In this day and age, developing a professional resume is easier than ever.  There are multiple resume construction websites as well as professional resume software available for purchase.  There are also resume services that will interview job seekers and create for them a professional resume that shapes talents and skills so that they are particularly attractive to growing companies in a specific region.  Human resources officers find these professional resumes, are duly impressed, and contact the respective candidates.   Interviews are scheduled, and candidates prepare.  ; Some candidates, however, don’t prepare and cannot land the job and close the deal.  What should job applicants do to appropriately prepare for a job interview?

                Research:  Candidates should spend as much time as possible researching a company prior to an interview.  Most companies have web sites that contain pertinent information on its diversity policies, benefits, and often offer the requirements of available positions.  Knowledge of the company and its culture will be obvious to the interviewer during a first meeting and will show the candidate is a forward thinker and a true professional. Further, company research will ensure that the candidate actually wants to invest time and energy in a company.

                Underselling Themselves:  Candidates should be prepared to assert their aptitude, skills, and the ways in which they can help the company achieve its mission.  Obviously, the company is looking for workers; the successful applicants are those who can illuminate their proficiencies and talents and convince the interviewer that their experience is best for the available position.

                Failing to Listen:  In most cases, employers know what they want in a new hire; they know what questions they want to ask and know what answers they hope to hear.  A successful candidate will listen to the questions asked, detect the subtext of those questions, and answer accordingly.  For example, a question about meeting deadlines may really be an inquiry into one’s management style.  Applicants may know what information they hope to impart, but they must listen to the company’s representatives and follow the lead of the interviewer.  Interaction should be give and ta ke.

                Maintain Professionalism:  A brief mention of the World Series or the Final Four is a good ice-breaker and can make an interview more comfortable for all involved.  However, personal information which has no bearing on the issues at hand is not appropriate.  A candidate’s reasons for adjusting administrative style or shifting focus from email to personal communications is important and may include some real workplace or life experiences, but these are only significant if they are relevant to the available position.  Candidates should not discuss personal relationships, irrelevant health or medical issues, or even the p arking problem encountered that morning. 

                Currently, developing a professional resume is the easiest part of landing the perfect job.  Interviewers are prepared to meet and conference with applicants; applicants should be prepared to demonstrate their skills and professionalism.  Candidates should be prepared to become new hires.

Ask Not…

     During a recent business development conference, a human resources speaker reminded us of the Mary Tyler Moore show and her character’s job interview with her soon-to-be boss, Lou Grant. As funny as the encounter was, it did bring to light an interesting point: what questions can we as business owners ask our perspective employees?  Lou Grant asked Mary about her religion.  She responded by reminding him that he wasn’t allowed to ask that… intimidated, she did finally answer.

     Discrimination is an issue that we business owners and human resources directors must keep in the back of our minds. EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity) Laws were designed to protect potential employees.  Employers, however, must protect themselves against the perception of discrimination. An employer might not hire a 52 year old man because he lacks computer experience.  BUT if during the gentleman’s interview, the employer asks pointed questions regarding the man’s age and when he graduated from high school, college, etc., the perception of discrimination may become a huge issue.  

     The best way to avoid this problem when seeking additional personnel is to steer clear of interview questions related to age, religion (thanks Lou Grant), gender or children, race or ethnicity, or disability.  Interviewers should focus on the candidate’s ability to meet the demands of the job and the candidate’s employment background, training and experience. “Friendly” interviews sometimes lead to a discussion of children and their extracurricular activities… and it’s fine if a candidate volunteers such information.  But human resource directors must be careful to not to ask, “Will Johnny’s Little League schedule interview with our company’s meeting schedule?”  If Mom isn’t hired, she may believ e her status as a mother is the reason why.

     By the way, Mary was a Presbyterian.

Article Title:  Second Life Recruiting: The Future?
Author Byline:  Need Career Advice? Resume Help? Visit Us!
Author Website: http://www.boston-technical-recruiter.com/

About two days ago, I stumbled on something that made me cringe at the thought of having missed a technological opportunity. Virtual world recruiting is something fairly new to the industry, yet many major companies such as IBM, GE, and Accenture are utilizing a new environment called Second Life for recruiting and marketing.

Second Life is a virtual world that is fully customizable and allows complete control of the environment down to creating gravity defying floating houses to weapons of mass destruction.  By writing scripts or using thousands of written scripts, you can modify your character and environment in a thousand different ways. From combat to running your own advertising agencies to recruiting real world candidates, Second Life is a dreamscape with some serious potential. Second Life even has a currency which can be exchanged into real life money at a 1RLD to 278SLD ratio. In other words, everything you may need to live it up.

From the perspective of business communications, Second Life is being used as a training ground, conference room, or company propaganda platform. Cannon, Routers, L word are all advertising inside the game. The opportunity to market to over a million individuals with limited competition is nearly irresistible. I considered marketing my own blog before thinking better of it and exploring the world further.

