Each job seeker you interview deserves your full
attention and a healthy dose of scrutiny. By
tightening up the initial screening process, you
can save time and avoid a lot of headaches down
the road.
To help you decide whether a candidate gets
the red light or the green light, consider these
three factors:
- Time frame.
Is the candidate ready
to accept a new position NOW? If not, file
the person away for future use or use the
candidate as a source of new referrals. A
typical time frame question might be, "If I
set up an interview next week, and the
company offered you the right job, would you
be able to accept the job, turn in your
resignation and start your new job at the
end of this month?"
- Motivation.
Can the candidate give
you a sufficiently good reason for changing
jobs? If not, you may find yourself stuck
with a tire-kicker or recruiter-manipulator.
With the exception of certain circumstances
(such as a spousal relocation or imminent
unemployment), people only change jobs if
there's something they desperately want and
can't get at their current job, or if
there's something they have at their current
job and can't deal with.
To tell if a candidate is
money-motivated, remember this simple rule:
The only acceptable reason for changing jobs
for more money is if the increase in pay
will materially change the candidate's
lifestyle or self-identity. If it won't, the
more-money-candidate should be quarantined
and filed under "MONEY ONLY."
- Urgency.
A person may be genuinely
motivated to make a job change, but unless
there's a sense of urgency, you may end up
coddling a whiner or enabling a serial
interviewer. Try to discover the tipping
point that pushed the person from "passively
disgruntled" to "locked and loaded." If you
can't find the urgency, you may be better
off working with someone else.
By asking the right questions, you can vet
your candidates quickly and accurately. And by
spending more of your time with the winners,
you'll make your hiring managers happy and your
bottom line healthy.
-Bill Radin
Bill Radin's best-selling books and audio
programs include "How to Market & Sell Your
Recruiting Services" and "The Recruiter's
Almanac of Scripts, Rebuttals and Closes." Bill
can be reached by phone at (800) 837-7224 or by
e-mail at billradin@billradin.com.
www.billradin.com