Celebrating Mother’s Day in the office, where work-life balance often intersects, can be a powerful gesture. It’s a chance to show respect and support for the moms on our team; acknowledging their contributions in and outside of work. 

In honor of this special day, we’re excited to share some creative and thoughtful ways to celebrate Mother’s Day at work. Let’s get to it!

13 Ways to Celebrate Mother’s Day at Work

Mother’s Day is the perfect time to show your employees appreciation and create lasting memories at work. Here are some of the most fun and meaningful ways to celebrate:

• Host a Mother’s Day Brunch: Kick off the Monday after with a yummy brunch at the office. A spread of delicious pastries, fruits, and drinks is a sure bet to make working moms feel special.
• Office Potluck with a Twist: Invite everyone to bring their mom or grandma’s favorite recipe to an office potluck. This activity adds a personal touch and sparks conversations and fond memories.
• Organize a Relaxing Yoga Class: A peaceful yoga session can be a wonderful way for moms to unwind and relax. The class can be held in the office or at a local studio.
• Book a Spa Day: Coordinate with your favorite local spa to offer mothers a chance to pamper themselves with massages, facials, or manicures.
• Gift Cards: A simple yet effective idea – gift cards to their favorite store or restaurant allow moms to choose what they enjoy.
• A Day Off Post Mother’s Day: Give the gift of time by offering parents the Monday after the holiday off. This can provide them with a much-needed break or extra time with their families.
• ‘Bring Your Kids to Work’ Day: Encouraging moms to bring their kids to work for the day can be a really fun experience, creating a sense of community and family in the workplace.
• Sponsor a Family Activity: Organize an outing for moms and their kids, like a day at the zoo or an amusement park. Guaranteed to create lasting memories while taking a break from the normal routine.
• Highlight Working Moms on Social Media: Post a heartfelt message on social media featuring photos of the working moms on your team with their kids, celebrating their dual roles.
• Customized Gifts: Make personalized yet practical gifts like stationery, mouse pads, or calendars. These items, customized with an inspirational message or photo, will make daily work life a bit more special.
• Team Volunteering for Mother-Centric Causes: As a team, volunteer for a cause that supports mothers. This activity not only honors them but also gets everyone involved to give back to the community in a meaningful way.
• Decorate the Office: Spruce up the office with decorations that celebrate motherhood. Think flowers, banners, and artwork that add a personal touch.
• Workshop or Seminar: Host a workshop or seminar on topics relevant to working moms, such as work-life balance, parenting tips, or self-care strategies.

7 Best Mother’s Day Gift Ideas For Your Coworkers

Mother’s Day is not just for celebrating our own moms but also a fantastic opportunity to show appreciation to the working moms you admire most on your team and the ‘work moms’ – those incredible women in the office who support, mentor, and care for their colleagues just like a mother would. Here are some thoughtful gift ideas to show these amazing women how much they mean to you:

• Flowers: A classic gift yet always appreciated. Brighten her desk with a bouquet of her favorite flowers.
• Sweet Treats: Whether it’s fancy chocolates, a box of macarons, or homemade cookies, sweet treats are a delicious way to show your gratitude.
• Personalized Note: Sometimes, words mean more than presents. A heartfelt, handwritten note expressing your appreciation can be incredibly meaningful.
• Her Favorite Candle: Gifting a luxurious candle with her favorite scent can be a perfect way to help her relax and unwind.
• Inspirational Books: Consider a book by a successful working mother or a motivational title. It’s both thoughtful and empowering.
• Custom Coffee Mug: A personalized coffee mug, perhaps with an inspiring quote or a picture of their kids, can be a daily reminder of your appreciation.
• Surprise with Coffee or Breakfast: On the Monday after Mother’s Day, bring her favorite coffee or breakfast. It’s a simple gesture that can start her week off on a bright note.

Tips for Creating a Supportive Work Environment for Moms Year-Round

While Mother’s Day is a special occasion to honor mothers, remember to create a supportive work environment for them all year long. Continuous recognition and support of their dual roles as professionals and parents help foster an inclusive and empathetic workplace.

Here’s how your company can integrate ongoing support:

Flexible work arrangements

By offering flexible hours, remote work options, or a compressed workweek, companies make it easier for moms to balance their professional and parental obligations. The reduced stress and commuting time will significantly improve their work-life balance.

Childcare assistance

Whether through on-site childcare facilities, partnerships with local childcare services, or subsidies to offset the expense, these initiatives relieve a significant burden. Access to reliable and affordable childcare helps employees focus on their work without worrying about their children’s safety and well-being. It’s not only a benefit to the employees but also boosts productivity and reduces absences in the workplace.

Wellness programs

Wellness programs might include fitness classes, mental health days, and health screenings. By recognizing the unique pressures parents face, companies can create a culture that prioritizes employee health, ultimately leading to higher employee retention and job satisfaction.

Professional development opportunities

To combat the ‘maternity penalty,’ you can provide training, leadership development programs, and promotions that are accessible to all employees. In addition to supporting equality, this approach allows mothers to pursue their career goals confidently, knowing that their familial responsibilities won’t hinder them.

Support networks and mentorship

Creating support groups or mentorship programs specifically for working moms can offer them essential resources and a community of peers who understand their struggles. Mentorship from fellow mothers who have navigated similar paths can inspire and guide others, reinforcing a supportive network within the company that nurtures both personal and professional growth.

All mothers deserve acknowledgment for their dedication, resilience, and countless contributions. At 4 Corner Resources, we understand the importance of supporting working moms not just on May 12th but throughout the year. 

As you celebrate Mother’s Day in the office, remember to express gratitude to the working moms on your team. Their hard work and determination deserve recognition and appreciation.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the amazing moms out there! Your dedication and love inspire us every day.

With more people in the job market, internships are even more valuable to both workers and employers in building talent relationships and identifying strong-fitting candidates.

If you’re thinking of launching your own intern recruitment program or want to leverage your existing one more effectively as a recruitment tool, here are thirteen benefits of doing so. 

The Benefits of Hiring Interns

Build a steady pipeline of young, qualified talent

We’re big advocates for the ‘pipeline’ approach to recruiting, where you work to develop a consistent flow of candidates regardless of the volume of open roles you have. This helps you nurture ongoing relationships and stay top-of-mind for candidates, making hiring easier at any time than if you only started looking when you had an open role. 

An intern recruitment program can strongly contribute to your talent pipeline, helping you reach young, ambitious candidates ready to put their skills to work. 

The great thing about internships is that even when they don’t result in an immediate hire, they yield positive, long-lasting relationships that can benefit you in the future. After spending a few years in the workforce honing their skills, for example, many professionals return to work for companies they interned with years prior. They often make stronger candidates because they already have an inside perspective of the company’s culture and values while also bringing additional skills they’ve gained working elsewhere. 

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Train prospective candidates to your liking

We’ve talked in the past about hiring for potential rather than experience and why it can be a good strategy to ensure future job performance. Internships are one example of how to apply this practice. 

When you hire for potential, you can prioritize culture fit while training for specific technical skills, which ensures the job duties are performed to your standards. Additionally, you don’t have to counteract bad habits that candidates pick up in prior jobs. 

Training your interns in the skills they’ll need to work at your company is also an effective strategy for closing the skills gap, which is a big hiring challenge organizations in all industries are currently struggling with. Bridging the skill divide through training not only benefits interns in the immediate future but also contributes to a stronger workforce overall. 

Ability to try out different candidates before committing to hire

It’s not every day you get a chance to see a candidate in action on the job before deciding whether to hire them. Contract-to-hire arrangements are one way to accomplish this, but they’re not feasible for every role, nor do they lend themselves to trying out multiple candidates for one position. 

Internships give you the benefit of seeing a person—or multiple people—in the day-to-day setting of working for your company before you decide to bring them onboard. You can get a feel for how they make decisions, how productive they are, how they interact with other members of the team, and more. It’s a valuable piece of insight you’ll be hard-pressed to get in nearly any other hiring situation. 

And, if you do decide to hire one of your interns for a full-time role, you’ll already have a good idea that they’re a strong fit with your company culture. Because they’ve already spent time in your organization, they’ll have a head start getting up and running since they’re already familiar with some of your norms and processes. 

Increase productivity at a low cost 

Gone are the days of sending interns to fetch coffee or forcing them to alphabetize files. Instead, the modern internship sees students immersed in productive, critical-thinking-focused tasks. According to a study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the majority of interns spend very little time on administrative and clerical tasks and the bulk of their time on duties requiring analytical and problem-solving skills. 

A talented intern can make a real difference on your team, helping tackle low-stakes tasks so more senior staffers can focus on projects that require their higher level of expertise. And they can do it at a low cost—the average hourly wage for college students is around $22.06 an hour, compared to the average $34.69 hourly wage for full-time employees. Plus, you don’t have to cover additional overhead costs like benefits that you’d have to cover for a full-timer. 

Cheap labor certainly shouldn’t be your main goal for implementing an internship program; in fact, a high-quality internship program takes a significant amount of time and resources to run. However, interns’ work is highly valuable, and when coached effectively, they can be an asset that increases productivity for your teams. 

Improved retention of new hires

Want to improve your new-hire retention rate? Hire interns. 

Candidates who have completed any internship program are more likely to stick around through their first year on the job than non-interns, and those whose internship resulted in a job offer are even more likely to stay with the company. The one-year retention rate for hires with internal internship experience is 71%, compared to 59% for candidates who interned anywhere and just 42% for those who did not complete an internship. 

The results carry on past the first year on the job, too; after five years, employees who were once interns have a 44% retention rate, compared to 27% for employees without previous internship experience.  

Foster relationships in the community

To cultivate applicants for your internship program, you’ll need to build a network of channels for intern recruitment. This includes developing relationships with high schools, universities, trade schools, workforce training programs, and other community organizations that will help spread the word. These are the same organizations and people who are good to know when you’re looking to recruit full-time talent, so building these relationships serves a dual purpose. 

Furthermore, having an internship program gets your name out there in the community and the industries you work in. This helps build brand recognition, an asset in your overall recruiting strategy. 

Develop leadership skills in existing employees

Students aren’t the only ones who reap the benefits of internship programs. They’re also a great opportunity to help your existing employees hone their leadership and management skills. 

The most successful intern programs follow a structure, give participants meaningful projects to work on, and provide useful, regular coaching. Of course, this requires an active company team to oversee the program and deliver the coaching. 

Your more junior team members can be particularly good candidates for this task. Not only are they close in age to your interns, serving as an effective bridge between the student experience and the professional world, but their job duties might not typically offer many chances to lead. Giving them the reins to coach and guide interns helps them flex their leadership muscles, which is a good way to foster engagement.  

Gain a fresh perspective

A wide body of research has demonstrated that diverse teams are more innovative and profitable than homogenous ones. Interns can bring a fresh perspective to your work not only from an age standpoint but also from the experience and viewpoint of a different generation. 

Today’s interns are part of ‘Generation Z,’ the age group following millennials whose members were born after 1996. Members of Gen Z are more racially and ethnically diverse than any previous generation and are on track to be the most well-educated generation ever. 

How does this characterization compare to your existing staff makeup? Depending on your organization, chances are it’s at least somewhat different from how the majority of your teams look. Incorporating interns into focus groups and brainstorming sessions can yield surprising new insights that can be used to improve your services, strengthen your marketing strategy, and streamline your workflows. 

Free up time and energy of senior talent

We’ve already established that successful intern programs put participants to work on meaningful tasks–activities that build skills and provide industry exposure. Many of those activities are the same ones that senior team members complete every day but could easily offload to someone more junior. 

By assigning interns to important but time-consuming tasks like conducting research and drafting communications, you can free up more of your top performers’ time for business-driving tasks like presenting to sales prospects or doing deep dives into performance data. 

Invest in your industry

If you’re like most organizations, your goal is to establish a lasting position in your field. One of the best ways to do that is to invest in the next generation of talent. 

No matter what the industry, fresh young thinkers will be required to ensure sustainability and lasting success, not just for your own company but for the entire market. The energy field is a perfect example. It’s likely going to look completely different in 20 years than it does today. The people who will be leading the transformation are the same people who are interns in programs at companies like General Electric and Tesla right now. 

Investing in a high-quality internship program is an act of good faith in the future, both for your brand and your field.

Access tech-forward skills

College labs and lecture halls are the proving grounds for some of the most cutting-edge technology available. When you hire interns, you’ll bring on team members who have gotten their hands on tech that some of your full-time employees haven’t even used. 

What’s more, young people inherently possess a set of skills that might not come as naturally to more seasoned members of the workforce. Social media, video editing, and graphic design, for example, are great internship tasks because they’re done with tools that most people in Gen Z have been using their whole lives. 

Offer mentorship opportunities

Various studies have shown that mentorship is as rewarding for mentors as it is for mentees. An intern program offers more opportunities for members of your workforce to take on a mentorship role, either via a formal matching program or through informal interactions like job shadowing. Even just getting face time with young, enthusiastic intern recruits can provide engagement and breathe fresh air for longtime staffers. 

Generate positive PR

A well-established intern program is good for your organization’s public perception. It shows your commitment to giving back, developing skilled workers, and investing in the youth of your community.  

The activities of your interns also make for ideal PR material. A group of young faces donning construction hats on a job site or pitching a creative idea to the company president would look great on your social media channels or in the local paper’s Business section. 

Recruit Interns for Future Growth with 4 Corner Resources

Looking for new places to source qualified talent? Need to hire for niche skills or leadership roles? The team of staffing experts at 4 Corner Resources can help. With over 15 years in business, we’ve helped organizations of all sizes overcome their staffing challenges and build teams that withstand market changes and ensure future growth. 

We take hiring tasks like attracting, screening, and interviewing candidates off your plate so you can focus on coaching your staff and running your business. Our convenient onboarding and payroll services make getting new hires up and running a breeze. Schedule your free consultation with our team today to discuss your unique staffing needs.

You’ve gotten the signoff from management and put together a competitive offer. All that’s left now is for them to accept—but they don’t. Despite a lucrative salary on the table, they decide to take a job with one of your competitors. Why?

Losing out on a great candidate is perhaps the most frustrating part of recruiting, especially if you’re confident that salary isn’t the issue. The fact is, though, that today’s top talent weighs much more than just income when deciding on who to work for. In fact, employees say many benefits are more important than salary; they range from flexible schedules to more empathetic bosses.

If you want to outperform the competition, you must focus on the most important employee benefits. Consider offering these innovative employee perks to secure more accepted offers. 

Best Employee Benefits

Health, dental, and vision insurance

Offering strong health, dental, and vision insurance was rated the most important of all employee perks by Fractl’s 2017 Employee Benefits Study. It was also the top benefit based on correlation to employees’ overall satisfaction with their employer’s benefits packages in a recent Glassdoor survey. 

By providing the best insurance plans possible, your employees will feel like you actually care about their overall health and well-being. This will lead to improved job satisfaction, which in turn will increase employee retention rates and productivity.

Providing high-quality, extensive health insurance will cost you more than many other “trendy” perks, such as free beer or yoga in the office. But it’s often a major factor in a candidate’s decision to accept a job offer, especially if they have a family relying on their coverage. Therefore, investing in expanding your employee health insurance coverage can give you a high ROI when you’re able to attract and retain top talent more effectively.

Paid family leave

A poll of more than 1,200 workers found that paid family leave was number one on the list of the most important employee benefits. The 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act made 12 weeks of maternity leave a requirement for companies with over 50 employees. Still, it doesn’t mandate that the leave be paid, and it doesn’t offer any benefit to new dads or caregivers of other family members, like aging parents.

58% of all workers said paid time off to care for family members was their most desired benefit. Among millennials, that number jumped to 64%. Though more employers are responding to the demand and adding paid family leave to their benefits package, progress is slow. It’s a perk accessible to just 14% of all civilian workers. Employers in finance and tech have made the greatest strides, with about a third of employees in these sectors able to take paid family leave.

If you want to stand out in the employer pool, offer this highly in-demand perk to ease the strain of caregiving.

Adoption and fertility coverage

With more people opting to have children later in life, there’s a growing conversation surrounding fertility issues since it becomes harder to conceive naturally with age. Thus, more employees are interested in coverage for fertility-related services like egg freezing and in vitro fertilization. Forward-thinking companies like Apple and Uber have begun to cover a portion of the cost for employees who wish to freeze their eggs.

Adoption is another option for starting a family, but it can be prohibitively expensive. Employers are stepping up to help their employees cover the costs. For example, Ferring Pharmaceuticals and Citizens Bank provide more than $20,000 in financial support toward team members who wish to pursue adoption.

The modern family can take many forms. Employers can stand out by offering unique employee benefits that serve the diverse ways their employees choose to plan and grow their families.

Sabbatical leave

Sabbaticals were once limited to academic professionals and only available after many years with one institution. That’s no longer the case. Though still relatively uncommon, about 17% of employers offer them—that’s compared to virtually none 40 years ago.

