HRinmotion Blog – Career advice from HR Pros

You have recently graduated and you are now looking for a job in an industry that you have invested hard earned tuition dollars on. Unfortunately, since you spent most of your time in school “preparing” for your chosen field. As such, you have little experience in your employment field of choice. Indeed, Junior candidates face an unfortunate paradox when entering the job market:

You need experience to get a job but you need a job to get experience.

Like the paradoxical chicken and the egg, this job/experience conundrum is a source of much employment frustration for junior candidates and recent graduates. And after hundreds of job applications trying to get into your chosen career, looking for someone to take a chance on you, you land an interview. In the job interview, you are now asked a behavioral interview question – to give an example from work of a time when you resolved conflict with your boss, a project was criticized or demonstrated some work requirement. How can you respond effectively to job interview questions like these, when you don’t have any work experience to draw from?

In a previous role, I was the HR person who looked after the student cop-op employment and internship programs at a monster corporation. Having interviewed many students, I have compiled a few job interview tips for students and other junior candidates.

For additional information regarding interviewing techniques we encourage you to take our job interview e-courses. The courses have been developed from a human resources perspective.

To view job interview e-couse demos, click on the links below.

Improving Interview Skills I

Advanced Interviewing

We wish you much luck and success in your career search.

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A few weeks ago, a recruiter new to the business asked what a great interview to hire ratio would be.

The interview to hire ratio is a staffing metric that reports the number of interviews required to make one placement. This employment metric can be a useful indicator of process quality, a recruiter’s understanding of job briefs and candidate quality. This is a common staffing metric that should not be overlooked for all recruitment companies. In my experience as a human resources consultant, I worked with 100′s of staffing companies that seemed to focus on the hire aspect more then the interview. In my day-to-day dealings with companies, the vendors who tracked the interview-to-hire ratio seemed to place more candidates. Not only did they provide good candidates, but also they focused on how they can improve and build a stronger relationship with the client. So do you track your interview-to-hire ratio? If so, how can you benchmark to get a sense of relativity of your performance? How can you improve your staffing processes to improve your efficiency?

When it comes to benchmarks I think a lot depends on your particular employment niche. That is the type of job that you are hiring for, the level job and so forth. For example, the interview to hire ratio in a recruitment agency placing entry-level jobs would drastically differ from an executive search company. And just the same, the I/H ratio would differ in depending on the job industry such as IT vs. Clerical. Having said this, I have found that a good rule of thumb when looking at the I/H ratio is the rule of 3 or 4. Many recruiters that I have spoken to, validate this rule. The rule of 3 or 4 means basically that you would need to interview 3 to 4 applicants to make one placement. If your I/H ratio is greater than 4 to 1, then I think you may want to consider investigating what is driving this number. Drivers could include overly picky and indecisive hiring managers, hiring managers not understanding the job specs and so forth. Your staffing metrics can even be impacted your client’s policies. For example, if your client limits your candidate submissions, this can drastically impact your employment metrics. In fact, the cause for a high I/H ratio can be caused at any point along the hiring process. It is easy to lose sight of the importance of internal relativity when we focus on external benchmarks. So when it comes to your I/H ratio, ask yourself what is reasonable, excellent and awesome for your staffing company. Again, if you just hired a bunch of junior recruiters it may be expected that they don’t hit home runs with every swing.

Okay, so you will try and be less obsessed with “keeping up with the Jone’s”. You will focus on staffing metrics that makes sense for you. So what are some of the things you can do to improve your staffing efficiency, productivity and quality as measured by your I/H ratio? Well there are many and perhaps we can cover in subsequent posts, but in my experience the number one culprit for a high I/H ratio:

Understanding The Job Specs.

I mentioned above that a lack of understanding of the job specs could cause a high I/H ratio. How often have you sent what you think are star candidates to your client and the hiring manger turns them all down. When this happens, often the reason can be traced back to a lack of understanding of the original job requirements or candidate profiles. Hey, we have all misunderstood the hiring manager’s requirements at least once in our careers so don’t beat yourself up over this. This is because often the employers themselves don’t know what the job requires and what kind of candidate they are looking for. Especially in jobs with low turnover (union environment, senior jobs, etc). This is where some quality time in the consultative process with the hiring manager pays big dividends. Learn how to ask the right questions and simply listen. Don’t be afraid to use silence to prompt a response.

