UNIT-3 EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

EMPOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Definition: Employee Engagement refers to the emotional attachment an employee has with

the organization. An employee is said to be highly engaged if he is fully absorbed or
encouraged to perform his task beyond what typically is expected in his job role.

An organization is the collection of a large number of individuals striving towards the

accomplishment of a common objective. Ideally, every employee must work to their full
potential to further the organization’s reputation and interests, but however this is not the case
in most of the companies. Thus, on the basis of the level of commitment, the employees can
be classified into three categories:

Types of Employee Engagement

1. Actively Disengaged Employees: This is the first category of employees, who are unhappy
and resentful and spreads unhappiness in the organization. Such employees are bad for the
organization since they are always provoking and convincing the other employees to leave
their jobs and move out of the organization. However, these employees last longer in the firm
and remove the prospective employees whom they perceive will attain higher position or
move to the next job level in the near future. They do so, to get ahead in their jobs by
removing the potential candidates.
2. Engaged Employees: The engaged employees are those who work with full passion and are
emotionally attached to the organization. They are innovative and provide new ideas to move
the organization forward. Such employees are optimistic and spread positivity among the co-
workers. They personalize the goals and objectives and always work for the betterment of the
organization.
3. Not Engaged Employees: This is the category in which majority of the employees in the
organization fall. These are the ones who seek directions from their superior and do only that
work which has been asked for. Such employees do put in their time, but not passion and
energy into their work. They like to receive only one instruction at a time and lacks
innovativeness. These employees can hold either a negative or positive attitude towards the
organization.

Thus, an employee can fall into either of these categories depending on his emotional
attachment to the firm. The emotional attachment refers to the strong emotional bond
employee shares with the organization.

PLANNING THE STEPS IN YOUR RECRUITMENT

How you plan your recruiting is important not only to ensure you find the right person
for a job opening, but also because the costs of bad recruitment decisions can be very
high in terms of both time and money.
The following steps can help make sure your business has an effective recruitment plan:

DETERMINE YOUR RECRUITMENT GOALS

A recruitment plan should be based on your business goals.  For example, are you planning to
expand or change your business?  What skills are required to accomplish this objective? 
From there, you should establish specific recruitment goals. One goal will be attracting the
best people to work in your business. The best people will make a direct difference to your
bottom line, helping to raise your service and quality level. People who are less than
dedicated to your business can compromise customer experiences.

Some other recruitment goals may be:

 Attracting a higher standard of candidate

 Attracting a candidate who has skills you currently do not have in your organization
 Promoting your company as a dynamic place where people want to work
Determine your overall recruitment needs through having well established business goals.

REVIEW JOB DESCRIPTIONS

Take time to review the job description, which may need to be changed since the last person
was hired. Or, if it is a new position, you may need to create a new job description. You may
want to talk to the previous person in the position and get their input on how the job
description could be improved, and what the highlights of the job were. Make sure the
description includes all of the critical job related components.

CONSIDER PEOPLE-FINDING STRATEGIES

How you find staff for your business can be divided into short-term and long-term recruiting
techniques. Short-term techniques are designed to generate an immediate selection of
candidates. Long-term techniques involve developing relationships with key people and the
community, and promoting your company as a rewarding place to work. The focus is on
keeping long-term relationships with people who have the potential to work for your
organization.

It may be a good idea to plan to use both short and long-term recruiting strategies.
Developing long-term relationships can include strategies like offering scholarships to
university students, donations and sponsorships to community organizations, or opening up
your business for high school practicums.

As well, there are always two pools of candidates available: employees already working for
you, and external candidates. Promoting from within can help create a culture that shows that
hard work is rewarded, and you may find that the most qualified person for your job posting
is already working for you. Friends and acquaintances of employees are always a good place
to start. You may want to think about offering a recruitment incentive to encourage
employees to spread the word (for example, a cash incentive or gift certificate if the person
they recommend is hired).
When posting your advertisements, ask yourself if you’ve selected newspapers, journals,
websites and mailing lists that reach a diverse pool of applicants. Be sure to allow sufficient
time for both internal and external recruitment.

USE ALTERNATIVE LABOUR POOLS 

Have you considered hiring co-op students, immigrants, aboriginals, people on social
assistance or EI, persons with disabilities, or baby boomers? Sometimes the right person for
the job may not be from the most obvious pool of applicants.