Taking an extended period of time off has obvious benefits for employees, like a reduction in stress, an increase in well-being, and a fresh sense of motivation to come back to work. However, there are upsides for the employer as well.

In research on the topic, organizations found that leaders who took a sabbatical of at least three months came back with new ideas for innovating in the organization and a greater level of confidence in their ability to lead. What’s more, the people who had stepped in to fill their shoes in the interim were more effective and responsible on the job when the leaders returned.

If you want to be as competitive as, say, Facebook, consider taking their lead on sabbaticals as an innovative employee perk. Facebook allows its employees to take 30 consecutive days of paid time off every five years.

Student loan repayment

With student loan debt in America soaring to an estimated $1.4 trillion and the average individual debt burden hovering around $37,000, it’s no wonder that student loan repayment is a highly attractive perk for candidates. In a 2017 study, 45% of professionals surveyed cited student loan repayment as the single most compelling employee benefit, while 58% said they would prefer receiving debt repayment assistance over additional retirement contributions.

Over 44 million Americans have student loan debt — yet less than 5% of companies currently offer student loan repayment assistance. However, this benefit has really picked up steam in recent years. From health insurance giant Aetna to beauty conglomerate Estee Lauder to Penguin Random House publishing, companies in all sectors are adding student loan repayment as the latest perk in their benefits package to attract the best and brightest talent. It will help you stand out from other competitors who aren’t offering these kinds of valuable and unique employee benefits to attract top talent — plus instilling in them a sense of loyalty and commitment to your company that will increase retention long-term.

Financial planning resources

A 401(k) with a company match is a great starting point for your financial benefits package, but it’s just the beginning of what you can offer to entice fiscally-minded candidates. Financial planning services are growing in popularity as part of the crop of unique employee benefits for 2020.

Help candidates see your organization as part of their bigger picture for the future by offering financial services above and beyond a retirement plan. This might include complimentary consultations with financial advisors, budgeting assistance, long-term financial planning, and even assistance with the homebuying process.

According to a survey by benefits provider Prudential Financial, the proportion of employers offering these so-called ‘financial wellness’ services rose 63 percentage points between 2015 and 2017. When said programs are offered, both employees and employers report greater satisfaction with their overall benefit plans.

Mental health support

In recent years, there’s been a growing national conversation on the topic of mental health and a push to destigmatize the treatment of mental health issues. Top employers are joining the effort, putting mental health benefits like counseling on equal footing with traditional health services like routine physicals and dental care.

Capital One Financial, for example, provides a range of useful mental wellness services through its Employee Assistance Program. Employees can receive telephone or face-to-face counseling through the program and find assistance coping with major life changes like moving or becoming a parent.

Emphasizing your employees’ mental well-being can go a long way toward achieving the all-important work-life balance and sense of fulfillment that the best talent craves.

Related: How to Improve Employees’ Mental Health

Wellness benefits

44% of organizations that invested in increasing their benefits offerings in the last 12 months enhanced their wellness benefits as part of their employee retention strategies. 

Wellness benefits include offering yoga in the office, creating a designated meditation space, or providing nutritional counseling services. With more than a third of employees saying they’d see a company-paid gym membership or access to an onsite fitness center as a valuable perk, many companies are also reimbursing gym memberships or looking for office spaces with a workout facility.

Investing in these benefits is valuable because they help your employees reduce anxiety and manage work-related stress, ultimately improving productivity and overall job satisfaction. This is also a proactive way to improve the overall health of your staff, which reduces the medical costs you’re required to pay later. In fact, wellness benefits can help reduce the likelihood of your employees developing four of the ten health conditions that are most costly to U.S. employers: chest pain, high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart attacks.

Pet insurance

The cost of veterinary care has been on a steady incline for years, spiking 11% from 2022 to 2023 alone. No pet parent wants to have to choose between paying their bills and getting their furry family member the medical care they need. Pet insurance is a viable solution to cover the costs, and it can be an attractive benefit to candidates who live in one of the 70% of U.S. households that own a pet. Pet insurance helps cover the cost of vet visits, medical procedures and medication, and works similarly to employer-sponsored health insurance when offered as a benefit. 

Subsidized child care

For parents, particularly mothers, re-entering or remaining in the workforce is challenging after having kids. Employer-subsidized childcare can make the choice an easier one. Childcare benefits typically cover a portion of a child’s daytime care costs before they reach school age. Some even cover after-school programs for older kids. It’s a meaningful way to support working parents and signal that family is important to your organization. 

Top Employee Perks

Remote and hybrid work

The ability to work remotely all or some of the time is one of the top factors candidates say they want when looking for a new job. Giving employees location flexibility enhances work-life balance and can even increase productivity, as employees feel empowered to work under the conditions that are most comfortable and conducive to work for them personally. 

Offering remote opportunities is a highly effective way to broaden your candidate pool. By some accounts, remote positions receive nearly three times as many applications as those that are strictly in-office. 

Four-day workweeks

As long as your employees are getting their jobs done, does it really matter what days the work takes place on? More employers are deciding that it doesn’t.

Microsoft made headlines when it reported a 40% increase in productivity after a trial run of being closed on Fridays in one of its Japan offices. New Zealand estate planning company Perpetual Guardian switched over to a four-day workweek permanently after a trial produced a 20% jump in productivity, reduced stress levels, and improved employee engagement.

Employees consistently say they crave greater work-life balance; if it’s feasible for your organization, offering a four-day workweek helps facilitate that while making a show of confidence in your employees’ ability to manage their schedules and workloads.

No scheduled work hours

Most of us are so used to a rigid work schedule that it’s hard to imagine not punching a clock, but one of the most innovative employee perks does away with working hours altogether.

Netflix, for example, doesn’t require employees to log work hours or be in the office at certain times. The company famously operates by the core principles of freedom and responsibility; as long as employees meet expectations and contribute positively, the company says they are free to create their own schedules.

Unlimited PTO

Do you sense a trend among these people on this list? If it’s not already incredibly obvious, a perk candidates overwhelmingly want is greater control of their time. Unlimited PTO is just one more way to give it to them. When you stop counting the number of hours or days employees take PTO, you signal your trust in them in a powerful way. Employees feel empowered and, as a result, valued, which is a crucial factor in retaining them. 

Blackout meeting hours

What’s more frustrating than getting a meeting request for 4 p.m. on a Friday? If it’s not urgent, it can probably wait until Monday. Some ingenious companies have turned this line of thinking into a perk by instituting blackout hours. 

Blackout hours are a set of times the company has deemed ‘off limits’ for meetings that aren’t absolutely necessary. Friday afternoons, as are the first and last hours of the workday, are a popular blackout time. 

Can employees adopt blackout hours on their own? Sure. However, the mandate being communicated as an official company policy carries much more weight and is, as such, much more attractive to candidates seeking to minimize meeting overload. 

Career development opportunities

For 86% of employees, professional and career development benefits are important to their overall job satisfaction. The most common benefit in this category is paying for an employee’s professional memberships to networking or industry-specific groups. You could also hold on-site workshops and training, send your employees to offsite events or conferences to develop further skills in their field or help cover certifications and professional license application or renewal fees.

These employee perks are incredibly beneficial to both parties. How? If your employees are stagnant and not continuously growing, they’ll quickly become bored in their position and want to make a career move. Plus, they won’t be learning any new skills that create additional value for your business. But, by investing in development opportunities, your employees will be happier, more engaged, and on top of the latest trends and technologies affecting their field — making them more productive and valuable to your business.

Volunteering time off

Volunteer time off, also known as VTO, allows employees to take paid time away from work to volunteer for charitable causes. It can range from a few hours per month to a few days per year, and it’s independent of other paid leave like PTO and sick days. In addition to being an appealing perk for philanthropy-minded candidates, it also demonstrates a tangible investment in giving back on behalf of the company.

How to Communicate Your Benefits and Perks Effectively

Simply offering compelling benefits and perks isn’t enough; you must also communicate them enticingly to would-be applicants. Here’s how to do it. 

Be assertive

Present what you have to offer beyond salary clearly and succinctly. Be proactive about promoting them. Make sure your benefit offerings are prominently showcased on the careers section of your website and in job postings. Highlight them in social media posts and in recruitment marketing materials. 

Communicate early

All too often, candidates don’t begin learning about a company’s benefits until they’re already well into the hiring pipeline. To optimize your recruiting, however, the communication should happen much earlier, before a candidate even fills out an application, or at least immediately afterward. Don’t make it information a candidate has to go searching for. Make your perks easy to learn about; incorporating them into your candidate engagement plan is a great strategy. 

Make it a two-way conversation

Once you’ve communicated your benefits, follow up and invite candidates to ask any questions they might have. Ensure they fully understand what makes the company a unique and desirable place to work. Using testimonials and Q&As from current employees can also bring your benefits to life and help illustrate their real-world applications.

Attract The Best Talent In The Business With 4 Corner Resources

If you want to win the recruiting game in 2020, add the experts from 4 Corner Resources to your staffing team. Our seasoned headhunters work with each company on a case-by-case basis to understand your unique needs and what you’re most looking for in a role. Then, we use our extensive talent network and proprietary sourcing methods to find and match you to the perfect candidates.

Schedule a call today to start the conversation about your staffing needs for 2020 and beyond.

A hiring plan can ensure you attract the right people, get the most out of your recruiting efforts, and hire as efficiently as possible. We’ll explain what goes into a hiring plan and how to create one to accomplish your organization’s goals.   

What is a Hiring Plan?

A hiring plan is a formal strategy that outlines a company’s approach to hiring. It includes how many people will be hired, for which positions, and the timeline for that hiring. It also details how those people will be selected. 

Hiring plans can be short- or long-term and can contain different components to suit your needs. For example, a short-term hiring plan might address your staffing needs to get through the busy holiday season, whereas a long-term hiring plan could cover how you plan to grow in the market over the next two to three years. 

Benefits of Having a Hiring Plan

Optimize use of resources

One of the biggest advantages of a hiring plan is that it puts everyone involved in recruiting on the same page. It prevents team members from unintentionally working against one another. Your hiring plan dictates what qualities you’re looking to hire for at what time, along with how fast you can feasibly hire. This way you don’t waste resources recruiting for roles that aren’t actually a priority or hiring people you can’t afford to hire. 

Provide a better candidate experience

When a company’s hiring process is sloppy and disjointed, candidates can tell, and it’s a big turnoff when they’re considering your offer. Having a strategic hiring plan forces you to get intentional about every step in your recruiting process and fine tune it so that it’s aligned with the image you want to convey to candidates. 

Hire faster

It’s all too common for HR staffers to reinvent the wheel each time they hire. They lack a structured set of steps to follow, so they waste time repeating work and performing manual tasks that could be automated. A hiring plan outlines a methodical process for attracting and onboarding talent, which means you can move through the steps efficiently each time you hire. Moreover, you can continuously refine the process to become even more efficient over time. 

Make more accurate hires

Because a hiring plan is a concrete breakdown of who you want to hire, it cuts down on hiring mistakes. Hiring mistakes are costly, but these costs are in large part avoidable if you invest the time to create clear and strategic hiring criteria. 

10 Steps to Create a Hiring Plan

1. Set strategic goals

Begin by aligning your hiring plan with your company’s strategic goals. These could include growing revenue, bringing new products to market, expanding your territory, or improving your sustainability–any overarching objectives the business wants to achieve. Identify key areas where hiring new talent can contribute to these goals.  

2. Understand your budget

We can’t emphasize this enough: before diving into recruitment, it’s crucial to have a clear picture of the financial resources available for hiring and to ensure that everyone is on the same page about those resources. This conversation should include company accounting leaders looking at the bigger financial picture and talent acquisition specialists who can weigh in on market conditions and competitive salaries. This will arm you with a firm understanding of how much you can allocate to things like advertising, sourcing tools, and recruiting personnel. 

3. Prioritize hiring needs

Assess your current workforce and identify areas where additional talent is needed most urgently. This could be because of skills gaps, head count shortages, leadership vacancies, upcoming retirements, or any other factors that are creating a high-priority need. Prioritize roles based on business needs and the impact hiring will have on the business goals you identified in step one.

Related: How to Identify and Set Hiring Priorities

4. Coordinate across teams

Collaboration is key to effective hiring. Involve relevant stakeholders, including department heads, hiring managers, HR professionals, and third-party recruiters in the planning process to ensure everyone is working toward the same goals.

5. Put it in writing

Document your hiring plan, including details like roles and responsibilities, timelines, budget allocation, and performance benchmarks. Then, circulate the plan among the relevant parties. This ensures clarity, creates accountability, and promotes alignment across the organization. 

6. Define your selection process

Now that you know who you need to hire, it’s time to define how you’ll hire them. Develop a structured selection process that includes screening resumes, shortlisting candidates, conducting interviews, assessing skills, and determining culture fit. Clearly outline the steps involved, designating who is responsible for each step and how long it should take. This promotes a smooth and efficient hiring process. 

7. Allocate proper recruiting bandwidth

You know how many people you want to hire; now, do you have enough specialists to hire those people? Whether it’s internal HR staff, external recruiters, or a combination of both, ensure you have sufficient recruiting bandwidth to manage the anticipated volume of candidates and deliver a positive candidate experience. 

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8. Create a job description template

This is the perfect example of not reinventing the wheel that we touched on earlier. While you want to create compelling job descriptions, you shouldn’t write them from scratch each time. 

Develop a standardized template that includes a job overview, core responsibilities, required qualifications, and company selling points. When it’s time to hire, all you have to do is update anything that’s changed since you last used the listing and potentially freshen it up with some new language. Using a consistent format for every posting helps promote a strong employer brand and streamlines the requisition process.

9. Envision the candidate experience

Put yourself in the shoes of a prospective candidate and consider the experience throughout the recruitment process you’ve outlined. What does the first interaction with your company look like? How does the relationship develop from there, and what happens in each phase between the application and the job offer? What communications are sent at every stage in the process? 

From the first point of contact to new hire onboarding, aim to create a positive and engaging experience that embodies your company culture and values. 

10. Incorporate your employer brand

Your employer brand plays a significant role in attracting top talent and should be infused into your hiring plan. Strategize how you’ll showcase your employee value proposition, company culture, benefits and perks during the hiring process. 

By following these 10 steps, you can create a comprehensive hiring plan that not only addresses your immediate staffing needs but also contributes to your organization’s long-term success. Remember to regularly review, update, and optimize your plan in accordance with performance analytics and changes in the market. With a well-defined hiring strategy in place, you’ll be better equipped to attract, hire, and retain top talent in your industry. 

Demand is strong for the ability to work from home, and as an employer, you can set yourself apart by hiring remote and hybrid workers. The big question is, where do you find them? And how do you hire remote workers you can trust to do their jobs when you’re not physically able to keep an eye on them?

We’ll explain where to find qualified, professional remote workers and how to hire them effectively. 

How to Find Remote Workers

Rely on referrals

Referrals have long been one of the most reliable channels for producing top-notch hires. When a referral comes from one of your top performers, it’s even more potent, as great workers tend to have other great people in their professional network. When someone comes in via a personal introduction, they’re more likely to be invested in the process than if they’re applying to a hiring manager with whom they have no connection. 

Capitalize on this channel by nurturing a strong referral program. Put out a call for referrals regularly–once a quarter works well for many organizations–and implement a system for rewarding employees whose recommendations lead to a new hire. 

Related: How to Make Your Employee Referral Program a Powerful Recruitment Tool

Post on the right job boards

Remote positions are highly desirable, so if you offer the option to work from home, this fact alone should help you attract a more competitive candidate pool. Be sure you’re reaching the talented workers who are searching for remote positions by listing them on the right job boards. Posting on sites dedicated to flexible work, like FlexJobs and Remote.co, will help differentiate your positions from other roles that are onsite only. 

Look for a proven track record

The shifts of the last few years mean millions of new candidates now have experience working from home. Zero in on those with a proven track record for successful remote work, whether it was a temporary situation during the pandemic or they’re currently working from home. 

Ask questions that will help you drill down to a candidate’s work style and methods for successfully getting the job done off-site, like:

• What prior experience do you have with remote work?
• How do you stay on top of tasks when you’re not working in an office?
• How does the lack of regular in-person interaction with coworkers affect you?
• What tools do you use to collaborate with remote peers and manage your work?

Source from the freelance market

When you’re searching for a resume that includes working from home, consider this untapped source: freelancers. Representing a sizable segment of the workforce, contract and gig workers are used to working from anywhere and juggling multiple projects at once. Plus, you might already have a few you’re comfortable working with who would be interested in going full-time. 

Prioritize necessary qualities

Working from home requires a different set of skills–or at least more proficiency in certain areas–than doing the same job in an office. For example, remote employees must be independently motivated, adept at time management, and comfortable navigating minor tech snafus without having in-person help from the company’s IT team. 