Discipline in Candidate Screening and Submission

The second common reason for an inflated interview to hire ratio is what I like to call the “throw a name in the hat” recruiting method. As the HR guy who used to work with over 150 staffing providers, I have met my fair share of agencies that will toss a name in the hat each time a job requisition is sent out whether the candidate is qualified or not. The thought here is it is a numbers approach, the more candidates I submit, the better my chances, it can’t hurt to try. Well in fact taking this approach of submitting less than ideal candidates can hurt but that is for another post. The good news here is you can easily prevent this from happening in your staffing office by simply paying attention to your I/O ratio (see how this ties nicely to the theme?) and looking at how your recruiters are screening and submitting candidates. Careful screening and preparation of submissions are the hallmarks to quality staffing. While this may be hold hat for you, you may be surprised to learn how many companies employ recruiters that do not know how to interview. I have met many recruiters who don’t even know what a behavioral interview questions! (Now this may not be as much of a problem if HR is not conducting the interview. But if HR is conducting the interview, then this makes me wonder how they can possibly prepare their candidates to handle HR’s interview if they don’t know how HR conducts their interviews and how they evaluate.)

So when it comes to your I/O ratio and how to interpret it. Put the number in context of your business, clients, industry, and so forth. Like many HR metrics the value is not only in the absolute value but the relative value. How are you doing compared to last month, last year, and are there any trends? Are these trends positive or negative? In essence, learn to tell which direction the wind is blowing. By asking these types of questions in your inquiry, and focusing on the basics you will get the most out of this fundamental staffing metric.

Visit our site For additional information regarding our candidate preparation software created specifically for the staffing and recruitment industry.

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Many things are said, seen and done in job interviews. Some become memorable. Others we’d like to forget. The team at HRinmotion came up with this list of our 10 most memorable job interview moments we have encountered over our years as human resources professionals.

#10
Candidate arrives for job interview wearing only shorts, flip flops, baseball cap and tank top.

#9
When asking the candidate if they know about our company, the candidate continues to talk about a different company altogether. After looking at our faces, the individual stops and says, “no”.

#8
Not being able to respond to a behavior based question for the third time, candidate becomes frustrated, gets up and leaves.

#7
The actual candidate is too nervous to attend the job interview. They send a friend on their behalf.

#6
Candidate continues to chew gum and popping bubbles while in the job interview.

#5
Candidate informs panels that they have a “bad stomach” and continues to flatulate or “pass wind”. The job interview ends early.

#4
Candidate brings lunch and proceeds to eat a hamburger and french fries in the room while participating in the job interview.

#3
Candidate answers cell phone while in the job interview and continues to have a personal conversation. After ending the call, the candidate fills us in on the details of the conversation before asking “where were we?”

#2
Asking about the candidate’s interests outside of work the individual informs the panel that they are a vocalist in a band and proceeds to sing a song.

And the #1 most memorable job interview moment….

Last but not least, our funniest job interview story is next. While waiting in the reception area to be called in for the job interview the candidate is feeling nervous and needs to go to the bathroom. Rather then asking the receptionist for directions to the washroom, the individual proceeds outside to relieve themselves in the bushes close to the building. The individual did not realize that the windows were mirrored, where you can’t see in but everyone inside can see out. Security alert!

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In today’s post, I am going to share with you an important job interview tip.  I have recruited for employers in the gaming, health care, airlines, insurance, manufacturing, IT and telecom industry. From all the thousands of job interviews I have conducted, I have observed that most often candidates are bypassed for their “soft skills” rather than their “hard skills”.

Hard skills include formal education, driving, typing and so forth. These are the traditional employment skills that are more easily learned and are typically observable.

Soft skills include interpersonal skills, conflict resolution, problem solving and so on. Traits like motivation, ethics and honesty. These employment skills are typically hard to learn and train for so wise employers understand these are the competencies to recruit. In job interviews, behavioral questions are used to assess soft skills (also the hiring manager can assess your body language for specific soft skills like interpersonal skills and so forth). For example, a typical behavioral interview question to assess a soft skill to assess ethics and interpersonal skills would be:

“Tell me about a time when you were aware that a fellow employee had broken a company policy. How did you handle this?”

Believe it or not, interview questions used to assess soft skills, like the one you see above that most candidates struggle to answer. I can’t tell you how many times, I have sat in the interview room with another hiring manager and witnessed a candidate stutter and stumble over this types of question. In contrary, most candidates handle the technical questions quite well. For example, a technical question for a internet help desk position might be:

“Describe an applet and it’s function on a website?”

So the next time you are going to a job interview it might be wise to prepare for the assessment of your soft skills. For some great tips on how to handle these types of employment interview questions and improve your overall job interview skills check out these employment articles. Also there are additional blogs posted related to job interviews.