KEEP A SHORT LIST

Once your job ads are posted, be sure that you are clear about your selection criteria. What
skills do you need to add to your business? How will you choose one candidate over another?

Short-listing is the first step in identifying the candidates who display the skills and selection
criteria you are looking for. Shortlisting—when done well—can cut down on interviewing
time later on. You may want to draw a simple grid with your selection criteria on one side
and the names of candidates on another. Your selection criteria can then be listed in order of
importance, with marks assigned to each candidate according to whether or not to interview
when you review resumes and cover letters.

Be sure to notify short-listed candidates of the interview date and time as soon as
possible. It’s also often a good idea to keep a small number of applicants on a reserve list in
case some of the short-listed candidates are unavailable.

HONE YOUR INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUE

Before interviewing, develop job-related questions so there are no awkward pauses, and so
you remain in charge of the interview. Be sure to ask open-ended questions that allow the
candidate to tell you about themselves, such as "What are some things you would like to
avoid in a job? Why?" and "In your previous job what kind of pressures did you face?"

CHECK THOROUGHLY BEFORE MAKING A JOB OFFER

Have you obtained a signed application, conducted reference checks and scheduled
background checks? Have you determined a salary offer based upon market, qualifications
and internal comparisons?
 E-Recruitment
The buzzword and the latest trends in recruitment is the E-Recruitment. Also known as online
recruitment, it is the use of technology or the web based tools to assist the recruitment
process. The tool can be either a job website like naukri.com, the organisations corporate web
site or its own intranet.

Many big and small organizations are using Internet as a source of recruitment. They
advertise job vacancies through worldwide web. The job seekers send their applications or
curriculum vitae (CV) through an e-mail using the Internet. Alternatively job seekers place
their CVs in worldwide web, which can be drawn by prospective employees depending upon
their requirements.
The internet penetration in India is increasing and has tremendous potential. According to a
study by NASSCOM Jobs is among the top reasons why new users will come on to the
internet, besides e-mail.” There are more than 18 million resumes floating on-line across
the world.
Advantages & Disadvantages of E-Recruitment
There are many benefits both to the employers and the job seekers but the e-recruitment is not
free from a few shortcomings. Some of the advantages and the disadvantages of e-
recruitment are as follows:
Advantages of E-Recruitment are:

 Lower costs to the organisation. Also, posting jobs online is cheaper than advertising in the
newspapers.
 No intermediaries.
 Reduction in the time for recruitment (over 65 percent of the hiring time).
 Facilitates the recruitment of right type of people with the required skills.
 Improved efficiency of recruitment process.
 Gives a 24*7 access to an online collection of resumes.
 Recruitment websites also provide valuable data and information regarding the compensation
offered by the competitors etc. which helps the HR managers to take various HR decisions
like promotions, salary trends in industry etc

Disadvantages of E-Recruitment

Apart from the various benefits, e-recruitment has its own share of shortcomings and
disadvantages. Some of them are:
 Screening and checking the skill mapping and authenticity of million of resumes is a problem
and time consuming exercise for organisations.
 There is low Internet penetration and no access and lack of awareness of internet in many
locations across India.
 Organisations cannot be dependant solely and totally on the online recruitment methods.
 In India, the employers and the employees still prefer a face-to-face interaction rather than
sending e-mails.

The two kinds of e- recruitment that an organisation can use is

 Job portals
1. Posting the position with the job description and the job specification on the job portal
and also searching for the suitable resumes posted on the site corresponding to the
opening in the organisation.
2. Creating a complete online recruitment/application section in the companies own
website. – Companies have added an application system to its website, where the
passive job seekers can submit their resumes into the database of the organisation for
consideration in future, as and when the roles become available.

 Online recruitment techniques

3. Giving a detailed job description and job specifications in the job postings to attract
candidates with the right skill sets and qualifications at the first stage.
4. E-recruitment should be incorporated into the overall recruitment strategy of the
organisation.
5. A well defined and structured applicant tracking system should be integrated and the
system should have a back-end support.
6. Along with the back-office support a comprehensive website to receive and process
job applications (through direct or online advertising) should be developed.
Searching and downloading Applicant profile by using job portals

These are the steps for searching and downloading applicant profile by using job portals-

1. Go to job portal, there are several job protals like Monster.com, Naukri.com.
2. Enter the log in detail i.e, your unique user id and password, which is given by
that perticular job portal.
3. There are two options, you can get after entering the log in detail- a.) Job
posting b.) Resume Search

4. Type the designation, (e.g. - HR Manager, fInance manager etc.) in the

resume search.