To attract applicants who meet these qualifications, make sure your job listings emphasize the right criteria. State them directly in the list of job requirements alongside the technical skill requirements. Then, as you review resumes, use these same keywords and phrases to screen applicants with the required capabilities. 

Build a strong employer brand

When you’re hiring in person for an onsite role, you can rely at least somewhat on local word of mouth and your presence in the community to spread the word about your job opening. When you’re hiring online, you don’t have that luxury. You have to rely fully on your digital channels and your established presence to get you in front of the right applicants.

Thus, an ongoing effort to build a strong employer brand is paramount. Use content marketing to show off what it’s like to work for your company. Tap outgoing employees to act as brand advocates at public-facing events. Monitor and make efforts to improve your rating on sites like Glassdoor that remote candidates are likely to visit when researching before they apply.  

Related: How to Elevate Your Employer Branding to Attract Top Talent

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How to Hire Remote Employees

Set clear expectations

One critical step for a successful remote work arrangement is setting clear expectations from day one. Outlining key details, like how many days each week or month a candidate will be expected to come into the office, special situations that would necessitate onsite work, and any requirements around start times, end times, and availability during the day, ensures everyone is on the same page. 

Look for the right skills

As we touched on above, remote workers require a special set of skills. In addition to the technical skills required for the job, strong candidates must also possess core soft skills required to navigate working off-site successfully. Here are a few of the best soft skills to prioritize when screening applicants:

• Being a self-starter. A good remote worker needs to be able to look at an assignment and come up with the tasks necessary to complete it, then take action without being told. 
• Organization. You need someone who can juggle multiple projects independently and stay on top of deadlines without being micromanaged. 
• Communication. While they don’t necessarily need to be glued to Slack every waking hour, a remote worker needs to stay in touch proactively. Look for someone with strong writing skills who can quickly share what they’re working on and anything they need help with. 
• Tech-savviness. Not everyone loves digital collaboration tools. When you’re physically in an office, you can get away with using fewer of them. But remote work requires someone who’s proficient–or at least willing to learn–the latest ways to work together even when you’re not actually together. 
• Time management. When you allow for remote work, you’re entrusting workers with a certain level of independence. This is based on the presumption that they’ll manage their time effectively to finish their work. Look for someone with a demonstrated history of managing their own time and successfully accomplishing goals. 
• Focus. At-home workspaces are prone to distractions, from the load of laundry that needs to be folded to the latest binge-worthy documentary on Netflix. Remote employees must be adept at avoiding procrastination and focusing on high-priority tasks.

Streamline the interview process

Since remote candidates may be located in far-flung places, you’ll need an interview process that’s also remote-friendly. If you are using a video conferencing platform, ensure that all participants receive instructions and complete any necessary tech setup in advance. Set interviewers up for success by using software that streamlines virtual interviews; many applicant tracking systems now have these capabilities built in. We outline 10 virtual interviewing tips for hiring managers here.  

Be strategic about culture fit

It’s a common pitfall to overlook culture fit when hiring remote workers, but this is a big misstep. Culture fit is just as important, if not more so, for remote workers than onsite ones, as they don’t have as many opportunities to build rapport with their peers and are at greater risk of feeling isolated. So, incorporate culture fit strategically into your selection process. 

Ask interview questions that will help identify alignment with your team, like:

• Describe your ideal work environment.
• What does a great team look like to you?
• What do you value most in an employer?
• How do you deal with workplace conflict?
• What motivates you at work?
• Can you tell me about a project or assignment you were particularly inspired by?
• Have you ever gone above and beyond to help a colleague?

Additionally, consider using pre-hire screening tools like personality assessments, which can help you gain an objective perspective on a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses. 

Get additional input

One disadvantage of remote work is that you miss out on casual in-person interactions, like passing in the hallway or chatting in the break room, that build camaraderie and contribute to company culture. This missing physical link makes it harder to assess culture fit when hiring. That is why it is so important to convey your company culture when hiring remotely.

To help ensure remote workers are both qualified and a good fit, don’t rely on one person’s judgment (even if it’s your own). Bring other staffers, like peers the new hire will be working with, into the hiring process. A roundtable-style Zoom meeting is a great way to introduce a candidate to other team members whom you can follow up with afterward for feedback. 

Make boomerang hires

The pandemic has upended career plans for even the most established professionals, which may mean some of your former employees are now back on the job market. If you know one who’d be great for your remote role, entice them to come back–bringing with them new skills and expertise–with the ability to work from home as a perk. 

Provide an excellent onboarding experience

One of the biggest mistakes when hiring remote workers is making the initial hire and then going radio silent. Employers must go the extra mile to keep remote employees engaged, starting with an intentional onboarding process. 

As soon as the offer is accepted, provide new hires with the necessary paperwork to complete it at their convenience before their first day on the job. Use interactive materials like videos and gamified onboarding modules to introduce new workers to the company’s policies and processes. Help them get acclimated by setting up dedicated times for them to meet and greet their new teammates and other recent hires–virtually, of course. By providing an engaging onboarding experience, you’ll set a positive tone for a productive new hire period. 

Work With a Specialized Staffing Agency

Advertising your remote role on social media and job boards is a must, but it only gets you so far. To attract hard-to-reach candidates, especially passive ones who don’t regularly search job sites, work with a staffing partner that has experience hiring remote workers. 

Whether you’re new to off-site hiring or are looking to ramp up your remote workforce, We can help you attract and qualify candidates who will get the job done no matter where they work from.

Contact us today to learn about our remote staffing solutions that fit your company.

Recruiters, however, especially innovative ones, can learn a thing or two from their marketing colleagues since many of the same principles used to attract customers can also be applied to attract talent. I know I have.

For too long, we at 4 Corner, like many traditional recruiting and staffing firms, didn’t pay much attention to marketing. In fact, our annual marketing budget was exactly $0. Maybe that’s just what happens when a career sales professional is the founder, but I now realize that to understand marketing is to experience its power and effectiveness. There is no need to repeat my mistake—read below for ideas you can leverage immediately to improve your recruitment efforts.

12 Marketing Strategies You Can Leverage to Attract Top Talent

1. Think of candidates as customers

It’s common knowledge in the marketing world that companies must sell their customers not just a product but a solution to a problem. To do this, marketers create a value proposition—a brief statement that describes how their product serves customers’ needs. 

For example, the value proposition of a meal delivery service might be that it saves you the time and energy that goes into meal planning. The value proposition of an app like Uber is that it offers the convenience of a car service at an accessible price. 

To clarify your recruiting efforts, create a value proposition for how your company fits into a candidate’s career and life. What are candidates looking for that your company can deliver on? Perhaps your value proposition is that you offer an award-winning training program that gives new employees a fast track to advancement. Maybe you offer the opportunity for candidates to gain experience working with Fortune 500 clients. Perhaps you offer unlimited vacation time. 

While using these things as “selling points” may seem like a no-brainer, crafting them into a direct and compelling value proposition will give you a clear anchor point for your recruitment messaging. 

2. Use a funnel approach

Most modern marketing strategies are built around the concept of a funnel. Customers start at the top of the funnel, where they’re just beginning to become aware of a problem they must solve. As they move down the funnel, they research options to help them solve their problem and learn more about your company through a series of touchpoints. Finally, when they reach the bottom of the funnel, they (hopefully) become customers. 

Thinking of the customer journey in this way helps marketers create the right content and use the right language to make a compelling argument that fits where the customer is in the funnel. You can increase the effectiveness of your recruitment efforts by thinking of the candidate journey in the same way. 

Sure, some candidates may be chomping at the bit to work for you right out of the gate—but that’s not typically the case with the most competitive talent or if you’re hiring for a niche role. Instead, they go on a journey down a recruiting funnel, learning more about different companies and weighing their options for the best place to work. In the end, they make the best decision by accepting an offer. 

By approaching the candidate’s experience as a journey rather than just a one-time decision in the form of a recruiting funnel, you’ll be better able to speak to their needs, address their concerns, and nurture the relationship in a way that makes their final decision an easy one.  

3. Speak their language

Hiring employees who share your core values and believe in your mission is part of building a strong company culture. Employees who feel aligned with their company’s values engage more, which drives productivity and retention. 

Still, attracting talent who shares your values is not always straightforward. One strategy for achieving this is to speak their language. 

Marketers who are trying to reach suburban moms use different language than those trying to reach 20-something urban professionals. This is especially true since the two groups have different needs, wants, challenges, and lifestyles. Your approach to your candidates should follow suit.

Suppose you want to attract seasoned professionals who value stability, reputation, and conservative values. In that case, you’ll need to use different language than if you’re looking to attract progressive change-makers who value independence and risk-taking. Always craft your written and verbal recruitment messaging with the ideal candidate and their values in mind.

4. Build a strong brand

As consumers, we all have a handful of brands we’re loyal to. Maybe it’s a trusted skincare line, a favorite breakfast cereal, or the bath soap you’ve used since childhood. You know the packaging so well you don’t even have to read the label to find it on the shelf; purchasing is an instinctive decision.

Marketers live to create these household names, and employers can benefit from building recognizable, trustworthy brands similarly. When your reputation for being a great place to work precedes you, convincing a candidate to apply for your vacant positions requires much less effort. 

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5. Leverage the power of content

One highly effective strategy for building a strong employer brand? Content marketing. Traditional marketers use content like blogs, social media posts, videos, infographics, and white papers to spread awareness of their products and services. The goal isn’t usually to convince people to buy. Rather, it’s to build rapport with the target audience and increase brand recognition in the marketplace. 

Recruiters can leverage content marketing to highlight what sets their companies apart. Here are a few examples:

• Employee testimonials describing the favorable company culture
• Infographic detailing the superior benefits package
• Photos and videos of team events and ‘day in the life’ activities 
• Email campaigns to share new job openings 
• Podcasts to answer frequently asked candidate questions

6. Eliminate friction

Digital marketers are always working to eliminate friction—anything that gets in the way of a customer making a purchase—from the checkout experience. This means having a site that works just as well on a smartphone as on a desktop and doesn’t require the user to jump through a ton of hoops like creating an account to check out and so on.  

Your recruiting process has friction, too. Maybe it’s a clunky application system all candidates are required to go through or an antiquated personality test they’re required to pass. We’ll bet you can think of a few things that not only slow you down when hiring but can also be a turnoff to candidates. 

Identifying and removing these friction points will help you cut down your average time-to-hire, which will ultimately help you save on costs and provide a better candidate experience.

7. Ask for referrals

The best marketing doesn’t come from a company itself. It comes from the company’s raving fans via positive word of mouth. That’s why brands always ask you to share their posts on social media and refer a friend in exchange for a coupon. 

Likewise, employee referrals are the best source of qualified candidates recruiters can come by. Institute an incentive program to encourage current employees to refer people in their network to your open jobs. You can also gain referrals by asking for them on other channels like social media and email, as well. 

8. Collect positive reviews

If you’ve ever debated whether to try a new restaurant that just opened in your town, you’ve probably seen the power of online reviews firsthand. A few bad reviews will make you stay far away, while a handful of glowing ones will have you booking the next available reservation. 

Capitalize on the power of reviews to enhance your recruiting efforts by actively managing the company’s presence on sites like Glassdoor. Respond to negative reviews, address concerns, and thank happy reviewers for their feedback. Boost your score by encouraging your most engaged staffers to leave (presumably positive) reviews. 

9. Employ SEO

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a must for getting products and services in front of customers who are primed to buy. But why should it be a tactic that’s limited to making sales?

Optimizing your job postings and career pages with relevant keywords can improve your visibility in search results, helping you reach more qualified applicants faster. The added organic traffic can reduce recruitment costs, too. 

Related: How to Use SEO for Job Postings to Increase Visibility

10. Acknowledge that everyone is not your target market

In order to market a product or service successfully, your target customer can’t be ‘everyone.’ When you try to speak to everyone, your messaging becomes so generic that you’re not saying anything meaningful to anyone. Instead, marketers know that the greatest business success lies in finding your niche and blowing the competition out of the water in that specific market. 

In recruiting, you’ve probably seen this concept in practice when you cast your net too wide for a job opening. When your listing appears on every major job board, for example, you’re likely to be so inundated with applications that it’s hard to cut through the noise to the ones that are actually a good fit for the role. Your post would be much more effective—and cut down on a lot of screening time—if you posted it to one or two job boards specific to the industry or role you’re hiring. It boils down to quality over quantity. 

When deciding where to publicize a job opening, do it with the classic marketing maxim in mind: everyone is not your target market. 

11. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket

Like many business segments, marketing is often subject to the 80/20 rule. The 80/20 rule states that in any given endeavor, 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. This also frequently applies in sales, where a few bestsellers drive the majority of revenue, and in staffing, where a handful of top performers are responsible for the majority of a department’s results. 

The danger in this principle, though, is that it means you’re overly reliant on one factor to make or break your success, whether that’s a single product category, a handful of all-star employees, or when it comes to hiring, one recruiting channel. If that channel suddenly goes kaput, you’re in a bad situation. 

That’s why marketers diversify their efforts. While they might prioritize a top channel that performs best, like PPC ads or Instagram posts, they don’t simply flip the switch off everywhere else. Instead, they allocate a smaller segment of the budget and resources to maintaining a variety of marketing efforts for the sake of diversifying. 

Your recruiting efforts should be similarly diversified to avoid having all your eggs in one basket. 

12. Measure, analyze, and optimize

As the old saying goes, you can’t manage what you don’t measure. Marketers can’t make reliable strategy decisions without a strong data set that includes key information like sales numbers, website traffic, ad spend, and return on investment. Solid recruiting decisions require a parallel data set. 

The metrics that are most meaningful to you will vary based on factors like your industry, annual revenue, and company size, but some of the most common ones to watch include the source of hire, cost per hire, time to hire, and pass-through rate. These numbers help you understand which recruiting channels and strategies perform best for your organization so you can allocate future resources accordingly. Measure, analyze, and work to optimize them consistently. 

Related: How to Leverage Recruiting Metrics to Improve Your Hiring Process

Build an Effective Talent Acquisition Strategy with 4 Corner Resources

Even the most seasoned hiring managers can get stuck in a recruiting rut. Breathe new life into your staffing strategy with creative solutions from 4 Corner Resources. We’re a staffing firm with over 15 years of experience helping companies hire for skill and culture fit. We can help you implement a talent acquisition plan that reduces costs and saves you time. 

Whether you’re looking for extra help to support your internal hiring team or want to outsource your staffing needs completely, we have a solution that suits your business. Schedule a call with our team today to get started. 

The first few minutes of the interview will set the tone for the rest of the conversation, so you want to start strong. Follow these tips for how to start an interview as the interviewer, and use the following sample script to facilitate a positive and productive interaction. 

Instructions for Starting the Interview

1. Begin with a warm greeting

Greet the candidate by name with a warm smile and a firm handshake. Thank them for attending, and let them know your time is valuable. 

While you don’t want to waste too much time before diving into the interview, a bit of small talk can help break the ice and make the candidate feel at ease. Consider asking them about their morning, their commute to the office, or another polite topic of conversation. 

2. Introduce yourself

A good candidate already has done their homework and knows who you are. However, formally introducing yourself and other people participating in the interview is still a professional courtesy. Give your name and title and briefly explain your role at the company. Do the same for each additional interviewer, or give each person the chance to make a brief introduction. 

3. Outline the interview structure

Interviews are most effective when they follow a predetermined structure. This helps keep the conversation on track and ensures you can cover all of the important topics during the allotted time. 

Outlining a rough timeline breakdown at the start of the interview sets expectations.

Here’s an example timeline for a 40-minute interview:

• 5 minutes: Introductions
• 10 minutes: Candidate’s background
• 10 minutes: Strengths and skills
• 10 minutes: Personality and culture
• 5 minutes: Questions from candidate

Be sure to point out that the candidate will have a chance to ask questions at the end of the interview so they can be thinking of what they want to ask. 

Additionally, suppose you’re using a format other than a traditional one-on-one interview, like a panel. In that case, it helps to explain briefly how the interview will be conducted.

4. Start with a general question

To transition into the interview and help you get to know the applicant, ask a question that prompts them to talk broadly about themself as a candidate. It can be helpful to bring up a specific detail from their resume to give them a starting point. For example, “I understand you’re currently in a sales associate position. Tell me about how you found yourself in that role.”

First Questions to Ask in a Job Interview

While you’re probably eager to hear about the candidate’s big success stories and professional ambitions, starting with a more generic question is best. This allows for a natural segue from small talk to deeper topics and gives the candidate a chance to give you their elevator pitch. 

Here are some good examples of questions to begin an interview.

• Tell me about yourself.
• Walk me through your background.
• Why were you interested in this position?
• What do you know about our company?
• What skills would you bring to the role?