For additional information regarding interviewing techniques we encourage you to take our job interview e-courses. The courses have been developed from a human resources perspective.

To view job interview e-course demos, click on the links below.

Improving Interview Skills I

Advanced Interviewing

We wish you much luck and success in your career search.

The demand for talent and short supply has created a need to seek labor beyond the employer’s domestic borders. As a result some employers and staffing companies have actively solicited resumes from foreign talent. And this interest is reciprocated as many international workers continue to have an interest in jobs in Canada, US and so forth. But when we receive these resumes they are often not “North American” friendly. Despite the sound qualifications, many of these resumes are presented in a format and custom that simply does not sell the candidate.So how best should we handle these incoming resumes from candidates that have shown an interest in employment in our country? How can staffing professionals create am improved recruitment process to present their foreign candidates better?

A few weeks ago, we thought we would put out the question to recruitment and staffing professionals to get their thoughts on ways to improve the handling and presenting of foreign resumes. A few great suggestions came back including using a standardized process to capture the information (resume and application templates and so on). Implementing standards in data capture will make presenting and comparing candidates easier (in an apples to apples fashion). Each employer, especially if they have an internal HR department should (hopefully) have a standardized recruitment process. So it may be a good idea to ensure your foreign applicants follow this process for a particular job order.

Another thing you can do as a staffing professional is to spend sometime with your candidate and makes suggestions for improvement. There are many very qualified foreign applicants who just need a orientation on how resumes are presented in North America. So if you have a great candidate, it may be a good idea to roll up your shirtsleeves and spend some quality time with them. Doing so will not only improve their resume but your agent candidate relationship.

Recruiters on Foreign Resumes:

“The demands put upon a CV vary greatly from country to country. For example even as a professional I’m often stunned by the CV’s of US nationals. The language is not the issue here, an English CV is totally acceptable. But the format is such that if it came from a Dutch national would mean one thing…. Garbage can.”

“The same is true with CV’s even from most EU countries. And as far as I can see there are huge regional differences in the US as well.”

“So yes most of those CV’s have to be rewritten, as mentioned sitting down with a candidate to reformat the document is a good thing. I’m not a fan of copy/paste and reformat alone. A CV contains a lot of “hidden” information that I might miss, but are important indicators for insiders. ”

“I think you need to take two things into consideration:

1) English is often a second language for the candidate.
2) Expectations on resumes vary, sometimes *dramatically*, from country to country.

It would be a signficant challenge for most foreign candidates to bring their resume to a US standard. Personally, I think it would be best if you were to require the candidate send their resume in a format that can easily be copied and pasted, so that you can use their information to populate a standard “candidate profile”.

Benefits to this are:

1) You get to know your candidate a little better, because you are forced to spend the 15-20 minutes required to transfer the information.

2) The hiring company now has a standard information template, making it easier for them to compare candidate attributes. Also, they are not distracted by things that are less relevant – such as resume layout and structure.”

“Because of the language challenge, you may want to go one step further and coach your candidate on better grammar & wording where needed.”

“Imagine what it would be like if you had to submit a resume in a foreign language. Wouldn’t you be grateful for the help?”

For additional information regarding resume writing techniques we encourage you to take our Art & Science of Resume Writing e-course. The course will help you understand resumes from a human resources perspective that can be past on to your candidates.

Need help with your resume? Get your resume written by HR professionals!

Would you prefer to do it yourself? Take our interactive online course for skills to last a career!

For additional information regarding our candidate job preparation software created specifically for the staffing companies’ candidates contact us at:

Having conducted thousands of job interviews, the truth is most people do not interview so well. Over answering, providing incomplete answers, mumbling, and simply not answering the interview question asked tops the list of job interview mistakes.

Unfortunately most job seekers don’t improve their job interview skills mainly because they are unaware of their opportunity to improve (good spin eh?). For those of you who have had the opportunity to hire in your work history, you will confirm this to be true. For those who have not hired, go and ask any professional recruiter, HR and hiring manager to comment on how frequently they see the above job interview mistakes. Ask how often they felt like pulling out a pillow during an applicants long-winded response. The honest ones will tell you that many people do not interview well. More importantly, many qualified people don’t interview well.

Perceived Skill vs. Demonstrated Skill

In 2006, HRinmotion conducted an employment study, which surveyed more than 450 job seekers in Canada and the United States to gather opinions on job interviewing and resume writing. A large discrepancy was discovered between the respondents’ self-reported skill levels and their demonstrated skill levels.