But how viable is second life in terms of creating a viable recruiting business model? I considered leasing 100 square meter office and advertising my open real world opportunities in game. At the same time I ran across an article which clearly demonstrated that many people in SL would not take kindly to RL intrusions into their fantasy world. Would it make sense to offer recruiting services within Second Life to Second Lifers? How about advertise real life jobs to Second Lifers. It is clear that the latter is already being done and is something that I will probably engage in as well.  One of the secrets within the game is that everything is based on your position in search results. If you can figure out a way come up to the top of search results in ingame searches, your traffic can potentially explode. May SL gamers will find good real life opportunities marked ingame hard to resist.

Second life is an interesting new medium that is largely underutilized by small recruiters. But as technology advances and virtual reality becomes more commonplace, have a virtual store in a virtual environment will not seem so far fetches. I’ve always wanted my own island, even if it is inside a server.

http://www.recruitingblogswap.com/

http://www.collegerecruiter.com

http://www.collegerecruiter.com/jobs/

     It’s been proven that interviewing a candidate via a webcam saves companies time and money. But there are more ways to streamline hiring and improve your interviewing and employee selection process.  Hiring staff members who don’t have the ability or training to be successful in your company is a waste of your time and forces the interview process to unnecessarily begin again.  How can you avoid this?  Systemize your interview by creating a standard series of questions based on the behaviors of your best employees.  Then ask those questions and demand concrete, behavior-based answers:

For example, Why did you leave or are you leaving your previous place of employment?

Why are there gaps in your employment history? How much experience do you have with the computer systems we use? Direct, fact-based questions and answers keep the interview moving quickly while supplying a vast amount of information. 

     Behavior-based questions also demand concrete answers: Specifically describe your current job description. At what aspects of the job are you best?  Have you worked on team projects that were successful? Describe the projects and your specific roles. Behavior-based questions are task-specific and demonstrate a prospect’s ability to concentrate and complete job and project responsibilities. Questions that precise demand focus and detail-orientation.

     Hypotheticals and imaginative questions may be interesting to ask, but unless you are seeking candidates for predominantly creative or artistic jobs, concrete, behavior-based interview questions will get you the most useful information in the least amount of time… the most bang for your buck. It’s still about the bottom line!

What is LiveHire?

            LiveHire is a new way to Interview for jobs on the internet. It allows Employers and Candidates to interview in real-time via a webcam from any location. LiveHire is a tool made specifically to interview candidates for potential employment.

Why Use LiveHire?

            Simply put it’s easy. It’s the next best thing to actually being in the same room as the candidate. Recruiters and Managers will be able to make quicker hiring decisions, decrease costs associated with flying and relocating candidates. You can save time and money on College recruiting while increasing the number of schools to recruit from. You can interview graduates from a handful of schools without leaving your desk. See the candidate; speak with the candidate, Interview the candidate live.

I recently found this article on

http://howtomanagehumanresources.blogspot.com/

that I thought rang so true to what LiveHire is, and what the future of Recruiting will be..

You are on Corporate Camera!!!!

With the latest technological boom, organisations today are exploring newer horizons even in the way they inteview their job candidates.

Just check this latest technological trend to hit the Human Resource Circuit: Video Conferencing

Many organisations are now following the trend of conducting interviews through video conferencing (VC) and industry experts are confirming that this trend is catching on rapidly.

A Camera-Friendly Approach

Industry experts believe that video-conferencing is just as helpful as conducting a face-to-face interview. There is a state of the art video conferencing facility to interview outstation candidates or local candidates who cannot come down for personal interviews due to time constraints

And if you thought that only junior level employees are being interviewed through this process, think again!

Most of the VC interviews have been with senior candidates.

However, from a holistic perspective, interviewing senior candidates through this process has helped reduce the time lost due to travel thereby cutting short the interview process to a large extent.

Auditioning for a job! !!

The concept of interviewing through video conferencing is catching up. It works better as compared to a telephonic interview. I once interviewed a candidate on the phone and he sounded perfect for the job and I was quite taken by his vocabulary. But when I met him in person, he could not hold the conversation properly and that’s when I realised that the person I spoke to and the person who was standing in front of me were two different individuals altogether. So I rather take a VC interview as compared to a telephonic.

One can also estimate the candidate’s overall personality to an extent and at least gauge what the person is capable of by his/her face value.

The immediate advantages of a VC interview are cost saving and reduction of cyclical time particularly in case of rejections. It’s a waste of time and money to call outstation candidates for face-to-face interviews from different corners of the country and then reject them.

Tough Shoot

But just like most good things in life, VC also has its own share of limitations.

One can face a lot of technical issues like losing feed in between the interview, bad picture and sound quality, which hampers the interview session.

To assess the softer aspects of a candidate, face-to-face interviews result in better evaluation. The behavioural patterns of the candidate, his/her body language and gestures, fluency in communication since most of the time the interviewer and the interviewee are a little confused and oblivious towards the functioning of such a process, are certain factors difficult for the employer to determine.

The candidate may put up an act during the interview and that the interviewer might not get the right picture. It may be the closest one can come to a face-to face meeting but then it’s not the same.

But experts confirm that the pros far surpass the cons. VC interviews are here to stay. Companies today are exploring this new concept to the widest of their possibilities.

So next time, you go for an interview, put on your best suit, look good, speak well and if you see cameras around you, act natural as your future employer might be watching you.

 

http://howtomanagehumanresources.blogspot.com/