Sample Script to Start an Interview

Hi, [candidate name]. It’s nice to meet you. I really appreciate you coming in today. Thanks for taking the time out of your schedule. I hope your day is going well so far.

I’m [your name], and I’m [job title] here at [company]. My job is to [give a brief explanation of your duties]. 

This interview will last about [interview length]. We’ll cover [topic #1, topic #2, topic #3]. At the end I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have. 

Let’s get started. Your resume says you’re currently a [candidate’s current job title] with [company name]. Tell me about what you do there.

Example Interview Introduction

“Hello, Mirabel. Thank you so much for meeting with us today. We’re excited to chat with you. Did you have any trouble finding the office?

My name is Keith Sommers, and I am Mead Corporation’s VP of Operations. I oversee the development department, as well as our finance and marketing teams.

Two other interviewers are joining us: Kathy Hix, our head of HR, and Michael Hernandez, our web development manager. If you were to join our team, Mike would be your direct manager. 

This is a panel-style interview, so each of us will take turns asking questions and might follow up on one another’s questions. The interview is divided into three main topics: technical skills, prior experience, and work style. We’ll spend about 10 to 15 minutes on each topic. At the end, you’ll have about 5 minutes to ask any of us questions. 

Ready to get started? Back-end programming knowledge is one of the main criteria we’re looking for for this role. What skills do you have in this area?”

Tips for a Strong Start to an Interview

Allow ample time

Don’t try to conduct an interview when you’re rushed. Avoid scheduling your next meeting back to back with the interview’s end time; instead, build in a buffer to gather your thoughts, jot down notes, and complete candidate scoring. If the conversation runs long, this will also give you a few minutes of flex time. 

Check the space

Before the candidate arrives, prepare the interview space. Make sure the room you plan on using isn’t double-booked and is clean and presentable. Check that there are enough chairs, that it’s not too hot or too cold, and that you have water available for yourself and the candidate. 

Review the candidate’s resume

You’ve presumably already seen the candidate’s resume, but it’s a good idea to review it again just before your conversation. This will ensure that the correct details are fresh in your mind and will remind you of any questions you want to ask this particular candidate. 

Communicate important details

Head off any anxiety by addressing topics about which the applicant will likely have questions. For example, if it’s a Zoom interview, let them know whether it’s being recorded and if so, how the recording will be used.

Keep it positive

Maintain a warm tone even if the interview isn’t going well. Remember, for a strong employer brand, you want all candidates (even the ones you don’t hire) to leave the experience with a positive impression. Interviewing is stressful, and you’ll make the experience a smoother one for everyone involved if you keep a professional and enthusiastic demeanor. 

Starting an interview strong as the interviewer fosters a constructive dialogue and helps you build rapport with potential future team members. With an inviting greeting, clear communication, and a tone of respect, you’ll create an environment where you can have a meaningful conversation and make an accurate hiring decision. 

Related: How to End the Interview as the Hiring Manager

Whether you’re totally flying by the seat of your pants when it comes to hiring, or you’re a seasoned hiring pro taking the reins at a startup for the first time, follow these startup recruitment strategies to win top talent.

Startup Recruitment Strategies to Attract Candidates

Get specific about your roles and responsibilities

While early employees at a startup commonly wear many hats out of necessity, don’t fall into the habit of looking for unicorns who can do it all. Ever heard the phrase “jack of all trades, master of none?” That’s exactly what you don’t want.

As a brand-new operation, you need candidates with specific expertise and knowledge that will enable you to grow in different areas of your business. To find them, get ultra-specific about the business need each position will serve. Outline the goals you expect the right candidate to meet within their first 90 days on the job as well as a broader vision for what long-term success will look like in the role.

Establish a hiring funnel

It might sound complicated, but a hiring funnel is simply a standardized framework you use to attract, assess, and hire candidates. Just as you have systems for other parts of your business, like manufacturing your product, having a system for hiring helps you get the job done consistently each time while optimizing resources like time and money spent.

It’s much easier (and more cost-efficient) to think through and establish a hiring funnel early on rather than trying to fix an ineffective system down the road. Remember, you can—and should!—analyze and tweak your hiring funnel often as your business grows to maximize its results.

Employ automation

The earlier you can incorporate automation into your hiring processes, the better. Automating things like candidate assessments and scheduling will save you time and energy that can be spent on other areas of your business, like operations. Plus, once your hiring team starts to grow, it’ll help ensure consistency between multiple team members.

Be realistic with staffing plans

While a goal like “hire ten people in the next 60 days” might sound reasonable, but is it achievable? Don’t leave it up to chance. Find out whether you’re setting realistic staffing goals by taking a microscope to your hiring process and how long each component of it takes.

For example, let’s say reviewing applications, screening candidates, and setting up interviews takes an average of 20 hours for each open position. For ten roles, that’s 200 hours—or five full work weeks—just to get to the interview phase. At this pace, hiring ten people in 60 days is quite ambitious, even if you have a full-time HR manager.

To avoid a staffing snafu, be sure to calculate and factor in your actual hiring metrics as you create your future staffing projections.

Write compelling job descriptions

If a candidate is scrolling through a job board and sees an opening at a well-known company like Apple or Toyota, they will probably take a closer look. Those are reputable employers, so the companies don’t have to work too hard to get job seekers’ attention. 

When you’re a new company, though, you don’t have an established reputation to rely upon. You need to make it so that when candidates come across your job posts, they’re compelled to click through and check them out. This requires strong job titles and descriptions.

Job titles should be direct, stating the name of the position and the most relevant details, which could include your location, the seniority level, or a succinct description of the company. Here are a few examples:

Social Media Manager – Dallas, TX

Manager, Social Media Marketing

Social Media Manager for Fast-Growing Technology Company 

Job descriptions should provide a clear summary of the key duties, a list of qualifications, and a blurb about the company. This last part–your elevator pitch–is critical for startups, and we’ll cover it next. 

Related: A-Z List of Sample Job Descriptions

Refine your elevator pitch

When you’re trying to woo investors, your elevator pitch should explain in a concise way what you do and why you’re worthy of an investment. You should also have an elevator pitch for candidates who work the same way, which will spark interest in working for you.

Lead with your mission—the guiding statement that explains why you’re in business—and focus on what sets you apart. As a new company, you’ll want to include some version of this elevator pitch in your job listings and other materials you use to reach out to prospective candidates.

Seek the right kind of experience

When it comes to startup hiring, not all experiences are created equal. A candidate whose resume boasts 20 years of operations experience at an established industry juggernaut might look great on paper, but that corporate background may bring its own set of pitfalls. In the startup world, agility is key, and someone who’s used to doing business at a careful, measured pace may slow you down.

That doesn’t mean everyone you hire must have previous startup experience; however, some corporate know-how can be useful. Yet it’s a great asset to have someone on your team who’s been there before and knows what it takes to bring a startup from conception to success at scale.

Recruit your evangelists

In Keurig’s early days, the coffee company was growing so quickly that it was hard to maintain a steady stream of high-quality candidates with the right expertise. The company’s solution? Recruiting candidates who were similar to its die-hard fans. Then-president Michelle Stacy told Harvard Business Review that the company focused on hiring employees who matched their customers’ affinity for coffee.

“That our employees loved a wide variety of coffee like our consumers [did] made it easier to trust they would do the right thing,” she said.

Your superfans already know your products well, so they bring authentic ideas drawn from real-world experience. They’re likely already onboard with your mission and values, and since they already follow your brand, it may be easier to get in front of them, which can contribute to lower hiring costs.

Get face-to-face time

One of the biggest hurdles to overcome when recruiting for a startup is the existing knowledge vacuum. Most job seekers–and most people in general—won’t have heard of you, so you have to start from scratch with each interaction to educate them on your brand. Though it’s time-consuming, the most effective way to build a lasting impression is through face-to-face interactions. 

When you’re talking with someone in person, it’s much easier for them to get a sense of who you are and the type of company you’re trying to build (and for you to get a sense of their personality, too). A live conversation is a valuable opportunity to dispel any qualms a candidate might have about joining a startup, like concerns about job security or an unmanageable workload. 

Seek out opportunities to meet prospective candidates face-to-face whenever possible, such as recruiting and networking events, industry meet-ups, and even informal gatherings. 

Take advantage of technology

When you can’t connect in person, technology like Zoom offers the next best thing: connecting virtually. Leverage video conferencing tools to host virtual events like online job fairs and candidate Q&As. These events are inexpensive, have a low barrier to entry, and allow you to reach a wide pool of talent in a short amount of time. 

Enlist a support team

It takes a village to build an all-star team, but as a startup, it may not be feasible to have more than one person heavily involved in the hiring process. Still, you can harness the “two heads are better than one” philosophy by enlisting a board of consultants to step in during your interview process. These might be trusted industry colleagues you call in as a favor or hired consultants with a more niche knowledge of the type of role you’re looking to fill.

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Offer flexibility

How can you compete against industry powerhouses who can easily one-up you in the salary department? By offering something modern candidates find even more valuable than money: flexibility.

Whether it’s unlimited time off, the ability to work remotely, or some other non-traditional work arrangement, making flexibility a core selling point can boost your startup recruiting game.

Sell the potential

It’s important to strive for buy-in among all employees, but it’s absolutely critical among your earliest hires. These are the people who will serve as the foundation of your company, and if they’re not onboard with the direction you’re taking, it could quickly throw the whole operation off track.

To hire startup employees who are aligned with your core mission and excited about the work it will take to get there, sell them on the potential of working for you. This might include discussing the ability to tackle challenging projects, pursue work with a deeper impact, play a foundational role in building a company, and so on. As much as you’re selling the role you need them to fill today, you’re also selling them on the vision of the company you’re building for tomorrow.

Build your employer brand

When you’re focused on keeping your business running, thinking about anything outside your own four walls can be difficult. But if you want to win at startup hiring, don’t neglect the opportunity to build a strong employer brand from day one.

Create a positive image among would-be candidates by being present at industry events like conferences and trade shows. Likewise, work to build recognition as a steward of your community by getting involved with social initiatives that are aligned with the company’s mission.

Related: How to Elevate Your Employer Branding to Attract Top Talent

Focus on the candidate experience

A strong candidate experience is one more way to set your startup apart among the many companies vying for the same top candidates. Remember, the experience a candidate has when applying is often their first impression of your organization and may play a role in their decision to accept or decline an offer.

Work to create a seamless application and interview process, one that moves along steadily, eliminates needless steps, and maintains communication with the candidate through every phase. This post explains how to create a flawless candidate experience.

Follow the data

Recruiting produces an immense amount of data, which can be used to hire faster, more accurately, and less expensively. We can’t overstate the importance of examining your recruiting data regularly, especially in your company’s early days. 

Measuring and tracking key recruiting metrics like your time to hire, cost per hire, application completion rate, and offer acceptance rate will shed light on where your efforts yield success and where you’re allocating resources without producing results. It will also help you pinpoint key bottlenecks or dropoff points in the hiring process, which can be corrected to improve the candidate experience and get more of your offers accepted. 

Related: How to Leverage Recruiting Metrics to Improve Your Hiring Process

Hire the Staffing and Recruiting Experts

Your early hires are a fundamentally important part of your organization. Hiring the wrong people can cost you precious cash, slow your growth, and potentially put the very survival of your business at risk. Don’t wing it when it comes to your startup recruitment strategy. Instead, hire the staffing experts at 4 Corner Resources.

4 Corner Resources is your trusted partner for startup hiring. Our headhunters will help you refine your job requirements and harness our proprietary staffing technology to find candidates who are a perfect fit to help you thrive. As your business expands, we’ll expand with you, helping you navigate the growing pains of staffing a dynamic, innovative organization.

Ready to get started? Contact us today and get on the fast track to startup recruiting success.

Some CEOs, like Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook/Meta, and Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway, serve as the face of their company in the public eye, acting as a mouthpiece and figurehead for the organization. Other CEOs prefer to keep a lower profile, leaving the public-facing duties to different members of leadership while steering the organization in less conspicuous but equally impactful ways.

How to Hire a CEO

The CEO will act as the company’s fearless captain, steering the proverbial ship in both smooth and stormy seas. Since they’re typically the highest-paid executive in an organization, hiring a new one usually generates a good amount of industry buzz. The right selection can bring enormous value to a firm, while the wrong one can spell disaster. Thus, you want to take every measure to make sure you choose the perfect person for the job. 

1. Allow ample time

The hiring process for a CEO typically takes several months. In some cases, you might need to fill the leadership role unexpectedly or urgently, but ideally, you want to allow a long enough window of time to make an informed and not rushed decision. 

2. Assemble a hiring committee

Hiring a CEO is a process that should involve multiple decision-makers. Assemble a committee that includes all key stakeholders and some company staff. Be mindful that the people you select need to be able to be trusted to exercise discretion and keep the details of the search private. 

3. Establish sourcing requirements

When looking for a new CEO, consider candidates from within the company, such as if there is a point person in the former CEO who knows the ropes and can step seamlessly into the job. Or, you may prefer an external candidate who can bring a fresh perspective or a new set of skills to the role. Defining what you’re looking for from your new leader is a critical early step that will determine where you look for candidates. 

Executive search firms that specialize in hiring members of leadership are often brought in for expert consultation and niche sourcing capabilities. 

Related: Sample CEO Job Descriptions

4. Assess qualifications

Serving in an executive role requires qualifications different from most ordinary jobs. Whereas most roles should be filled primarily based on skills, a CEO needs a specific blend of hard and soft skills, prior experience, industry knowledge, and cultural alignment to be a strong fit. A candidate who lacks leadership experience but possesses innate vision and strong industry knowledge might shine in the CEO’s chair. That’s why assessing candidates from a holistic point of view is especially important. 

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5. Conduct interviews

Interviews for a CEO position typically take place over several days or weeks. It’s common for candidates to spend multiple days onsite at the company, meeting with different members of the hiring committee. Interviews should include questions that cover a range of topics, including but not limited to:

• Experience
• Motivation
• Personality
• Values
• Industry trends 
• Company positioning
• Strategy
• Vision
• Organizational processes

6. Check references

For some roles, you can get away with not checking references (although we would never recommend it). This, however, is not one of those roles. CEO finalists should be vetted carefully with reference and background checks. Speak with former colleagues, managers, subordinates, and personal references to understand the person’s character and capabilities fully. 

7. Keep an open mind

CEOs can be wildly diverse in their background and experience level. The key is finding the right fit for YOUR organization. To give you a broad range of candidates to choose from, interview a mix of internal and external candidates and people with and without prior CEO experience. 

Remember that other executive team members can fill gaps in skills or expertise. For example, a dynamic candidate who lacks public-facing experience could receive PR coaching to refine their skills or hand public appearance duties off to the company’s COO. Also, consider that you may be able to meet the company’s needs with a part-time CEO or a consultant. 

Whether you’re looking for an internal or external candidate, someone who thrives in the spotlight or prefers to shy away from it, all excellent CEOs have a few standout traits in common. When hiring a CEO, look for these key skills. 

Related: The 7 Reasons Why You Should Hire an Executive Recruiter

Must-Have CEO Skills

Leadership

No organization is free of problems. The CEO sets the tone for how an organization will respond to its problems and navigate tough times. A strong leader can bounce back after a setback and outline a clear path forward for the rest of the organization to follow.

Ability to delegate

Great CEOs breed great teams, and that can’t happen without lots of delegation. Rather than micromanaging, a good CEO empowers their employees to take ownership of their work. This, in turn, inspires a sense of pride in the job, contributing to a strong culture. 

Accountability

Though the ability to delegate tasks is critical, a CEO also recognizes that the buck stops with them. The company’s success–and more importantly, its failures–rests on their shoulders. Look for a CEO with a proven track record of taking accountability for significant projects. You can also learn a lot about this skill by asking candidates about times they’ve dealt with failure. 

Bold thinking

The ability to innovate is a make-or-break factor for companies in today’s marketplace. More forward-thinking firms quickly overtake those that resist change. COVID-19 was a perfect example of this, with companies that failed to pivot to pandemic-friendly options like online shopping and contactless delivery and, as a result, didn’t survive. 

A strong CEO needs the vision to anticipate what’s ahead before it arrives. They must be open to new ideas and willing to try new things in an attempt to accomplish what’s never been done before. 

Creativity

The best leaders rarely follow the same path others have taken before. Great CEOs have a knack for seeing solutions in the most unlikely places and forging new and creative ways forward. Creativity is closely linked with adaptability, which is another highly important CEO skill. 

Communication

It’s one thing to have big ideas; it’s another to convey them clearly to others and get people onboard with enthusiasm. The ideal CEO communicates in plain, direct language, using the appropriate tone and tactics for different groups, such as employees, stakeholders, and the public. 

They must be able to distill complex concepts down to their most important points and present them confidently. Communicating frequently is also a necessary step in building trust. 

Ability to make difficult decisions

Tough decisions are an inherent part of any leadership role. Wavering in the face of them can cause uncertainty at best and chaos at worst. 