Approximately 75% of respondents indicated that they have great interview skills.  Furthermore the 67% of respondents gave themselves a rating of 8 or higher (1=Poor and 10 = excellent).  However, when asked to identify the best response to an interview question, only 26% from a list of responses, only 28% actually identified the correct answer.

Respondents Could Not Identify The Answer

Approximately 72% of the respondents indicated that they can identify a standard behavioral or targeted selection interview question.  However when presented with a list of common interview questions, only 28% actually identified the correct one.

Respondents Could Not Even Identify the Question

So what can you do if you are one of the unskilled and unaware? How can you improve your job interviewing skills? Simple, get friend who is willing to role play a job interview with you and video tape it! Video is the most honest job interview coach you will ever have. See for yourself, how you interview. Look for missing answers, over-answering or rambling and the ever common “ums”, “ahs” and “like” (especially for the younger job seekers, I write for a wide audience ok).

Now if technology is a challenge, then do the above exercise without the video. Instead just ask your friend for feedback (while you will not need technology for this option, you will need an honest friend). An important note here is if possible try to get someone who has some experience in hiring, before seeking their advice and job interview coaching.

Lastly, if an honest friend is the challenge, then just practice in front of a mirror playing both the role of the interviewer and applicant. This is a simple and effective way to improve your job interview skills (but I must caution if someone catches you talking to yourself in front of a mirror, I cannot take responsibility for what they might think).

For more information, select the following link “unskilled and unaware” to learn more about how we demonstrated gap between perceived skill and demonstrated skill in job interviewing.

Take our interactive online course and ace your next interview!

Hire a personal job interview coach and learn from HR professionals

Should your resume include a hobbies and interest section good to show the employer that you are well-rounded? Or is it irrelevant to the job requirements and a dated practice?

Recently Jane, a new graduate of the elementary education program came to me for some help with her resume writing. She had just graduated and was looking for teaching jobs in a tough job market. In her city, schools were consolidating (due to yuppies having less kids, if any at all). In speaking with Jan, she asked me, if she should include a hobbies and interests section in my resume? Apparently, Jane had learned from a government employment site that advised as a rule not to include such a section. Some resume writers believe that including a hobbies and interests section is a dated practice. The thought is, “Why would an employer care if you like to collect stamps in your spare time?” (That is unless you are applying to a stamp shop.)

Generally, you can omit the hobbies and interests section unless it adds value to your resume. When it comes to resume writing, I believe there are no hard and fast rules. Instead, flexible guidelines should be applied based on individual’s unique situation and the employers’ specific requirement. In Jane’s case, we did a number of things to improve her resume including deliberately breaking the rule. We included a hobbies and interests section that stated her hobby is, “to teach her nephews dance.”

So the purpose of including this information was to create an impression and deliver a message to the hiring manager. The message: Jane is passionate about teaching children. We wanted to show the employer that not only did she have all the requisite education but that she had passion for her work. The passion and genuine interest to teach children is a core competency for this job. And any HR professional or hiring manager with experience should recognize that this competency is one that you should hire for (as opposed to develop). Since it is a lot easier to hire people with this trait than to hire and develop this competency.

The result of breaking this resume writing rule? Let me preface this again by saying that Jane is a very talented teacher (but you would never know it from her original resume). According to Jane, from her fellow graduates who were fortunate enough to get an interview, it took on average between two to three months of applying before getting an interview. Jane was called for a job interview within one week.

For more practical job preparation tips see our online job interview and resume writing courses. So until our next post, we wish you much luck and success in your career search.

Need help with your resume? Get your resume written by HR professionals!

Would you prefer to do it yourself? Take our interactive online course for skills to last a career!

In a recent article, we covered the basics of positive body language for job interviews. It is easy to forget the importance of body language in interviews since most of us have enough on our minds in an interview. However, body language in job interviews is absolutely critical to success. Many communication experts like the well-known research conducted by Dr Albert Mehrabian (page 30) at UCLA reveals that words accounts for only 7 percent of the total communication. That is over 90% of communication is non-verbal (facial expressions, responsible for 55 percent of the total impact of the message, tone of voice for 38 percent, and other forms of body language). Further, studies like have shown when a recipient believes there is a discrepancy between a verbal and non-verbal message, it is the non-verbal message that is trusted as the truth.

