in the open.”

R Results- Listen for the results and outcomes of your Candidate’s action. Did your Candidate demonstrate achieve successful results?  What was the final outcome?

Example:  In the end, the testing process was rolled-out without delays. We both compromised on a single process and everything worked out perfectly. We gained more respect for one another and we continue to keep in touch. Most importantly, the testing was rolled-out on time and on budget.

False Stars

False STARS are responses by applicants that are difficult to interpret by the interviewer. While these responses may be acceptable in everyday conversation, they don’t allow you to isolate the candidate’s role through a specific example of an actual previous behavior.  False STARS are typically statements of feelings and opinions, or statements of what an applicant “would do” or “would like to do” or vague statements.

Feeling As Fact - watch for candidates who reply using statements of opinion or feeling.  For example:

• “I was really great at planning”
• “I thought I was the best manager and deserved more responsibility”
• “I showed a lot of initiative in making my sales calls”

The Use Of “We” - watch for candidates who use “we” to demonstrate that they are team players.  Unfortunately, you cannot be sure what the candidate’s role was in this situation.  Listen for we and clarify by asking, “What was your specific role in this task, team, etc.”

• “We developed a strategic plan and software”

Would Haves - watch for candidates who use conditional statements.  For example:

• “I would have achieved the targets”
• “In this situation, I would call the customer”

Again, remember that behavioral questions rely on the theory of past behavior.  As an interviewer you are looking for a specific example where your candidate demonstrated a certain behavior.  When listening to the response, the candidate’s role, that is what they actually did do, how they actually did handle a situation must be clear.  In the above  examples of false STARs, you can see that each statement does not provide the information required for an accurate evaluation.

Whether you use the STAR method to evaluate your candidates or to prep them for their interviews, it is important to understand the prevalence of this method.  That is, it would be a good idea to incorporate this technique into your staffing process since most major employers are using some form of behavioural interviewing in their screening process.

Well this concludes our post on behavioural interviews and the STAR technique.  In our next post, we will explore the methods of evaluating and scoring your candidate’s responses.  Until then, we wish you continued success in your recruitment and staffing agency.

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Send better prepared candidates to your clients. Click on continue in demo below to find out how EmployPrep can help you.

Vancouver, BC – September 1, 2008. HRinmotion, the job preparation specialists, today announced the launch of version 2 of their candidate preparation software – EmployPrep.

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About EmployPrep

EmployPrep is a browser-based, on-demand job preparation software solution for recruitment and staffing agencies of all sizes worldwide. It delivers a simple, easy-to-use platform suitable for temporary, contract and permanent recruitment and staffing agencies. If your company represents candidates to employers, then EmployPrep will benefit you.

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Increase you company brand, send better prepared candidates to employers. Click on continue in demo below to find out how EmployPrep software can help you.