A CEO needs to be able to make decisions that, though unpopular, are the smart choice for the company. This might include making painful cuts to ensure the firm’s future viability, letting go of employees who can’t or won’t pull their weight, or taking a controversial stance on an important issue. The right person for the job will be able to discern the right decision and make it unapologetically, even amid pushback and criticism. 

Sincerity

In an age where consumers’ personal data changes hands like currency, people value transparency more than ever before. Trust is paramount to the savvy customer, and companies that want to earn that trust need a leader who can walk the walk. 

A great CEO stays true to their word and follows through on promises, even when it’s inconvenient or doesn’t directly translate into more dollars and cents for the company. When mistakes are made–as they inevitably are in any successful organization–a sincere CEO owns up to them quickly and takes steps to correct them. 

An eye for talent

While most CEOs don’t have a heavy hand in hiring, the best ones can spot untapped potential when they come across it. In addition to being a company’s chief executive, they’re also its recruiter-in-chief, helping attract the best and brightest talent and using their high profile to make a positive case for working for the company. 

A good CEO can discern where fresh talent is needed–be it in product development, marketing, or on the board of directors–and use their influence to ensure the necessary hires are made. 

Relationship building

As the company’s top employee, a CEO faces the not-so-easy task of building and navigating relationships in many different areas. They must successfully interface with employees, managers, partners, vendors, customers, the community, and more. Their ability to forge meaningful, mutually beneficial relationships will bring about new opportunities and serve the company’s interests over the long haul.

Management skills

A winning CEO is also the organization’s manager-in-chief; they are accountable for each and every employee on the payroll. As such, they must be able to manage people at all levels of responsibility, coach staffers to improve their weaknesses, hone people’s strengths, and coax out their employees’ best work without burning them out. 

If all of this seems like a tall order, it’s worthwhile to note that not every CEO needs every skill. All people have weaknesses, and other key executive team members, like the COO can compensate for those of a CEO. Thus, in addition to considering a candidate’s own qualities when hiring a CEO, it’s important to also take stock of how their skills will mesh with those your leadership team already has.

Refine Your CEO Search With Help From an Expert Recruiting Team

Whether you’re just starting to look for a new CEO or you need someone to breathe new life into your search, turn to our staffing experts. Our executive search solutions will help you go deep on the qualities needed to lead your organization confidently into the future. Take the next step toward finding the perfect fit by scheduling a call with us today.

We’ll explain the difference between talent acquisition and recruitment and outline some situations where one tactic may be superior to the other for your particular needs. 

What is Recruitment?

Recruitment is the process of finding, attracting, screening, interviewing, and hiring candidates for a company’s open roles. It takes place over a short time frame and aims to fill vacancies as quickly as possible with strong-fitting candidates. Recruitment activities include posting job openings, reviewing resumes, scheduling and conducting interviews, and making job offers. 

What is Talent Acquisition?

Talent acquisition is a strategic practice for forecasting vacancies, attracting talented candidates, and forging relationships with those candidates before jobs need to be filled. It’s a long-term approach heavily focused on creating a strong talent pipeline. Talent acquisition activities include staffing analysis, succession planning, employer brand building, and candidate relationship nurturing. 

The Difference Between Talent Acquisition and Recruitment

Though the activities involved in recruitment and talent acquisition overlap somewhat, the two processes vary in several key ways. 

Time frame

Recruitment is focused on near-term results to fill vacant roles efficiently. Recruitment activities are action-oriented and meant to deliver qualified candidates quickly. Talent acquisition, on the other hand, has a longer lead time. Initiatives aim to deliver long-term results and require more time to plan and execute. 

Scope

Though both recruitment and talent acquisition involves finding qualified candidates to meet a company’s staffing needs, recruitment has a more narrow scope that is focused primarily on the tasks that are directly associated with the hiring process. Talent acquisition duties are broader and include things like crafting recruitment marketing campaigns, running employee referral programs, planning initiatives to boost retention, conducting candidate feedback surveys, and analyzing and acting upon recruitment data. 

Objectives

The narrow versus broad distinction also applies to the unique recruitment and talent acquisition goals. Recruitment’s primary goal is to fill open positions efficiently. Talent acquisition, on the other hand, aims to utilize staffing to achieve the company’s strategic vision.

When to Use Talent Acquisition

Employing talent acquisition strategies is a smart approach if your organization:

Hires a large number of employees every year

When you’re hiring continuously, it’s inefficient to start from square one each time. Building a talent pipeline that’s continuously filled with strong candidates will enable you to hire quicker and with greater accuracy. 

Is in a niche field

In industries like technology and law, hiring requires a specific skill set that’s not always readily available. Building talent relationships over time can give you faster access to the niche skills you need when an opening becomes available. 

Is focused on long-term growth

If your sights are set on hitting key performance and growth targets, you need the right staff in place to get there. Talent acquisition will help you attract and retain top professionals in your market for a competitive advantage. 

Struggles with high turnover

In some fields, like healthcare and the call center industry, turnover is a persistent challenge. If this is the case, finding qualified talent on an ongoing basis will ensure your operational needs are met and help avoid service disruptions caused by inadequate staffing. 

Is in a highly competitive market

In a strong candidate’s market, it can take several months to fill a single posting. Anticipating likely openings and seeking out candidates to fill them in advance can put you ahead of the game and avoid extended vacancies. 

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When to Use Recruitment

It may be to your advantage to use recruiting if the following are true:

You only hire a few employees every year

If you’re a small business that only has a vacancy every couple of months, building a talent pipeline is not an efficient use of your time. Instead, your efforts would be better spent identifying reliable sourcing channels to find local talent and using them to reach candidates when openings become available. 

Turnover is low

Do your employees tend to stick around for many years? First, congrats on the great retention! Second, it may not make sense to devote the time and planning that talent acquisition requires if attrition is rare. 

You have a one-time need

If you’re looking to fill a niche position like an executive seat or a highly technical role, you don’t need to have a steady stream of qualified applicants. Instead, you should focus on identifying a handful of candidates who possess the required skills and are available immediately. 

You hire a high volume of entry-level roles

When conducting volume hiring for entry-level jobs, posting on job boards may be the only recruitment channel you need. In this case, you can keep costs down by focusing on what works and spending most of your time on screening and interviews. 

Tips for Deciding Whether to Use Recruitment or Talent Acquisition

1. Analyze organization’s goals

Based on the factors we’ve outlined above, you should have a pretty good idea of which camp your needs and goals fall into. Talent acquisition will be the stronger choice if you’re invested in building a strong employer brand and dedicating the effort to nurture candidate relationships. Recruitment is a more effective choice if you’re looking to hire immediately to meet short-term needs. Keep in mind that many organizations utilize a mix of recruiting and talent acquisition strategies to achieve their goals and that, in time, talent acquisition simplifies recruitment.

2. Assess your bandwidth

Think about an old house. It requires maintenance to keep it in good condition, and each repair delivers immediate results–a new coat of paint and a fixed boiler. At a certain point, though, if the repairs become excessive, it may be more cost-effective to bulldoze the house and build a new one with materials that are designed for longevity. 

There’s a similar cost-versus-benefit situation between recruitment and talent acquisition. There’s no doubt that talent acquisition requires a significant investment of time and resources, while recruitment delivers faster results. At a certain point, however, the repeated efforts required by recruiting will become inefficient. Transitioning to talent acquisition will produce better long-term results and be more cost-effective. 

Analyzing your current and future bandwidth for recruiting activities will help you determine whether you’re using your hiring resources optimally. 

3. Consider company culture

Everyone needs to agree on the overarching goals when engaging in talent acquisition. One of those goals is building a cohesive culture. So, before you get too far into planning talent acquisition initiatives, it’s crucial to define your desired culture and identify individuals who fit within it.  

4. Leverage a specialist

Professional recruiters and talent acquisition specialists can be valuable members of your hiring team, both to supplement your in-house staff and outsource activities entirely. Enlisting an expert can save time, keep costs down, and prevent hiring mistakes. 

Talent acquisition and recruiting are important parts of an organization’s strategy to attract top talent. One supports the other. By choosing the strategy (or a combination of both) that fits your organizational goals and staffing needs, you’ll be better equipped to handle changes in the market while maintaining strong key performance indicators. 

What is a net promoter score, exactly, and how is it connected to your hiring process? Read on to learn how you can use this one simple question to gauge the effectiveness of your talent acquisition efforts and project future staffing success. 

What is Net Promoter Score?

Your net promoter score is a number formulated by gathering customer answers to a single question: on a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend [product/brand/company] to others? One is the lowest possible score, while ten is the highest. Higher scores from a customer are strongly associated with a higher likelihood of repeat purchases, brand loyalty, and other important performance metrics that influence business growth. 

Here’s how a customer is defined based on their NPS response:

• Detractors: customers that give a rating from 1 to 6 
• Passive: customers that give a rating of 7 or 8
• Promoters: customers that give a rating of 9 or 10

Your overall score is a number ranging from -100 to 100. It’s calculated by the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors. So, if you had all promoters, your score would be a perfect 100. If you had all detractors, your score would be a terrible -100. A positive NPS means you have more promoters than detractors, while a score above 50 is considered outstanding. 

As you can see, the net promoter score rating system is a quick and useful way to gauge a company’s performance when used with customers. In fact, companies found it so effective that they began using it to gauge employee satisfaction, asking, ‘How likely would you be to recommend this company as a place to work?’ 

Now, more companies are adopting it further for use on candidates with the question, ‘How likely would you be to recommend that someone apply to work here?’ When used in the context of job candidates, net promoter score is commonly referred to as cNPS. 

How Does Your Net Promoter Score Pertain to Recruitment?

Your cNPS is a broad measure of the average candidate experience when applying to your company, which is directly tied to all sorts of factors from your offer acceptance rate to your employer brand. Here are some important ways cNPS influences recruitment success. 

Candidate experience

A poor candidate experience is one of the top reasons candidates reject job offers. When the job application process is disjointed, sloppy, or inefficient, it can spark worries among applicants that other processes at your company will be this way, too. On the other hand, a smooth and enjoyable candidate experience promotes excitement and enthusiasm about joining your company. 

Employer branding

A good cNPS indicates that candidates are happy with their experience within your hiring funnel. Positive word of mouth reflects well on your company, which means you don’t have to do as much work to convince candidates to apply when you’re hiring. Recruiting aside, a strong employer brand is good for business. 

Attracting talent

When job seekers research companies, they often seek out information from prior candidates and current/former employees. Sites like Glassdoor are known for this. A high cNPS can serve as a testament to your company’s positive culture and employee satisfaction, making it more appealing to prospective candidates.

Retention

Happy candidates typically become engaged employees and are likelier to stick with their jobs than dissatisfied workers. As any recruiter knows, retention is an important long-term KPI, and having a strong cNPS will boost this impactful metric. 

Continuous improvement

One major benefit of using cNPA is that it’s a structured measurement. While candidate experience surveys are highly useful, the open-answer information they collect can be inconsistent from applicant to applicant, and they don’t offer a uniform way to compare answers against one another. The simple scoring format of cNPS gives you an easy way to compare apples to apples from one candidate to the next to drive continuous improvement.  

While it’s not a be-all, end-all metric by any means, net promoter score is a great way to track your recruiting progress over time and quickly gauge the impact of any changes you’ve made. For example, if you institute a new application format and see a subsequent rise in cNPS, it’s a good indicator that the new format is a success (and vice versa for a subsequent drop in score).

The Challenges and Considerations of NPS in Recruiting

NPS isn’t a magic bullet for measuring candidate experience. It has some downsides that require consideration. 

Limited visibility

As we’ve already touched on, one of the things that makes NPS such an appealing measurement is its simplicity. But this simplicity also has a big disadvantage: it doesn’t give much room for context or nuance. If your cNPS is lagging, it’s not always immediately clear why. Further investigation through candidate feedback surveys and exit interviews is required to delve deeper into the details of candidates’ experiences and in turn, make meaningful changes.

Limited reach

cNPS scoring only collects feedback from applicants who have a current or very recent relationship with your brand. But many other people are influenced by your recruiting efforts, like prospective candidates who see your recruitment ads but don’t click on them or people who heard about a negative experience from a friend of a friend. Learning more about the perceptions of these individuals could be valuable, but they will never receive a cNPS survey.

Timing

Setting up and executing a cNPS survey can be time-consuming, but hiring moves fast. Candidates’ feedback is going to be the most useful when it’s fresh in their minds, but surveys often don’t reach people until several months after their interaction with an employer. The speed must be taken into consideration when deploying cNPS efforts. 

How to Use Net Promoter Score to Hire Better

Follow these five tips to use net promoter scores to drive better recruiting performance. 

1. Think of candidates as an extension of your customers

For most businesses, the benefit of gathering feedback from customers is a no-brainer. For some reason, though, many organizations fail to extend the same logic to their job applicants. Approach your candidate experience the same way you would approach your customer experience, making it a positive one for buyers and non-buyers (or in this case, hires and non-hires) alike. 

Why do you need to focus on a good experience, even for candidates you don’t hire? Because they have the potential to really hurt your employer brand. Whereas 87% of people will tell a friend about a positive brand experience, 95% will share with others about a negative one. Tracking your net promoter score and making incremental improvements to it over time can have meaningful implications for your candidate experience, which minimizes negative conversations about your company. 

2. Use it with new hires, but more importantly, with non-hires

When measuring cNPS, consistency is key—the single-question survey should be distributed to all applicants regardless of whether they’re ultimately hired or not. As we discussed above, the ideal scenario is for all candidates, even those you reject, to come out of your hiring process with a positive impression. 

In fact, we’d argue that the scores you receive from non-hires—which will be the majority of applicants—are even more important than those you receive from candidates who wind up joining your team. While new hires may feel compelled to leave a high score simply because they wound up getting the job, non-hires have nothing to gain by sugar-coating their answer. Thus, their feedback is likely to be a more honest assessment of your actual candidate experience. 

3. Make it simple

One of the primary reasons the net promoter score is so useful is its simplicity. The single-question format has a low barrier to entry, which helps you gather as many responses as possible. It also lends itself to a number of different collection formats, from your website to email to written responses via a physical form. 

To maximize the data you gather, make it as easy as possible for candidates to participate. Some methods we like to use are embedding the question in an email with a clickable answer so candidates can weigh in without even leaving their inbox or using a free service like Survey Monkey to send a link and letting candidates know in advance that it’s only a single question. 

4. Test it at various stages of the hiring funnel

Another useful quality of cNPS is that you can send the survey at any point in the hiring funnel that you choose. You’ll still get an apples-to-apples comparison if you send it to all candidates simultaneously. 

This is useful because it can help you pinpoint where breakdowns are occurring in your recruiting process. For example, if a cNPS survey sent after the screening process yields a score of 55 but one sent after the interview process yields a much lower score, you’ll know that something is lacking in your interview execution or follow-up and can take appropriate steps to correct it. 

5. Follow up to address low scores

There are various reasons a candidate may have a bad hiring experience, such as a rude interviewer, an extensive interview process, or a lack of feedback. We mentioned that NPS isn’t the be-all and end-all—that’s why it’s important to dig for more information via a candidate experience survey. 

Candidate experience surveys are longer, more in-depth questionnaires that give context to positive or negative net promoter scores. They ask about the candidate’s overall experience and delve into specifics like the written application and the interview process. 

While you may choose to follow up on all NPS surveys with a candidate experience survey, it’s especially important to do so with detractors so you can learn the reasons behind their poor interaction with your company. 

Here are some good questions to ask in a candidate experience survey:

• What words would you use to describe the interview process at [company]? (i.e., challenging, enjoyable, stressful, etc.)
• How would you rate the level of communication you received from [recruiter] during the hiring process?
• How would you rate your understanding of the role you applied for after the interview?
• What could we do differently to make our hiring process better?

Collecting candidate feedback in this manner not only gives you a breadth of information to use to make internal improvements, but it also gives candidates an important outlet that can help deter them from turning to public sites like Glassdoor to air their grievances. 

Tips on Promoting Your NPS

Set goals

Without specific goals, the desire to raise your NPS is just that–a desire, with no meaningful action plan. Drive results by setting measurable KPIs and analyzing them regularly. For example, you might set a goal to raise your NPS by 10 points within six months. 

Keep in mind that NPS can fluctuate widely if you look at it in too-narrow windows of time (like one week to the next). So, it’s best to analyze NPS over larger time frames and allow sufficient time to make meaningful improvements to it. 

Be transparent

When you send out an NPS survey, give the recipient context. Tell them why you’re asking the question(s) and how the information will be used. Simply knowing that you’re seeking feedback in order to improve can position you more positively in a candidate’s mind. 

Engage with promoters

People who reveal themselves to be promoters are brand evangelists in waiting. Give them additional opportunities to engage, like sharing your posts on social media or inviting them to join your mailing list.

