So where do you see yourself in the next five years? What are your strengths and weaknesses? How good are you at networking? A typical interview-setting conversation would look something like this. Those who are potential hires come ready with choreographed answers appearing as the best choice the organization could make. A few months down the line and you start questioning as to whether hiring the candidate was the right decision or not. In times like these which are becoming commonplace concerns, it is important to be creative and look beyond what the candidate answers to the usual questions. Thinking outside the box has become more imperative since most companies have opted for remote hiring, and thus need to use other metrics to identify if a candidate is a perfect fit for the company.
Conversations Over Coffee
A few good conversations by different members of the team can unravel more than you think. Team managers often lead the potential hires to their own comfort zones so that they feel safe to talk about their unwritten truths on their resumes. Though there are companies that fail to attach importance to employee value propositions, there are times when candidates try to camouflage their own mistakes and push the blame on companies. Additional stress should be given to value-based questions to examine if they are a good cultural and team fit.
Tests To Uncover Traits
Conducting short personality tests is key to understanding a candidate’s strengths and whether they have the behavioral traits necessary for the role. Aptitude tests can be made mandatory in the screening process to measure abilities relevant to the job. This serves as an effective strategy for remote hiring. Companies can also proactively invite candidates for job trials to evaluate their skills required for the job. At times, a pool of candidates is asked to compete against one another and challenged to complete certain tasks. This displays the candidates’ abilities to show their merit, culture-fit, and power of collaboration.
Moreover, a letter of recommendation from the previous employer/s or manager/s is considered a valued document. It highlights that a candidate has been a consistent performer and will be an asset to any company.
More Than Merit
Talent acquisition professionals must conduct an in-depth background check to verify their criminal records, driving records, educational and professional history to uncover issues that can pop up as a red flag. They also need to undertake stringent reference checks to seek information about the candidate that could make or break the decision. Reference checks have become more crucial in the remote hiring process because of the ongoing pandemic. Framing the right open-ended situation-based questions is an effective means to deep dive into a candidate’s history and fitment.
Resumes are increasingly becoming less valuable as a source to judge a candidate’s ability to fit the role and the environment. Resumes do not showcase how loyal a candidate will be or how much they can adapt to new operations and processes of doing tasks. Moreover, many recruiters come with unconscious biases and tend to shortlist those who share similar traits as themselves. The Wall Street Journal reported having introduced the concept of blind hiring where, instead of asking for resumes, candidates are asked to write a story on data, work on a crucial project for a day or complete an assignment. The aim is to judge candidates on their actual talents and skills rather than how they portray themselves on their resumes. In a few cases, some of the best brains may be those who have not even graduated from an eminent college or do not share any glossy background on their resumes. Such strategies look beyond demographics and certain criteria, but are an excellent method to assess how well a candidate will fit the culture and gel well with the rest of the team. This is a potential hiring idea and is expected to pick up steam as companies are innovating on their talent sourcing policies and focusing more on intelligent remote hiring strategies to include more diverse human capital.