5. There must be a column of skills, so you can also mention the skills for that
particular designation.

6. Now, enter the desired location.

7. Then, enter the desired experience.

8. After filling all requirements, enter the button of search, you can get many
profiles related to that profile.

9. Click those profile and view full resume, and check that these are suitable for
that profile or not.

10. And download the selected resumes.

 Recruitment budget

We’ve heard from recruiters over and over again that determining the right recruitment

budget can be difficult. There are so many factors at play, such as company size, job

openings and budget allocations.

Here are five simple steps that will help you build a recruiting budget:

1. Determine your personnel budget

Employers often ask Glassdoor if they should factor in personnel cost into their cost-per-hire.

This is entirely up to each company’s discretion, but I want to warn you that it can

significantly impact cost-per-hire calculations. Whether you factor this into your cost-per-hire

ratio or not, you must list out each job title needed on the team, include hiring dates, and

track salary impact per head count by quarter to determine an appropriate personnel budget.

To accurately forecast total cost, be sure to add 30% to total to “fully burden” for benefits,

taxes, T&E, etc. Also, include any contractor or part-time employees that you plan to bring

on during the year.

2. Factor in program and systems fees

With so many factors, your recruiting budget can easily balloon. Elements include

implementing a CRM system, managing social accounts, posting jobs online, running

employee referral programs, revamping your career site, adding photos and videos that reflect

your culture, installing recruiting analytics tools and investing in your employer brand.

You will need to account for the fees involved with each system and ensure you keep track of

campaign lengths. According to a recent Harris survey of employers, an employer brand

alone can typically amount to a $129,000 annual investment. Ensuring that you have enough

budget to cover recruiting tools and fees is important to win the war for talent!

3. Estimate an annual expected number of hires

Coming up with your recruiting budget breakdown by program requires estimating the

number of job openings per year. Break this down by quarter to see what budget needs to be

spent on each channel when. At Glassdoor, we look at every channel we use for our job

ads and determine what we will spend on each by quarter based on our open number of

positions.

4. Track the cost of events

As a marketer, I know that staging events are time consuming and definitely not cheap.

Whether you are a small business looking to build awareness via career fairs or an enterprise

looking to host meet-ups that help candidates in becoming familiar with your brand, it can be

an expensive initiative. Be sure to consider all the events that you will be hosting or attending

during the year to come up with an accurate budget.

5. Include an employee referral bonus program

Last, be sure you consider your spend on employee referral bonus programs. At some

companies, 50% or more of hires can come through employee referrals. Having a strong

program in place ensures success and rewards your employees for introducing you to new

candidates. Be sure to factor in fees that you will pay for hard-to-fill positions then multiply

that by half the openings that you will have throughout the year, depending on the ratio of

employees that you receive through word of mouth.

 EMPLOYER BRANDING

Employer brand is the term commonly used to describe an organization's reputation as an

employer, and its value proposition to its employees, as opposed to its more general corporate
brand reputation and value proposition to customers. The term was first used in the early
1990s, and has since become widely adopted by the global management community. Minchin
ton describes your employer brand as "the image of your organisation as a 'great place to
work' in the mind of current employees and key stakeholders in the external market (active
and passive candidates, clients, customers and other key stakeholders). The art and science of
employer branding is therefore concerned with the attraction, engagement and retention
initiatives targeted at enhancing your company's employer brand.