Follow-up with detractors

Once someone lets you know they’ve had a bad experience, don’t just leave them hanging. Follow up to thank them for their feedback, apologize for their subpar experience, and let them know you’re working to make improvements. 

Hire More Effectively by Partnering with 4 Corner Resources

Identifying and attracting the best candidates is one part art, one part science. 4 Corner Resources will help you master both aspects with a combination of time-tested recruiting methodologies and more than 15 years of experience in the field.

When you partner with our team of seasoned headhunters, you’ll enjoy faster sourcing and screening, more efficient interview scheduling, and a seamless onboarding process, all of which contribute to a better candidate experience. Learn how we can help you fill your open roles faster and at a lower cost by scheduling your free consultation now.

The people responsible for delivering that service? Call center agents, and they’re the foundation for a positive relationship with your customers. As shopping patterns continue to shift away from physical storefronts to virtual options, friendly and efficient customer service is more important than ever. 

Here, we’ll explain what you need to know about the modern call center landscape and the most critical things to keep in mind when hiring for this essential business function. 

The Importance of Hiring the Right Talent for Call Center Success

The call center talent you hire impacts your business in a number of ways. 

1. Customer service quality

Customer service agents not only resolve problems but also make customers feel heard. High-quality agents empower your company to deliver fast, efficient service that makes the customer feel like they matter to the organization. This aids in customer retention and boosts customer lifetime value. 

2. Brand reputation

It’s a piece of business wisdom you’ve probably heard repeated many times before: a happy customer keeps it to themself, but an unhappy one will tell anyone who will listen about their negative experience. If you want to preserve a positive brand reputation, you must keep negative interactions to a minimum. This starts with hiring empathetic and resourceful agents. 

3. Turnover

Turnover is a huge challenge in the call center industry, with average annual turnover rates ranging from 30 to 45% (a turnover rate of 10% is considered ideal). Hiring candidates who are a strong fit for the job can minimize resignations, which reduces the cost of hiring and training new agents. 

4. Data collection

Call centers are a massive source of data on customer trends, product issues, and opportunities for innovation–powerful information that can transform your business. Better agents can yield better data, which can be used to produce desirable business outcomes. 

The Breakdown of the call center environment

Call centers are offices dedicated to handling inbound and outbound customer service. Some call centers are owned by or contracted with a particular company, while others provide service to numerous firms. 

Inbound vs outbound call centers

There are two types of call centers: inbound and outbound. Some call centers function as both inbound and outbound service providers. 

Agents at inbound call centers receive hundreds, and perhaps even thousands of calls every day from customers. Issues range from questions about accounts, billing matters, and order placement to technical support inquiries. Representatives assist customers, record calls, and document key information. 

Team members perform marketing activities at outbound call centers by calling customers about promotions and other services. They might try acquiring new customers, upsell existing customers on additional products, collect overdue accounts, conduct feedback surveys, or provide proactive customer notifications. 

Both types of call centers feature a built-in system to track the number of daily calls received, the duration of these calls, and other metrics.

Though there are online schools that provide call center training programs, most call center positions do not require a college degree or previous experience in the field. Many companies offer on-the-job training.

Call center environment

The typical call center is a large space with workers stationed in cubicles, each with a computer and headset. Traditionally, call centers have been known as less-than-appealing workspaces, with little natural light, unexciting decor, and an abundance of screens. The work is fast-paced, and the environment can often be loud and hectic. Thus, it’s no surprise that the physical space itself is an obstacle to attracting and retaining workers. We’ll talk more about overcoming these obstacles a little later on. 

The Outlook of the Call Center Industry

The global call center industry is massive and growing, projected to reach a value of $494.7 billion by the year 2030. It’s growing at a rate of about 6%, which is a bit higher than the average for all industries. With this strong projected growth outlook, companies will need to maintain steady call center hiring in order to keep pace. This means overcoming the staffing challenges that plague the industry. 

Thankfully, technology and other market factors have sparked a transformation in the call center industry in recent years. For example, COVID-19 forced many organizations to adopt remote and hybrid work arrangements that workers found favorable. Artificial intelligence and machine learning increasingly allow agents to offload more tedious support inquiries, which can help reduce burnout. 

Companies looking to keep pace with the call center industry’s continued growth will need to adopt forward-thinking strategies to onboard and retain superior agents. 

The Impact of Technology on the Call Center Industry

Technology is shaking up the call center industry in numerous ways, many beneficial to businesses and employees. 

Remote work

The pandemic forced companies to adopt novel strategies to minimize service disruptions, and one of those strategies was to facilitate working from home. Agents can provide secure, high-quality support remotely with the help of technology like VPNs and cloud-based call center software. 

Remote work opportunities not only promote a greater work-life balance that makes agents happy but also reduce the infrastructure costs associated with maintaining large facilities. Additionally, they can help companies maintain a more diverse team of agents and cover all time zones. 

AI

Artificial intelligence helps agents do their jobs faster and more effectively. Intelligent call routing systems, for example, can route calls to the most appropriate agent on the first attempt, reducing frustration and resulting in better service. AI can also tackle tedious agent tasks, like answering frequently asked questions, and aid in information gathering ahead of a live call to help agents work more efficiently. 

Key Skills and Attributes for Call Center Staff

Here are the top skills and attributes to look for when hiring call center staff.

• Communication. Call center agents communicate daily, both verbally and in writing, making strong communication skills a must. 
• Emotional intelligence. Good agents empathize with a customer’s situation and can tactfully navigate challenging conversations.  
• Problem solving. Agents often encounter complex, frustrating issues. They must be able to quickly assess those issues and determine the most appropriate course of action. 
• Conflict resolution. An effective agent must be able to maintain professionalism even when dealing with difficult customers and should de-escalate the situation when possible. 
• Product knowledge. Strong knowledge of the product or service helps agents answer questions and troubleshoot customer issues more effectively. 
• Adaptability. The topic of conversation can vary dramatically from one support call to the next. The best agents can easily transition from a billing issue to a tech support question. 
• Tech-savvy. Call center agents must navigate various systems and pieces of software to retrieve customer information, resolve issues, and keep records. Being amenable to new technology is essential. 
• Time management. Agents often handle multiple inquiries simultaneously, so strong time management skills are necessary to prioritize tasks and meet performance targets. 
• Attention to detail. Customer service agents must be detail-oriented to keep accurate records of their interactions and comply with the specific rules and regulations that are pertinent to their industry. 
• Resilience. Call center work can be mentally and emotionally draining. Agents who are equipped with healthy coping strategies will be better positioned to succeed. 

Are Virtual Call Centers the Future?

Companies use call centers to manage customer orders, questions, and complaints.  While traditional call centers are housed in central brick-and-mortar locations, a call center trend over recent years has seen many companies implementing virtual agent teams.

According to Liveops, more than 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies are either currently using or planning to use home-based agents. These companies are discovering that the virtual agent business model reduces costs, improves customer service efficiency, and decreases employee turnover.

The virtual agent model is appealing to the business and employees alike.  For the company, it allows them to reduce overhead expenses by eliminating costly office space  while hiring from a greatly expanded candidate pool. For the employees, it allows for s the opportunity to work from home, and the elimination of  commute time and costs, while providing better work-life balance due to flexible working hours.

Today’s work-at-home call center agent model has also grown with expanded training capabilities and improved cloud-based software options. This strategy provides almost no geographic limitations as long as employees can access high-speed Internet at home. Complete virtual call center firms like Arise, Sykes Home, and Working Solutions pioneered this model and have seen great success. Corporate titans like HSN, Enterprise, and Amazon have leveraged the virtual model to coordinate their growth effectively.

The call center industry trend of hiring work-from-home employees is accompanied by a shift in focus from cost containment to a pleasant customer experience. Because of the improved technology, more companies are shifting their call center roles from foreign countries back to the United States. Understandably, consumers tend to get a better customer experience when call centers are staffed by people with whom they can communicate clearly. Keeping technology infrastructure in the United States is more cost-effective.

Retention Challenges and Strategies to Consider

Stressful work 

The stressful nature of call center work is arguably the biggest challenge recruiters face. You can always offer higher pay but can’t make customers any less frustrated. You can, however, alleviate the stress by providing adequate training and empowering agents with cutting-edge technology that makes their work more seamless. 

Recognize agent accomplishments and incentivize high performance. Invest in culture initiatives so workers don’t feel as though they’re disposable. Most importantly, prioritize accurate hiring so that you’re onboarding people who are a strong fit for the unique demands of call center work. 

Nonstandard hours

Some call centers require staffing around the clock, which means agents work nights, weekends, holidays, and every other undesirable time. You can make the nonstandard hours less unpleasant by ensuring there are enough experienced agents on every shift to respond to challenging inquiries and scheduling new agents on shifts that typically have lower volume. Employ transparent scheduling practices and give agents greater control, like using technology that simplifies shift changes and time off requests. 

Unappealing environment 

We talked a lot about the negative aspects of the call center workspace already–cramped cubicles, a bland office, and so on. Adopting remote and hybrid work arrangements can minimize the downsides of working onsite and give agents the increased flexibility they desire. 

Let Us Help You Hire the Best Customer Service Staff

4 Corner Resources (4CR) is an experienced and innovative leader who helps companies like yours find skilled and qualified team members for their vacant positions.

We offer call center staffing solutions for businesses of all sizes – from startups to SMBs and large corporations throughout the United States. Our knowledge and passion for what we do, and our flexible terms and conditions, set us apart in the world of headhunting and recruiting.

We welcome the opportunity to connect if you need help identifying the right candidates for your vacancies! We’re on standby to help you transform your workforce and find the ideal candidate today!

Simply put, prioritizing the strategic initiatives required to drive the business requires putting trust in employees. The right employees. Hiring conscientious, trustworthy people will allow you to focus on the big picture while overseeing a cohesive, well-functioning workforce.

The Importance of Hiring the Right People

Hiring the right people will benefit your business in several important ways – both tangible and intangible.

Achieve goals

Scaling an organization is not a solo act. To grow and prosper, a leader needs the right team. Strong talent is required to accomplish meaningful business objectives, whether you’re reaching a certain revenue level, shaking up your industry, or making a difference in customers’ lives. 

Build a cohesive culture

One thing that sets the greatest companies apart is that their employees genuinely love working there. A positive, healthy culture makes people want to come to work every day. Strategic hiring will help you build a team that works together effectively and enjoys doing so. 

Promote longevity

When you hire thoughtfully, you’ll be more likely to select candidates who are the right fit, making them more likely to stay on staff for the long term. Strong retention promotes a resilient, seasoned workforce that will ensure your business can stand the test of time and weather the challenges that will inevitably come your way. 

Avoid hiring mistakes

Hiring the wrong people costs money, causes service disruptions, and lowers morale. A sound hiring strategy prevents hiring mistakes and their negative impacts on the business. A well-thought-out plan for interviewing and decision-making can have a significantly positive impact.

It’s also worth noting that no company or interview process can prevent bad hires. Yes, I said it, just as I’ve said to countless staffing clients and prospects. The very nature of hiring people creates infinite possibilities for things to go awry, so don’t focus on or expect perfection. Instead, increase your odds of success by implementing an efficient and consistent interview process.

Strategies for Recruiting the Ideal Candidates for Your Company

1. Identify your hiring needs

Unfortunately, there’s no playbook that can tell you which roles to hire for at what time. Every business’ hiring needs will be different depending on market, size, goals, and other factors. One business might hire an entire executive team before building out its sales force, while another might have a team of salespeople in place before finding it necessary to have a dedicated CFO or CMO, and so forth. So, you’ll need to assess your unique situation to determine your most prominent staffing needs. 

Consider the company’s growth trajectory. How fast are you growing, and how much additional bandwidth is required to accommodate that growth? What new initiatives will impact staffing needs? Which roles are most critical to facilitate growth without interrupting operations?

Next, consider skills gaps. Which core competencies is the company lacking, or where is more depth required? Can existing employees be provided further training to cover gaps, or is additional expertise required?

This analysis should give you a solid foundation to set hiring priorities. 

Related: How to Identify and Set Hiring Priorities

2. Define your culture

Before you begin posting job listings, it’s important to define the culture you want to build. It’s impossible to conduct intentional hiring without a clear idea of the type of team you want to form. 

Your culture consists of a number of elements: intrinsic things like your values and desired staff attributes like integrity and humility, but also more tangible things like your work style and how teams are structured. 

A clearly defined culture will make hiring easier because it allows you to see which candidates will fit into your culture plan and which are clearly a poor match. It also helps you hire for potential, which is the idea of prioritizing trainable people aligned with your ideals versus onboarding candidates who have loads of experience but are a weaker cultural fit. 

3. Write strong job descriptions

Job descriptions are part sales pitch and part wish list. If written properly, they can do more than explain the position’s responsibilities – they can actually help you attract great candidates.

Make sure your JDs include all relevant details, including a well-defined list of requirements like education or prior experience. It should also share the value proposition you offer as an employer–your culture, what sets you apart, and why a prospective applicant would want to work for you. 

We talk in-depth about how to write a job description that will attract top candidates here. 

4. Choose the best recruitment channels

Recruitment channels are the platforms and methods you’ll use to get candidates to apply for your job openings. A few of the most common recruitment channels are referrals, job boards, online advertisements, social media, and job fairs. 

Recruitment channels should be selected based on who you’re looking to attract. For example, if you’re looking for a top-notch developer, you’d recruit in different places than you would if you were aiming to hire a seasoned sales pro. 

No matter what role you’re hiring for, a heavy emphasis should be placed on referrals. They’re consistently the most accurate channel for hiring strong performers, so it pays to incentivize your existing employees to recommend qualified people in their network for your open roles.

5. Verify skills

There’s a reason skills-based hiring is on the rise: it promotes objectivity and increases the likelihood of hiring strong performers. When you hire for skills, you place a greater priority on a candidate’s technical aptitude and relevant experience than you do on other factors like their degrees. This forces you to drill down to the most important question in hiring: Will this person be able to perform the job effectively?

Pre-hire assessments can help answer this question. Incorporating skills tests into your hiring process helps objectively verify that candidates meet a minimum threshold before proceeding to the interview process, where you can assess more subjective aspects like personality and culture fit.

6. Ask the right questions

Think of your interview questions as a discovery tool. They should be selected carefully to zero in on specific aspects of a candidate’s aptitude. 

To help with this, use the list of requirements you outlined in the job description. Each interview question should help you verify whether the candidate meets or does not meet one or more of those requirements. 

Using a mix of strategically chosen personality, background, behavioral, and situational questions will give you a well-rounded view of a candidate in the context of the job you’re considering them for. 

Related: The Best and Worst Interview Questions to Ask Candidates

7. Use hiring scorecards

Interview scorecards are another great hiring tool. They help interviewers objectively assess candidates and compare them against one another. 

Scorecards incorporate all of the hiring criteria for a role: education, experience, skills, personality, professional credentials, and any other important qualifications. During the interview, candidates are scored on each item using a predetermined scoring system. 

In addition to helping interviewers track candidates, scorecards help mitigate personal bias. It’s natural to be drawn to people who are similar to us, whether in terms of appearance, background, interests, race, ethnicity, or any factor that gives us common ground with a candidate. But these factors don’t predict job performance. So, it’s important to use bias-reducing tools like scorecards to hire more accurately. 

Check out our ultimate guide to interview scoring sheets with a customizable template here. 

8. Employ technology

One great thing about the times we’re living in is that you don’t have to tackle the challenge of hiring on your own. There are tons of highly useful pieces of technology that can simplify various parts of the process.

Use scheduling tools to automate the process of setting up interviews and sending email reminders. Leverage an applicant tracking system, or ATS, to manage your talent pool and move candidates smoothly through each hiring phase. Artificial intelligence tools can be deployed to identify strong candidates and predict their likelihood of success. Background check software can flag problematic items in a candidate’s history. 

We share the details on our favorite recruiting tech tools here.

9. Vet candidates thoroughly

In a perfect world, we’d be able to take every candidate at their word that they have the skills they claim to have or the experience they claim on their resume. However, it’s not a perfect world, and candidates sometimes embellish or downright lie about their qualifications. 

As a business leader, you can’t afford not to vet candidates thoroughly. One bad apple can tank team morale, lose you your top client, or clean out your bank account. Thus, tedious as these steps may be, it’s critical to verify references and conduct background checks before finalizing an offer. 

10. Make compelling offers

Finding the right people is only half the battle. You also have to convince them to work for YOUR company and not a different one. The offer you make to a candidate plays a big part in this decision. 

Offering competitive salaries is a given, but it takes more than that to woo top talent. Are you comparable to your competitors in other benefits, like 401(k) matching and wellness offerings? Work-life balance is a top demand. Can you offer greater flexibility in hours or work location to set yourself apart? What about employee development opportunities?

Making your offers as compelling as possible will help you close the deal after all the hard work you’ve put into finding great candidates. 