While this information may seem surprising, intuitively it makes a lot of sense. Thousands of years before the birth of verbal language, we had to rely on non-verbal communication just like any other creature in the animal kingdom. This evolutionary instinct is still very prevalent still, for example if you asked a co-worker whether or not they liked your “Flock of Seagulls” hair cut and they reply “yes” but their body language would indicate otherwise, what would you trust to be their true opinion? (For those who are not aware, Flock of Seagulls was popular 80′s band.)

So If you trust body language more than words then why would an interviewer or hiring manager be any different? So remember to pay attention to what your body is communicating the next time you are in an interview, since the interviewer is surely paying attention.

PS – Of course, we here at HRinmotion would never expect you to blindly follow our advice without proof. After all, this is your career we are advising on so if proof is what you want, proof is what you shall receive.

Who would have ever thought you could work in Flock of Seagulls and a job interview tip all into the same post?.

For more practical job preparation tips see our online job interview and resume writing courses. So until our next post, we wish you much luck and success in your career search.

Take our interactive online course and ace your next interview!

Hire a personal job interview coach and learn from HR professionals

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When in comes to a good job interview, it is equally important for the employer and job seeker to make it successful. Much like flipping a coin, pretend that on one side of the coin is the employer and on the other side the job seeker, both parties control the faith of the job interview outcome, so it is equally important that the coin does not fall on one side or the other. To ensure the job interview is successful you want the coin to remain on its edge.

Here are 5 common “Bad Flips” or traps that can ruin a job interview:

1. Disagreeing:

Employer (Interviewer) Mistake: Constantly questioning the candidate’s responses.

Job Seeker (Interviewee) Mistake: Treating all questions like a burden.

2. Self Centered:

Employer (Interviewer) Mistake: Talking about him/herself instead of the candidate.

Job Seeker (Interviewee) Mistake: Inflating qualifications and skills. Remain aloof when employer shows definite interest.

3. Safeguarding:

Employer (Interviewer) Mistake: Withholding information about position or company.

Job Seeker (Interviewee) Mistake: Withholding information about self.

4. Undervaluing:

Employer (Interviewer) Mistake: Rushing the interview; being unprepared; being late.

Job Seeker (Interviewee) Mistake: Being late; poorly dressed and groomed.

5. Drifting:

Employer (Interviewer) Mistake: Asking irrelevant, unsuitable or personal questions.

Job Seeker (Interviewee) Mistake: Providing vague answers; over talking; revealing inappropriate personal information.

These costly traps or “bad flips” can be avoided by both the employer and job seeker; by participating in job interview preparation training sessions either offered internally within the organization or externally with a job preparation provider.

For additional information regarding HRinmotion’s interviewing training we encourage you to take our job interview e-courses. The courses have been developed from a human resources perspective.

To view job interview e-course demos, click on the links below.

Improving Interview Skills I

Advanced Interviewing

We wish you much luck and success in your career search.

_________________________________________________

Post by HRinmotion.com, helping you get more jobs interviews and more job offers.

Take our interactive online course and ace your next interview!

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Recently, I just got back from India. It was my first time being in mother India. Her beauty amazes me. She is a country full of exotic flavours, colours, scents and the birthplace of so many religions. Most of all, I was touched by the generosity and warmth shown by people who had nothing. It was common to see the poor sharing with those who are poorer.

For a Westerner like myself, the poverty was shocking and disturbing. However, what I found more disturbing was how quickly I became “desensitized“ to all of the suffering when I was surrounded by it. Unfortunately, the child poverty and the homeless are an undeniable part of the landscape.

And while I wanted to give each one of the hundreds of little street kids a better life, all I pulled out of my pocket was a few extra rupees and some candy – short-term anesthetic to ease the sting of poverty. But the smiles on the children’s faces and the sound of their laughter as they played in the streets, will make you wonder about the meaning of your own wealth.

While I don’t know the answer to such complex social economic issues described above, somehow something tells me that a long-term solution that involves education, training and employment is the only sustainable solution.

But we do not have to travel to India to see poverty and homelessness. You just have to open your eyes. Even here in North America, in one of the richest continents in the world many less fortunate people continue to struggle with poverty. Here in Vancouver, BC, Canada , many social ailments plague our city and a commitment to corporate social responsibility represents a great hope.

So what can you do to make a positive difference? For HRinmotion, we believe that the key to breaking the cycle of poverty lies in education, training and employment. How can you help? Anyway, I will conclude this post by challenging you to think about how you can make a positive contribution. Today, I challenge you to do just one small thing to improve the life of someone less fortunate. Thanks for reading and I wish you have a truly fantastic day.

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