Steps of employer branding

1. Understand the business needs. Employer branding activities may be misdirected if long-

term business needs are not fully understood. Understand what types of competences the
organization needs in order to deliver on the business plan.
2. Define the main target groups. Define the weight between current and future talent, based
on the business needs and the critical competences. How many resources should an
organization spend on attracting new talent versus retaining and developing current talent?
Define the main and secondary external target groups that need to be reached.
3. Understand the target groups. After defining the main and secondary external and internal
target groups, fully understand them. Organizations should use research to understand what
these groups find attractive. Employers should also know the target groups’ current
perceptions of the organization and know which stage of the decision process they are in. The
deeper the understanding of the target groups, the more effective the communication will be.
4. Optimize the employer value proposition. An employer value proposition should be the
foundation for all external and internal communication with talent. Optimizing the EVP
means ensuring that it includes attributes and communication themes that are attractive,
credible, sustainable, and that allow for differentiation in the long term.
5. Develop communication ideas. Based on the EVP and the selected communication
channels, organizations now need to develop communication ideas that will have the greatest
possible impact on the target groups and set the company apart from the competition. Of
course, these communication ideas and concepts should be tested with the target groups
before being fully executed.
6. Execute and follow-up. With the plan and communication ideas in place, execute and
continuously follow up. By using the right objectives and regularly updating them, employers
will be able to correct and optimize when needed, and ultimately to deliver on the company’s
business needs.
Formulating Better Recruitment Strategies (specially for managerial/executive jobs)

Some of the ways to formulate better recruitment strategies for your company are as follows:

1. Identifying and Prioritizing Jobs 2. Candidates to Target 3. Sources of Recruitment 4.

Trained Recruiters 5. How to Evaluate the Candidates.

1. Identifying and Prioritizing Jobs:

Requirements keep arising at various levels in every organisation; it is almost a never-ending

process. It is impossible to fill all the positions immediately.

Therefore, there is a need to identify the positions requiring immediate attention and action.

To maintain the quality of the recruitment activities, it is useful to prioritize the vacancies—

whether to focus on all vacancies equally or focusing on key jobs first.

2. Candidates to Target:

The recruitment process can be effective only if the organisation completely understands the

requirements of the type of candidates that are required and will be beneficial for the

organisation.

This covers the following parameters as well:

a. Performance level required: Different strategies are required for focusing on hiring high

performers and average performers.

b. Experience level required: The strategy should be clear as to what is the experience level

required by the organisation. The candidate’s experience can range from being a fresher to

experienced senior professionals.

c. Category of the candidate: The strategy should clearly define the target candidate. He/she

can be from the same industry, different industry, unemployed, top performers of the industry

etc.
3. Sources of Recruitment:

The strategy should define various sources (external and internal) of recruitment. There is a

need to know the sources to be used and focused for the recruitment purposes for various

positions. Employee referral is one of the most effective sources of recruitment.

4. Trained Recruiters:

The recruitment professionals conducting the interviews and the other recruitment activities

should be well-trained and experienced to conduct the activities. They should also be aware

of the major parameters and skills (e.g., behavioral, technical etc.) to focus while

interviewing and selecting a candidate.

5. How to Evaluate the Candidates:

The various parameters and the ways to judge them i.e., the entire recruitment process should

be planned in advance. Like the rounds of technical interviews, HR interviews, written tests,

psychometric tests etc.

Assessment Centre

The term 'Assessment Centre' can be defined as:

‘A method for assessing aptitude and performance; applied to a group of participants by
trained assessors using various aptitude diagnostic processes in order to obtain information
about applicants' abilities or development potential.’
As you can see, this does not refer to a location, but to a process that is being increasingly
used by organisations to assess staff, either as part of the recruitment process or for internal
development and promotion. The ‘Aptitude Diagnostic processes’ referred to in this
definition are the exercises and tests that you will undertake during your assessment centre.
The assessment centre focuses on a set of varied exercises, which are designed to simulate
different aspects of the work environment. These assessment centre exercises assess how
closely your behaviours, that are required for the role, match.
Your assessment centre will usually last from half-a-day to two full days depending on the
level of position you are applying for. It is most likely that it will be conducted at the
employer's training facility or in facilities provided by the HR consultancy that have been
contracted to design and conduct the testing.
Understanding the history of how and why assessment centres were developed will help you
to appreciate what the original users were trying to achieve and how they have increased in
sophistication. This knowledge will help you to prepare yourself so that you are able to best
 illustrate the required competencies as well as your knowledge, skills and attitudes
(KSA’s) during the exercises, thus allowing you to maximise your score.
Selecting people based on their ability to do the task required has long been established in the
selection of military and intelligence personnel. There are several examples of this
throughout history, but it was between the world wars that the German Army developed the
forerunner of the modern assessment process.