11. Develop employees strategically 

Top candidates crave opportunities to advance their careers. Strategic employee development initiatives not only strengthen employee engagement but make hiring easier, too. After all, it’s much easier to promote an all-star employee from within than to search for someone external starting from scratch when you need to fill an opening. Employee development also promotes retention, which reduces hiring costs. 

12. Don’t settle

This is the most important piece of advice on this list: don’t hire until you’ve found the right person. 

Which would you prefer: someone who will do a mediocre job for a few months and then leave or a long-term employee who’s committed to doing a great job and growing with the company? The answer is obvious; if it takes more time to find that second person, it’s worth waiting. 

If your staffing needs are urgent, consider using a temp agency to help cover gaps rather than making a rushed hire. 

Hiring the right people will strengthen your organization and ensure its continued success. Investing the time and energy to get it right is one of the most worthwhile things you can do for your business.  

Needless to say, we’ve come a long way since then. The industry has also evolved and grown in ways I never thought possible when I started my professional career as a recruiter in 1993. In fact, when I interviewed for a job with a staffing company as a senior in college, I was simultaneously learning about its existence as a profession. 

Now, hiring contract employees has become commonplace among businesses looking to respond to fluctuating demand or cover short-term staffing shortages. This can be a viable strategy to reduce hiring costs and bridge staffing gaps during uncertain times—but is it right for you?

Here, we’ll cover the biggest temp agency pros and cons to help you decide whether it is the right move for your organization. 

How Does Temporary Staffing Work?

When you enlist the services of short-term (“temp”) workers, you’ll typically go through a temporary, or contract, staffing agency. The agency will work to understand your needs and fill the required positions from its network of interim staffers. 

These employees are actually employed by the staffing agency, not the company where they will be working; the company “leases” the labor from the agency as part of its staffing agreement. This keeps onboarding time and effort to a minimum and eliminates the need for the company to complete lots of new hire paperwork for employees who may only be around for a few months. It also enables the temporary workers to receive benefits like health insurance as employees of the staffing agency, since most companies don’t offer benefits to non-permanent staffers. 

Pros of Temporary Staffing

1. On-demand hiring

Once you’ve established a relationship with a staffing agency, hiring new temp workers can happen in as little as a day or two. At 4 Corner Resources, for example, we have the potential to solve hiring and have a qualified candidate working within twenty-four hours. 

Since your HR department doesn’t have to deal with the typical new hire paperwork, such as tax forms, contracts, and benefits selection, the new hire can get straight to work almost immediately. This allows you to respond in real-time to workload fluctuations and changing market conditions, helping your company maintain its competitive edge. 

2. Only pay for work you need

We hear from many businesses that could use some extra help, but don’t quite have the workload to fill a full 40-hour workweek. In such cases, hiring a full-time staffer even at an entry-level wage isn’t cost-effective. 

Hiring these employees, on the other hand, allows you to pay only for what you need, scaling temps’ hours up or down depending on your workload. This is a great way to keep labor costs manageable while scaling your business and keeping up with your customers’ demands. 

3. Cover staffing shortages

There are all kinds of reasons you might face a staffing gap. People quit with no notice, become ill, need to respond to family emergencies, and even pass away. Unexpected absences are simply part of doing business. These employees are ideal for covering gaps in your staffing chart, especially when they happen unexpectedly. 

Contract staffing can also bridge the gap when a team member steps away but plans to return in the future, like when someone takes maternity leave or takes a vacation longer than a few weeks. 

4. Offers a “trial run”

How many times have you wished you could take candidates for a “test drive” before committing to hire them full time? With this type of staffing, it’s a possibility. While some positions are filled with the understanding that they’re strictly for the short term, others come with the possibility of full-time employment if things go well. 

Working with a person on a trial run before you hire them directly gives you a chance to better assess their effectiveness in the role and see how they fit as part of your larger team. It also offers you a way to test out different job functions, like a new role you’re thinking of adding as a full-time position, to ensure they make sense as part of your operations. 

5. Access to specialized skills

Whether it’s a big new project that requires niche expertise or a specific business pain point you’re looking to solve, you may need a specialized skill no one in your workforce currently has. This can help you access such skills at an affordable price. 

When we think of the stereotypical temp, we usually envision administrative and clerical work. In fact, though, this can be leveraged to fill almost any business need, from finance to marketing to technology, more cost-effectively than hiring someone full-time. 

6. Increased flexibility

This hiring solution gives businesses the ability to respond quickly to changing circumstances like a sudden shift in the market or an unexpected vacancy in a key role. Being flexible makes your business more resilient as you’re able to weather changes without making dramatic sacrifices in terms of quality or budget.

7. Reduced risk

When you need to fill a staffing gap quickly, you run the risk of acting out of desperation. This can result in poor hires, which can incur numerous unnecessary costs. Temporary staffing mitigates this risk by empowering you to meet operational demands without making a permanent hire. 

Additionally, it can mitigate risks associated with economic uncertainty or changing market conditions. 

Cons of Temporary Staffing 

1. May require more training time

Temporary staffing is just that: a short term fix. The more you rely on this labor, the more people you have to consistently train and oversee to make sure the work is done correctly. At a certain point, it becomes ineffective to continue training workers for a job that should really be a permanent one. 

To maintain efficiencies in your staffing model, be sure to analyze roles regularly to ensure that they are A) still filling the need you originally intended and B) haven’t expanded in scope into something that would be more appropriate as a full-time position. 

2. Less time to vet candidates

Since you’re not making a permanent commitment to an employee, you may be less likely to invest the same amount of time screening and qualifying them as you would a full-timer. This means you might settle for someone who’s purely “okay” for a job rather than holding out for the perfect fit. 

In some cases, this is a reasonable trade-off for being able to move quickly and cover staffing needs fast. In others, though, like those involving sensitive information or direct client contact, you’ll want to slow down and make sure all the necessary boxes are checked before saying yes to a temp. 

3. Culture fit can be a challenge

Another potential downside of hiring interim employees quickly is that they won’t all be the perfect fit for your company culture. This may result in some who don’t quite vibe with your office environment or who have difficulty collaborating with other team members. 

This concern can be alleviated by choosing a qualified staffing partner, who will take your company culture into consideration when selecting employees to send your way. 

4. Long-term planning is more difficult

It’s common management knowledge that new hires need anywhere from a few months to a full year to become proficient enough in their role to make meaningful contributions to the company. Unfortunately, temporary staff often doesn’t reach this threshold, so it’s tough for them to become an ingrained part of your team. This can make long-term planning a challenge in terms of workflows and team member responsibilities. 

Further, you’ll need to bear in mind that not all temps are looking for full-time employment as their end goal. Some enjoy the flexibility of nonstandard work hours or the variety of working a few different jobs. This matters because it’s a short-term arrangement on their end, too; these staffers may be less reliable or may be more likely to jump ship for a better opportunity than someone who’s employed full-time. 

5. Comes with a different set of legal requirements

Hiring interim employees, like hiring independent contractors, comes with its own set of legal considerations you’ll want to be aware of. Mainly, you must be careful not to blur the line between temporary and full-time employment. 

First and foremost, employment attorneys advise companies to cap contract employment at six months. After that point, you should seriously consider hiring the person as a part-time or full-time employee. If you don’t, you may open yourself up to legal pitfalls associated with treating these workers unfairly by not offering them benefits.

Next, even though a worker hired through a staffing agency isn’t your employee, you’re still liable for providing them with the same protections from workplace harassment and discrimination as you would any in-house employee and a safe and hazard-free work environment. 

Finally, be sure to read your staffing agreement carefully to ensure that it clearly outlines the roles and responsibilities of your company and the agency, like who is responsible for covering unemployment contributions and completing I-9s for the worker. 

How to Determine if Working With a Temp Agency is Right for Your Business

Skill requirements

Consider whether your skill requirements are short- or long-term in duration and the level of specialization required. If you require a highly niche skill for a short amount of time, this may be the perfect opportunity to leverage an agency to meet your needs. 

Resources

Do you have the time to source, recruit, and onboard workers internally? Working with an agency can save your HR department time by outsourcing these tasks to professionals. 

Staffing trends

Evaluate your historic workforce data to identify trends. If your staffing needs fluctuate frequently or you anticipate a spike in demand for workers in the near future, a temp agency can provide a cost-effective solution and minimize disruptions to your workflow. 

Budget

Analyze whether it would cost more to handle hiring yourself compared to leveraging a third-party agency. When adding up internal costs, you’ll need to factor in recruiter salaries, overtime costs, recruitment marketing, new hire onboarding, training, and employee benefits. 

Strategic goals

Consider how temporary staffing aligns with your long-term strategic goals and objectives. Determine whether short-term workers could lead to a long-term solution by converting these positions into permanent roles over time based on performance and business needs.

Solve Staffing Shortages with a Qualified Temporary Staffing Agency

The right staffing agency can make working with temporary employees easy and hassle-free. We offer temporary staffing solutions that help businesses of all sizes hire on demand and meet their operational needs. Whether you’re dealing with a special project, experiencing rapid growth, or have seasonal hiring needs, we can connect you with skilled, reliable workers to fill the necessary gaps. 

Get started by scheduling your free consultation today.

The Tech Hiring Trends Recruiters Should Expect This Year

Job openings grow

Though global economic uncertainties persist, experts forecast strong job growth in the tech industry in 2024. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the IT sector is expected to grow much faster than average, adding around 377,000 jobs a year over the next decade. 

With concerns over a recession waning, companies feel more confident and ramp up hiring, at least slightly. A quarter of recruiters say they’ll have more money to hire tech talent this year than they did in 2023. The outlook for startups is also a bit rosier after a few rough years, with experts favoring the growth of smaller, early-stage startups.

Shifting dynamic between candidates and employers

For nearly a decade, it was an overwhelming candidate market. It was the norm for recruiters to feel like filling technical roles was insurmountable. In 2023, however, layoffs from the likes of Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta sent shockwaves through the field and put hundreds of thousands of people out of work. The result has been a pendulum swing in the other direction, with companies seeing a volume of applicants for tech roles that they haven’t experienced in years. 

While it’s good news for organizations looking to scoop up talented team members, this shift in the candidate-employer dynamic also presents a level of risk. Companies must be careful not to get too comfortable and put employee engagement initiatives on the back burner. Even if a candidate jumps to accept a job today, it won’t be long before they search again if your company culture and employee experience are subpar. 

Technical skills see continuously high demand

If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed in the last few years, it’s the demand for technical skills. They drive expansion and innovation, and because of that, recruiters are hunting for them in 2024. According to Deloitte’s 2024 Technology Industry Growth Outlook, companies focused on growth prioritize cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity–and they’re willing to pay for workers with those skills.  

Unfortunately, the skills gap that has plagued the tech industry for years isn’t shrinking. If anything, it’s growing as new technology disrupts the global economy and unprecedentedly changes job requirements. Experts cite lagging education, ineffective hiring methods, and unnecessary barriers to entry as primary reasons for the persistent skills gap. 

One way to overcome these challenges and hire for the necessary skills is to incorporate pre-employment assessments into your tech hiring process rather than relying on resumes and interviews alone. 

Soft skills play a bigger role 

While technical skills are the bread and butter of the IT field, soft skills play an increasingly important role as the lines between traditional industries blur, and every company, in some shape or form, takes on characteristics of a tech company.  

Soft skills are critical for building teams, motivating employees, and forming mutually beneficial external partnerships. In a survey of business executives, 44% said soft skills—not technical skills—were lacking the most in the contemporary workforce. 

Some of the biggest soft skills tech recruiters should be on the hunt for in 2024 are:

• Communication—Technology teams constantly struggle to convey complex topics to customers, colleagues, and the general public. Companies need capable communicators who can convey the message clearly without losing meaning. 
• Problem-solving—The industry’s core value proposition is using technology to solve problems. Employers need creative, results-oriented workers who can discover new avenues to solutions and profits. 
• Critical thinking—As more and more companies move away from top-down management in favor of a more collaborative work style, teams with strong critical thinking skills become even more essential to innovation. 
• Adaptability – In this era of rapid technology adoption, change is one of the only constants. Flexible workers who can adapt in a dynamic landscape will help position organizations for longevity. 

When screening candidates for soft skills, use a mix of behavioral and situational interview questions can help you probe for what you’re looking for. 

AI joins the workforce

There’s a new team member who has shaken up the industry more than any other in the last 24 months, and it does not require a cubicle or health insurance: artificial intelligence. Sixty-seven percent of tech professionals say they use AI to do their jobs (with ChatGPT being a leading tool), and this number is likely to grow in the months ahead. 

What’s noteworthy is that a large portion of workers are optimistic rather than doubtful or fearful of AI’s impact. However, many employers don’t share the same sentiment. Twenty-eight percent of developers, for example, say their company is opposed to employees using AI to assist with their work. 

Forward-thinking companies must look ahead to see how AI will reshape rather than merely replace roles. Successful firms will embrace AI as a tool to help workers do their jobs faster and with greater accuracy and will promote these aspects as selling points when recruiting.

Hybrid roles offer a win-win

Aside from salary, which is always a strong motivator, work-life balance and the ability to work remotely are the top priorities tech candidates consider when looking for a job in 2024. Yet the volume of fully remote roles has declined considerably since its peak in 2022, with more companies requiring workers to be in the office. 

Hybrid roles are an effective compromise, offering employees more of the flexibility they crave while giving companies oversight and the ability to build cohesive teams. Expanding your hybrid job offerings (or offering fully remote roles when you can) can help you reach a wider, more skilled talent pool. Including the option to work from anywhere, some or all of the time, as part of your job listings helps you reach candidates who may not have previously considered a position because of the onsite constraints. 

Rise in upskilling

Modern workplaces critically lack the infrastructure and support systems needed to keep the skills of existing employees on the cutting edge. This is not just a threat to innovation but also puts retention at risk. As many as three-quarters of millennial and Gen Z workers say they will likely quit their jobs next year due to a lack of skill development opportunities. 

Upskilling can help companies keep pace with operational demands while providing important engagement opportunities to workers. 

Upskilling uses structured training programs to arm employees with new skills that will aid them in their work, help the organization stay competitive, and comply with business best practices. PwC, for example, committed $3 billion to its ‘New World, New Skills’ program that gives all 276,000 of the firm’s employees digital skills training and incentivizes the creation of digital tools or time-saving processes. Lincoln Financial is taking a similar approach, offering hundreds of the company’s actuarial employees access to ‘future of work’ training that will improve their mastery of emerging trends like big data and predictive analytics. 

Declining emphasis on college degrees

It no longer takes an engineering degree to break into the tech field—far from it, in fact. Employers increasingly say they’re moving away from using four-year degrees as a be-all, end-all requirement for job seekers. Most recruiters now say they hire tech talent with non-academic backgrounds, which doubled between 2021 and 2022 alone. 

This is on par with trends for the workforce as a whole, as student debt continues to skyrocket and public opinion leans away from higher education as the gold standard for future success. In a Gallup poll of 2,000 Americans, only half said they view having a college degree as ‘very important.’ 

Reducing the emphasis on traditional degrees and focusing instead on skills-based hiring for technical roles can help employers broaden their talent pool and foster more diverse teams. 

Adapt a Hiring Strategy for the Future with Help from 4 Corner Resources 

From evolving technology to new post-pandemic norms, the current recruiting landscape is tough to navigate. With help from the IT hiring experts at 4 Corner Resources, you can stay competitive and show candidates you’re prepared for the new normal. 

Our headhunting professionals will help you attract, screen, and hire the best candidates for your open technology jobs, from developers to engineers to project managers and beyond. Our deep expertise in the industry ensures you’ll find the technical skills you need faster and hire the right candidate the first time, eliminating future headaches and facilitating smoother onboarding. 

Schedule a free consultation with our team today, and let’s discuss how we can help you meet your tech hiring needs for the year ahead.

What Is Background Check Software?

Background check software is a pre-employment screening tool that employers can use to verify a candidate’s details and discover potential red flags before hiring. It can access and corroborate various aspects of a candidate’s background, including their identity, employment history, education, criminal record, credit history, professional credentials, and more. 

In addition to confirming the accuracy of a candidate’s application materials, background check software can help employers uncover potentially problematic and even dangerous information about a candidate. Armed with comprehensive background information, organizations can make more informed hiring decisions, confirm candidates are a strong match, and reduce the risk of hiring mistakes. 

Factors to Consider When Choosing a Background Check Software

Pricing

The cost of background check software depends on the number of checks being performed and the depth of each check. More comprehensive assessments, like background checks that include verification of previous employment and education credentials, cost more than basic criminal records checks. 

Software companies typically offer volume discounts for companies performing a high number of background checks per year; once you reach a certain threshold, i.e. 100 or 500 checks per year, the cost per check decreases. 

