Finding what right looks like, part 6: Performing behavioral interviewing for our clients saves them time and finds them better candidates
This post series comes to you courtesy of our cofounder and co-managing partner Jeff Wilson. For more information on how Jeff can help you discover “what right looks like” in your hiring, please contact him at 317-598-1950 x102 or jwilson@kcsllc.net.
Previous posts in series:
- Finding what right looks like, part 1: Our unique, comprehensive, and highly effective hiring process
- Finding what right looks like, part 2: Understanding behaviors is the key to successful hiring
- Finding what right looks like, part 3: Key performance indicators (KPIs) are “right” numerically expressed
- Finding what right looks like, part 4: Behavior trait selection matches the right behaviors to an open position
- Finding what right looks like, part 5: Custom-written questions are the foundation of successful behavioral interviewing
In this post, I’ll talk about the steps of our hiring process that are in bold:
- Get to know the client and understand the client’s business and HR needs on a deep level.
- Discuss and determine with the client the KPIs (key performance indicators) and specific metrics of the position.
- Discuss and determine with the client the job duties and any skills and qualifications required to perform them.
- Discuss and determine with the client the behaviors required for top performance in the position.
- Write the behavioral interview questions with client input.
- Conduct behavioral interviews and provide comprehensive feedback along with a summary of answers provided by the candidates.
- Present the client with a short list of candidates qualified through the behavioral interviews.
- Provide extensive interaction with the client throughout the interview process.
In my last post, I talked about how we write the behavioral interview questions with the client’s input, saving the client a great deal of time. Yet the benefits only get better in this next stage, when we perform the behavioral interviews on behalf of the client. In this stage as well, clients are pleasantly surprised that they are relieved of this burden!
- Time and effort savings. Even large companies with HR departments can find it difficult to find the time to interview candidates. Even when an HR department is present, the managers in the departments seeking the new employee will typically still end up interviewing many candidates that are not truly qualified. We prevent this time sink by screening and filtering candidates.
- A faster process. We save time in a second way by simply doing behavioral interviewing faster than most companies are able. We do behavioral interviewing all the time and have become extremely efficient and quick. For this reason, we are able to reduce significantly the overall time required to produce a short list of candidates.
- True, high-quality behavioral interviewing. Behavioral interviewing came into prominence in the 1990s, but even most large companies are still not implementing it. Among those that do, only a small percentage are following best practices. Behavioral interviewing is actually hard to do well, and we have undergone special training and acquired a lot of experience in order to perform it at the level that we do.
- An objective perspective. When we screen and filter candidates with our interviews, we are working with the KPIs and other qualifications we developed with the client. In addition, as a third party, we are not engaged in the wishful thinking that is common when a manager is searching for the “perfect employee.”
The end result is that clients save time and effort and they typically end up with better candidates than they could on their own. The value to the bottom line is large and measurable.
Matt
The Key Corporate Services Blog Team
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