The Use and Effectiveness of Assessment Centers

Assessment centers are a combination of job-related simulation, tests, and exercises to assess
job-related behavior and performance. The use of assessment centers in human resource
management extends to recruitment, promotions, training, and leadership development.

 Recruitment
One major use of assessment centers in human resource management is in recruitment.
Assessment centers make an excellent hiring tool owing for many reasons.
  Unlike other selection methods such as the interview, written tests, or group discussions,
it allows simulation of real-job situations, especially interacting with others.
 It assesses a candidate's "practical thinking" ability in approaching job-relevant tasks.
 It helps assess the candidate's communication, negotiation, and interpersonal skills, all in
one go.
 It brings objectivity in the selection process, with all candidates provided with the equal
settings and tasks in the same environment.
 It allows for assessment based on behavior. As people do not know what to expect in the
assessment center, they take their own behavior. This is unlike interviews, psychometric
tests, or group discussions, where one-off behaviors can easily influence selection
outcomes

 Promotions and Placements

The assessment center allows standardized evaluation of the candidate’s skills and abilities in
job-relevant situations. This makes it a good tool for promotion and placement of existing
employees. Assessment center uses also extend to succession planning.
Numerous studies establish that assessment center methodology has greater validity for
promotion and selection compared to traditional techniques. The reasons for the same include
the following:
 Assessment center tasks are developed based on job analysis, and as such are inherently
valid and proven as a better indicator of future success than other tools.
 Assessment center used for promotions usually extend over a long period and cover a
wide range of inputs that not only establish the candidate's competency in the present job,
but also tests the suitability of the candidate for new roles.
 Assessment centers highlight the strengths and weakness of individual candidates, clearly
indicating their suitability or non-suitability for specific roles.
 Assessment centers provide uniform standards for judgment.

 Training and Development

 Assessment centers also constitute an important method of skill enhancement through
simulations, especially interpersonal skills that cannot easily be imparted through traditional
training methods.
Assessment centers provide individual-specific feedback that helps candidates understand
their own strengths and weaknesses. This allows planning of individual career paths focusing
on employee core competencies, and also allowing for framing of individual training and
development plans to overcome the weaknesses. Many organizations such as the Ohio State
University and others use assessment centers to identify and evaluate supervisory,
managerial, and leadership capabilities of the staff.
The use of assessment centers has enabled employees to make greater use of planning tools,
strengthen their listening skills, become more open minded and proactive, and use technology
better. It has helped organizations increase goal setting, build stronger teams, increase
sensitivity, and recognize the employee’s contributions in a better way.
Assessment centers are also an excellent method for establishing the validity and
effectiveness of standard training programs. Organizations such as SOHIO, Lukens Steel,
AT&T, the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority, and others have used assessment
center technology to evaluate training programs.
 Both the participants and practitioners usually value assessment centers for content validity,
predictive accuracy, objectivity, and relevance to the job. The success of the use of
assessment centers in human resource management, however, depends on selection of
relevant tasks for the assessment center exercises and integration of the output into human
resource processes.

Selection Errors

Selection Error
There are two types of selection error. In the "false positive error," a decision is made to
hire an applicant based on predicted success, but failure results. In the "false negative
error," an applicant who would have succeeded is rejected based on predictions of
failure.

The False Positive Error 

An organization that makes a false positive error incurs three types of costs. The first
type of costs is those incurred while the person is employed. These can be the result of
production or profit losses, damaged public relations or company reputation, accidents
due to ineptitude or negligence, absenteeism, etc. The second type of costs is those
associated with training, transfer, or terminating the employee. Costs of replacing the
employee, the third type of cost, include costs of recruiting, selecting, and training a
replacement. Generally, the more important the job, the greater the costs of the selection
error.

The False Negative Error 

In the case of false negative error, an applicant who would have succeeded is rejected
because failure was predicted. Most false negative selection errors go unnoticed, except
when the applicant is a member of a protected class and files a discrimination charge.
Costs associated with this type of error are generally difficult to estimate. A situation in
which the impact of both false positive and false negative selection errors can be
detected and measured, however, is in professional sports such as football and
basketball. Here, coaches and scouts analyze game films, physical statistics, scouting
reports, and other data and decide whether they wish to draft a particular player. If they
draft the player and his performance fails to meet expectations, a false positive selection
error has occurred. Suppose, however, a team decides against drafting a player and
another team chooses the individual. If the player subsequently turns out to be a star, the
first team's rejection represents a false negative selection error.

