Posts Tagged ‘interviewing’
Don’t involve incumbents in recruiting their replacement, ever
In the past seven days we have seen two momentous announcements in the world of sport, one local and one international. Firstly, after a season (not yet complete) that saw Manchester United fall from EPL champions last year to finish (most likely) seventh, win no trophies and miss a lucrative European Champions League place for…
Read MoreLiar, liar, pants on fire: How to spot an interview lie
Dr David Craig’s book Lie Detector is an excellent resource for recruiters and I highly recommend you purchase it. In the meantime here’s a few hints from Dr Craig on lying as part of a recruitment and selection interview process: Nervous is normal: Detecting lies is about, first, establishing a baseline of behavior. When a…
Read MoreIs your candidate just very confident or really a charismatic narcissist?
Having conducted over three thousand interviews, mainly with accounting staff of all levels of skill from accounts clerks to CFOs, I became very used to minimising the charisma factor in an interview. From hard experience I found that the confidence a candidate displayed in an interview did not necessarily translate to performance on the job.…
Read MoreHow Law & Order teaches you better interviewing skills
‘Objection! Leading the witness! ‘Objection! Speculation!’ ‘Objection! Relevance?’ These lines are classic courtroom interjections I have heard in movie and TV dramas for as long as I can remember. It’s all designed to create greater dramatic tension. How true is it all to real life in a US courtroom? I don’t know, as I have…
Read MoreWhat a Nobel prize-winning economist discovers about interviewing
Last week I recommended Daniel Kahneman’s fantastic book on decision making; Thinking, Fast and Slow. Kahneman won his Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his seminal work in psychology that challenged the rational model of judgment and decision making. In summary, Kahneman’s book explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is…
Read MoreDo you know which of your candidates is lying, big time?
Three years ago I wrote an article about the extent of candidate misrepresentation and outright lying that goes on without most recruiters being aware of it. When I am training rookie recruiters one of the topics I cover is the areas that recruiters need to be most alert to in terms of candidates’ mistruths. This…
Read MoreToo ugly or too blonde: The dilemmas and traps of looks discrimination
Recently I read about the Victorian Equal Opportunity Commission’s employment-based complaints from potential employees relating to perceived appearance-based discrimination. In the past five years there have been 107 complaints about discrimination based on obesity, 96 complaints about being too ugly or blonde and 22 for tattoos or piercings, to name just three specific discriminatory categories. My first…
Read MoreA Lesson in Humility by John Colebatch
Prompted by my lead article last week, Sydney-based executive recruiter John Colebatch contacted me to share a few amusing reminisces from his 24 years as a recruiter (John started his recruitment career in 1989, four months after I started mine). Included in his stories was a link to an article he wrote three years ago…
Read MoreAre you interviewing a leader or a bureaucrat?
There is a distinct difference between interviewing a candidate who has a formal leadership role and those candidates who do not. When a candidate has reached a position of formal leadership, their technical skills become relatively less important to their ongoing success. The critical factor that has the candidate consistently deliver high performance in a…
Read MoreHow committed to your candidates are you REALLY?
I was very fortunate in having my formative years as a recruiter within both Hays in the UK (then called Accountancy Personnel) and subsequently Recruitment Solutions. As with many situations, sometimes it’s only with the benefit of hindsight that I truly appreciated what I had gained. As much as skills development is…
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