.
Selection errors that you need to avoid.

One of the sad outcomes of my consulting work is that I’ve seen, again and again, how
companies make the same mistakes in selecting employees. There are a few common errors
made by a majority of companies. Here are the top six selection errors that you need to
avoid.

 1. Subjectivity over objectivity

Using your gut to find great talent is fine as long as you gather facts (objective information)
to confirm your gut feelings. A Harvard study revealed that the use of interviews only as a
means for selection were successful 14% of the time. I bet you have experienced a quick
hiring decision based on gut feeling that resulted in poor performance or poor chemistry for
the organization.

2.      Making hasty decisions

There are tendencies, in over 63% of selection interviews, to make the hiring decisions in the
first four minutes of the interview. Don’t do this. It takes 90 minutes of a patterned or
structured interview to get to real behavior. Many professional recruiters suggest that you not
form any judgments in the first 30 minutes. If you do, you are in danger of missing out on
potentially good candidates who do not interview well, or worse, hiring a poor fit because of
the candidate’s ability to interview well.

3. Accountability for selection errors

An even worse selection error is made when managers don’t view selection as an important
job responsibility. This occurs often in companies that do not train their managers in this
critical leadership task.

4. Lack of good information on candidates

At Businesswise, we have learned that interviewing alone is ineffective. The best selection
processes include many tools like checking references, performing sample job tasks and
conducting a second interview. Reference checks are often not performed and when they are,
companies usually only verify information like employment dates. Most resumes are
marketing tools—they often exaggerate accomplishments. In my experience, many times
recommendations are positive because the person doing the recommending is hoping to move
an underperforming employee out.

5. Untrained management
Make this error and it will lead to an organization that perpetuates degradation of talent. In
other words, if someone is a 10/10, he or she will hire at best 9/10. The 9/10 will at best hire
an 8/10. Over time, this erodes the depth of talent. Strong talents (10/10) will not remain in an
organization when they are hired by 5/10 managers. People do not leave jobs—they leave
unskilled and poor leadership.

6. The wrong people are doing the hiring

In large organizations, you often find the wrong people are selecting new hires. Human
resources sends the line manager poor talent. The manager and his team can’t get the job
done because the unit’s not fully staffed or capably staffed and the manager doesn’t have the
time to interview and train. This catch-22 thrives when team leaders don’t regard employee
selection of talent as their responsibility. The talent problem gets compounded when HR
departments cut back in difficult times.

Minimising selection errors

Reliability is the degree to which an assessment tool produces stable and consistent results.

Reliability:

Research requires dependable measurement. Measurements are reliable to the extent

that they are repeatable and that any random influence which tends to make measurements

different from occasion to occasion or circumstance to circumstance is a source of

measurement error. (Gay) Reliability is the degree to which a test consistently measures
whatever it measures. Errors of measurement that affect reliability are random errors and

errors of measurement that affect validity are systematic or constant errors.

Test-retest, equivalent forms and split-half reliability are all determined through

correlation.

Validity refers to how well a test measures what it is purported to measure. 

Validity:

Very simply, validity is the extent to which a test measures what it is supposed to

measure. The question of validity is raised in the context of the three points made above, the

form of the test, the purpose of the test and the population for whom it is intended.

Therefore, we cannot ask the general question “Is this a valid test?”. The question to ask is

“how valid is this test for the decision that I need to make?” or “how valid is the

interpretation I propose for the test?” We can divide the types of validity into logical and

empirical.

Choose the best interview type

Interviews can range from a traditional one-to-one, to competency based tasks, to panel
interviews and more.

Though you might not be limited to just one interview (especially for more senior positions),
there’s no point wasting time by using the wrong kind of interview type for the role.

We take a look at some of the most common types you can chose from, and the pros and cons
of each.

Telephone interviews
Often used in the preliminary stages of interviewing, telephone interviews allow you to get a
better idea of the candidate and find out if they’re anything like what they’re portraying on
their CV without having to meet them formally.

Pros

Quick
Unlike a face-to-face interview where you may feel compelled to make idle chat with an
unsuitable candidate, a phone interview allows you to wrap up quickly and move onto the
next applicant.

Convenient
If you have any doubts about the suitability of a candidate, dragging them in for an interview
only for it to become immediately apparent they’re not right is a waste of both their and your
time, a phone interview can conveniently help filter the unsuitable candidates.

Assess a job skill

If the applicant will be required to use the phone a lot in their job, this gives you the perfect
opportunity to assess their telephone manner.

One-to-one interviews

This is one of the most commonly used interview type, often consisting of one-to-one
meetings with the manager and prospective employee.

Pros

Easy to set up
Simply ask for the candidate’s availability, match against your own, book an interview room
and then you’re done.

Builds rapport
Gary Chaplin, Managing Director of Communicate North says, “In, one-to-one interviews,
there is better rapport-building, people are more open in a one-to-one situation and have the
ability to follow a single agenda.”

 
Cons

One sided
You may feel like you’ve hired the perfect employee, but remember you’re the only person
that got to meet them and judge their skills, and it’s easy for personal bias to slip through. If
you don’t keep the rest of the team in mind, you may end up hiring someone completely
wrong for the company.

Doesn’t reveal true potential

CEO of Timothy James Consulting says, “Candidates can regurgitate stock answers to
standard interview questions. To avoid hearing the same answers over and over again, you
should always carefully consider your questions, and try and get the interviewee to think on
their feet.”

You can’t do everything

Lisa Jarvis, regional director of the Institute of Recruitment Professionals says, “While one-
to-ones are less intimidating for the candidate, from the interviewer’s perspective it is
challenging to conduct an in-depth discussion, maintain eye contact and make notes if
interviewing alone.”

Panel interviews

A step up from the one-to-one, a panel is a useful way of introducing different departments to
engage with a candidate, allowing for a range of viewpoints to be considered. It also takes the
pressure off a sole interviewer, but it can be more intimidating for the interviewee.

Pros:

Fairer selection
With many minds to help form an opinion, it seems likely that a more unbiased selection will
be made. Lisa Jarvis agrees, “Having two or more interviewers opinions does allow for a
completely fair selection processed based on majority decision.”

Assesses pressure performance

Adrian Kinnerskey of Twenty Recruitment says, “If used correctly, this technique can put
employers in a position to make a highly informed decision, but it does require a lot of time
investment from all sides. The main uses are to assess how a candidate reacts under pressure
or to evaluate behaviour in a group situation.”
Quicker
As Chris O’Connell from Timothy James says, panel interviews “can shorten the process as
more key decision makers are involved.” Panel interviews may also negate the need for
further interviews down the line, saving even more time for both you and the candidate.

Cons:
Risk of disagreement
Although it can be fairer, many opinions can also lead to major disagreement, which is
something you need to be prepared for. Gary Chaplin says, “It can introduce politics, and
risks panel members focusing on their own performance in front of colleagues rather than the
candidate.”

Can be off putting for an interviewee

If you are going to use a panel interview, remember it can introduce extra nerves for the
candidate. This is why some recruiters usually reserve them for the latter stages of candidate
selection, as a panel can be daunting for less experienced candidates, which may prevent
them from performing to their best ability.

Competency interviews
One of the best ways to evaluate someone’s suitability for the job, these interviews require
the candidate to perform a work-based task to show they’ve got the right skills for the role.

Pros:

Fair comparison with other candidates

By asking all prospective candidates to perform exactly the same task, it’ll be much easier to
find out who’s most suitable for the role. If you use a knowledge test, you’ll even have a
direct score to help you compare candidates.

This can be particularly useful if you are stuck between two promising candidates. Lisa Jarvis
agrees, “This is the best way for a candidate to demonstrate their experience against the
required competencies for the role and ensures that all candidates are measured fairly against
each other.”

Fair comparison with others already in the role

A basic competency task, if relevant, will also help you to assess how the candidate performs
against other members on the team, or even the person they’re replacing.

If it’s a poor performance, ask yourself whether the skills could be learned with further
training before you make your final decision.

Cons:

Not always relevant

Gary Chaplin, MD of Communicate North says, “Competency tasks are valid at junior levels,
but largely irrelevant at the executive grade. A sound presentation is far more effective and
valid.”

Stressful
Chris O’Connell from Communicate North argues that a competency task can “create a
stressful situation which can cause candidates to perform poorly. Some candidates also don’t
understand the theory behind competency based questions and so misunderstand what’s being
asked of them.”