Speed

As you’re probably aware, speed is a critical factor in hiring the best candidates. Choosing background software that prioritizes time to hire will help optimize your recruiting metrics. The average background check takes a few business days, but with the right software, some types of checks can be performed within minutes. 

Visibility

Background checks are typically one of the last steps a recruiter must complete before making a successful hire. Staying on top of the process is key to ensuring there are no unnecessary delays in onboarding your selected candidate. Look for a tool that enables you to easily see the status of each background check, understand which items are still pending, and identify any bottlenecks holding up the process.  

Automation

Automation saves recruiters time and keeps the hiring process moving along smoothly. Your chosen background check software should facilitate automation, like instantly initiating the next step in the process based on a candidate’s screening results. 

Customization

A background check software with configurable workflows can accelerate your screening process and make work easier for your recruiting team. Some software enables companies to implement custom rules based on unique business needs. In contrast, others let users build their own screening packages based on the elements of a candidate’s background that matter most to the organization.

Integration

Maximize efficiency by ensuring that your selected background check tool integrates with the rest of your recruiting tech stack. Many applicant tracking systems have built-in background check capabilities. Still, there are also plenty of third-party background check applicants that can work in tandem with the tools you’re already using. 

Related: The Best Recruitment Software to Make Hiring Easier

Security

When you’re dealing with candidates’ sensitive personal information, you’re under a strict obligation to store and manage that information with care. Choosing a reputable background check provider with a strong security track record will mitigate the risk of any unwanted data incidents. 

Compliance

Conducting background checks comes with numerous legal requirements, like obtaining proper consent from the people you’re looking into and complying with the Fair Credit Reporting Act. You’ll also need to abide by any relevant state regulations, like some that govern the information you’re required to share with a candidate if you’re declining to hire them based on criminal history. Your background check software should make it easy to comply with these rules. 

Credibility 

Select a background check provider that holds itself to a high professional standard and strives for continuous improvement. One way to verify a firm’s legitimacy is to check for membership in the Professional Background Screening Association (PBSA), an industry group that sets standards for background check agencies. 

Additional features

Added background check features like continuous monitoring, reference checking, drug testing, and the ability to search internationally can enhance your pre-hire screening. 

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10 Best Background Check Software for Employers

Checkr

Checkr employs advanced technology to provide fast and reliable background checks on criminal records, employment history, and more. It’s incredibly user-friendly, making it easy to see what steps have already been completed and what’s still pending for each candidate. The software’s automation capabilities and efficient features have made it a popular choice for businesses seeking a simple and expeditious way to conduct background checks. 

Hireology

Hireology is comprehensive background check software designed to streamline the hiring process for businesses. It offers an integrated platform that includes applicant tracking and onboarding in addition to background screening, making it the platform of choice for many medium—to large organizations. The software features analytics and reporting capabilities that inform data-driven hiring and allow for continuous hiring process improvement. 

Certn

Certn is a cutting-edge background check software that caters to employers seeking robust screening solutions. Certn utilizes artificial intelligence and data analytics to deliver swift and accurate results while complying with all industry regulations. The platform covers various aspects of a candidate’s history, including criminal records, credit history, and identity verification. If you’re dealing with international candidates, Certn is a great choice, since its assessment capabilities span more than 200 countries. 

VICTIG

If speed is one of your top considerations, VICTIG is a solid choice. This prominent background check software prioritizes quick turnaround times, user-friendly solutions, and customizability. VICTIG is ATS-friendly and integrates with most of the top applicant tracking platforms, including iCIMS, Workday, Greenhouse, Taleo, UltiPro, and more. 

Good Egg

Zinc

Zinc is a comprehensive applicant tracking system that includes background checks, among its many features. The software provides swift and accurate results for 190 countries, enhancing efficiency in candidate evaluation. Zinc’s user-friendly interface creates a positive experience for candidates, enabling them to easily upload documents and keeping them informed with prompt status notifications. It’s highly rated for having a user interface that functions well on any device, which is always a plus for recruiters and candidates on the go. 

AccusourceHR

Launched over two decades ago, AccusourceHR is a longstanding screening service specializing in criminal records, employment verification, and drug testing. It provides a robust candidate profile that facilitates informed hiring decisions. A convenient applicant portal eliminates the tedious task of data entry for recruiters. At the same time, a continuous criminal monitoring service keeps employers abreast of any noteworthy changes that happen after an employee is onboarded. 

Sterling

Created in 1975, Sterling is one of the business’s most established background check firms. Its extensive screening solutions are driven by cutting-edge technology and are trusted by 50% of Fortune 100 companies. Sterling’s user-friendly interface and customizable options make it a reliable choice for businesses seeking thorough and efficient background checks to build trustworthy and compliant teams.

AssureHire

AssureHire makes the hiring process faster and more reliable for HR teams with automated background checks that quickly verify a candidate’s previous employment, education, and criminal record. Its continuous monitoring capabilities screen workers throughout the duration of their tenure, so companies can be rapidly alerted if any issues arise that jeopardize their employment. With 98% of background checks completed in under 24 hours, AssureHire helps companies speedily assemble reliable teams. 

Good Egg

Good Egg combines automated and manual processes to thoroughly vet candidates, layering on machine learning capabilities to help detect possible fraud. It allows you to tailor the depth of the background check to suit your needs, with the option to choose between self-service checks to facilitate speed and manual researcher checks to prioritize precision. In addition to integrating with many of the top ATSs, Good Egg is compatible with several human capital management (HCM) systems like Oracle and Paycor. 

Checkmate

Checkmate is a top pick if you’re a recruiter for an enterprise-level organization that requires background checks for a high volume of roles. A series of innovative features like bulk uploads allow you to quickly move through many candidate actions. In contrast, an intuitive candidate interface allows applicants to complete their required steps in as little as six minutes. Advanced reporting capabilities let organizations drill down into dozens of KPIs to continuously improve the hiring process. 

The above options (and the many others available on the market) offer a range of features to suit organizations of all sizes. Selecting a background check software that aligns with your most important goals–speed, comprehensiveness, security, etc.–’ll create a favorable candidate experience while verifying that you’re hiring qualified and trustworthy people to join your team.

What is a One-Way Interview?

A one-way interview is just another word for an asynchronous interview. These interviews are pre-recorded by the hiring candidates based on questions sent to them beforehand. The potential hires will record themselves on video answering the questions in order, simulating a regular interview experience.

Why Do Companies Use One-Way Interviews?

Oftentimes, one-way interviews aren’t final interviews. They are usually used as a pre-screening move to see who should and shouldn’t move forward in the hiring process. It helps eliminate much of the first round of interviews and saves time trying to schedule multiple interviews. Pre-recorded interviews are used more as a first step in the hiring process, and they’re often like introductions to each potential candidate.

What are the Pros of One-Way Interviews?

There are many benefits to one-way interviews for both the company hiring and the potential hire themselves. If you’re considering the use of asynchronous interviews in your hiring process, here are the pros of one-way interviews:

Saves time

Perhaps the number one reason people use one-way interviews is that they save so much time. Between your schedule and the potential hires’ schedules, trying to hold 20 different interviews with 20 different candidates could take over a week. This delays the hiring process immensely—especially if it’s just the first round of interviews.

Instead, pre-recorded interviews save a lot of scheduling and time. You can send out the interview questions to all candidates in under five minutes, and then you wait for their videos to come back. You might spend a few hours watching the pre-recorded videos, but that’s a huge improvement versus the week it could take to interview them all in person.

Widen your pool of candidates

Another reason to use pre-recorded interviews is to widen your pool of candidates. You can interview people from multiple areas rather than just nearby. This is especially helpful if you’re hiring for a remote position or a current work-from-home job due to the lingering effects of the pandemic. 

People can record this video on their own time, which means they won’t miss out on an opportunity due to scheduling conflicts. It also allows candidates who may have been busy during regular interview slots to still participate in the hiring process.

Helps screen candidates

There’s nothing worse than having an interview after an interview, only to wonder how these people qualified for the job in the first place. Simple questionnaire forms can give you a few precursors for candidates to check off, but they still don’t do enough. You can’t see what these candidates are like until you have them in front of you. Well, until now.

With pre-recorded interviews, you’re able to see how they’re qualified for the job. It’s easier to screen them, and you can ask more about their skillset. If you want them to be fluent in another language, you can ask them to speak it on camera. If you need them to be a skilled customer service rep, a video will allow you to hear what they sound like and how they’ll interact with customers.

Gets rid of the nerves

It’s no secret that the interviewing process is overwhelming for potential hires. They can get very nervous, and an interview where they record themselves can cut down on their nerves. But, how does this benefit the hiring of a company? Sometimes, even the most qualified candidates can bomb an interview because they are nervous. 

By allowing them to record their answers, you get an upfront look at what type of candidate they truly are. This benefits you because a great candidate you may have overlooked in an in-person interview can shine on camera.

Everyone can see them

Oftentimes, it’s not just one person who is making the final decision on a potential hire. However, you can’t crowd more than two or three people into a conference room to interview a potential hire. That means the rest of the hiring team is reliant upon the debrief that the interviewer gives to them. With pre-recorded interviews, everyone on the hiring team can watch the interview. That means everyone can have an opinion on who is the best pick for the company. It’s easier to discuss the candidates and who would fit well on the team when everyone’s involved.

Spices up structured interviews

Being objective in interviews is one of the most important things you can do. One way to do this is by using structured interviews. This means you’re asking the same questions in the same order to each candidate. However, this often comes across rigid as an interviewer because you’re used to going through the motions. However, with pre-recorded interviews, you can still have structure without it coming off as monotonous.

Related: The Difference Between Structured and Unstructured Interviews

Allows for better preparation

While in-person interviews are good for testing a candidate’s spontaneity, it also puts them on the spot to come up with examples of their past work that shows their skillset. Potential hires often feel rushed in in-person interviews, which makes them blurt out the first example they can think of. It’s not always the best example. But, with pre-recorded interviews, they have time to think about their past work and skillset. You end up getting a better picture of who they really are and what they’ve done in the past.

What are the Cons of Pre-Recorded Interviews?

One-way interviews aren’t without their problems. In fact, there are more than a few downsides to them as well. Here are the cons of one-way interviews:

Camera shy candidates

Some people aren’t good on camera, and they actually perform worse. While it can help those with social anxiety, it may be bad for those who regularly talk to people but rarely record themselves. 

Limited information

With pre-recorded interviews, perhaps the biggest limitation is that you can’t respond to them while they’re answering the questions. This makes the information you receive a bit limited. With in-person interviews, you can ask to follow up with questions that will help you find out even more about a candidate. Without this ability, you’re stuck with just the information that they answer in the interview questions.

Miss out on company promotion

Another thing is it’s hard to promote your company in a pre-recorded interview. Sometimes, as hiring managers, we forget that the people coming to interview are interviewing our company as well. They may not know enough to decide whether or not the company is the right fit for them. While you can send a company description with the interview questions, it’s not the same as being in-person and sharing more company information.

It’s not enough to make a decision

Most companies find that there simply isn’t enough information to base your decision on regarding one-way interviews. While they make a great first-round interview, it’s hard to hire someone just from watching them answer a few questions. So, even though they save you time initially, you’ll probably still need to schedule interviews regardless.

Some software is stressful

Depending on the software you use for the one-way interview, it could be stressful for the candidate. If you allow them to record everything and send it to you, they can have multiple takes and get their nerves out. But, if you use software for a pre-recorded interview, it can create even more stress than regular because the potential hire only has 30-60 seconds to think of an answer, which doesn’t allow for better examples or the ability to really think out what they should say.

It can be dehumanizing

Sometimes, one-way interviews look like just another algorithm to a potential hire, and they may think your company doesn’t truly care about anything more than filtering out people based on an algorithm. This is a common complaint.

Should You Use Pre-Recorded Interviews?

Though one-way interviews have pros and cons, whether or not you should use them depends on your company and its goals. They’re a great first step in screening candidates, and if done right, they can save you time and effort in hiring. Just be aware of the cons going in so you know what to prepare for.

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One-Way Interview Software to Use

VidCruiter

VidCruiter is a video interview platform offering robust tools to make the interview process easier for recruiters. In addition to pre-recorded interviewing capabilities, the platform can facilitate live interviews and assist with scheduling. 

Willo

Willo helps companies hire at scale with pre-recorded interviews that can be set up in minutes. It’s designed to fit seamlessly within your existing tech stack, integrating with over 5,000 applications, and is guaranteed to work on any device.

Hireflix

Hireflix allows recruiters to create one-way interviews for video and text-based responses. The built-in interview builder makes it easy to add custom intro and outro videos that provide more information about the company and the job. 

HireVue

In addition to facilitating asynchronous interviews, HireVue uses artificial intelligence to analyze and score candidate responses. An advanced algorithm evaluates aspects of a candidate’s answer, such as speech, tone, pronunciation, and pauses, to assess quality and even flag possible cheating. 

Harver

With Harver, combining one-way video interviews with other assessment tools like skills tests and reference checks makes it easy for recruiters to gain a holistic view of candidates. 

Common One-Way Interview Questions

Asynchronous video interviews are best used as a screening tool to aid in pre-qualifying candidates. Thus, the best one-way interview questions should help you get a broad idea of the candidate’s capabilities and reasons for applying. Save more targeted questions for the next conversation with a live interviewer, where you’ll have the chance to ask follow-up questions and prompt the candidate to expand on anything you found interesting from their recorded answers.  

Here are some good one-way interview questions to ask candidates. 

Tell us about yourself.

No matter what kind of interview is taking place, a candidate should be prepared to concisely summarize their background, career path, and qualifications. This question will help you understand how the candidate arrived at their current professional situation and will also give you a feel for their personality. 

Why are you interested in this job?

It’s a good sign when a candidate is interested in a role for a particular reason, like the opportunity to apply specific skills or being passionate about the company’s mission. This question can help weed out candidates who are applying for dozens of jobs without any real investment in the company or role. 

What skills or experience make you a good fit for this job?

One of the most important goals of a one-way interview is to verify the required skills. Use this question to ensure a candidate checks off all the minimum requirements on your list. Bonus points if they mention relevant experience that has prepared them to succeed. 

What’s your ideal work environment?

Alignment on the work environment is an important aspect of culture fit. You want to identify candidates who are positioned to thrive in your office, both in terms of their physical characteristics and the team dynamic. Having a candidate describe their preferred work environment will give you clues about whether they will be happy as part of your team. 

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Learning about a candidate’s career aspirations can help you decide whether they’ll be challenged, engaged, and satisfied in a role. All of these are important components of a successful hire. Asking applicants to describe their five-year vision will illuminate their professional ambitions.  

Hit a Staffing Home Run With 4 Corner Resources

Do you need help with talent acquisition and interviews? Our staffing and recruiting experts are here to help! During our fifteen years of business, we have established an extensive talent pipeline that allows us to match top talent to various employers. We offer a variety of staffing solutions, such as direct-hire placement, contract staffing, and contract-to-hire recruiting.

Schedule your free consultation today to learn more about how we can help your staffing efforts.

Never fear, non-techie recruiter, because we’ve got your pocket dictionary of IT terminology right here! We’ve broken down a range of technical terms by category. Use it as a guide during the tech recruiting process to help determine whether a candidate and their skills are up to snuff, even if their skillset and background are well outside of your wheelhouse.

IT Terminology Glossary

IT roles

Front-end developer: A type of computer programmer who develops applications and interfaces that a user interacts, typically using programming languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Back-end developer: A type of computer programmer who builds the technology that powers front-end functionality using languages like PHP, Ruby, and Python and tools like MySQL, Oracle, and SQL Server.

Full-stack developer: A developer with skills in both server- and client-side development, i.e. the “full stack” of development capabilities.

UI designer: UI stands for user interface. This designer works to make the user interface of an application simple and functional.

UX designer: UX stands for user experience. This designer works improve the customer experience by increasing ease of use and enjoyability of an application.

System administrator: This person is responsible for the maintenance, operation and reliability of an organization’s computer systems, with a primary focus on servers.

Network administrator: This person is responsible for the reliable operation of an organization’s networks, a.k.a. the means by which multiple computers or applications communicate with one another.

DevOps engineer: Bridges the gap between development and business operations, particularly during code releases. They help streamline communication and collaboration during software development, QA, testing and deployment.

SecOps engineer: Designs and oversees systems that secure and protect the organization’s networks, applications and data. Screens and tests the organization’s defenses in order to identify and fix vulnerabilities. 

Data architect: Responsible for designing, deploying and managing the means by which an organization’s data is stored, consumed and used.

Cloud architect: Designs and manages computing strategies specifically within a cloud environment. Helps companies select the appropriate cloud infrastructure and applications to support business needs. 

Data scientist: Helps companies collect, analyze, visualize and interpret data sets to make informed decisions. Works closely with business leaders to understand and achieve business goals. 

SRE: Site reliability engineer. This person is responsible for the effective development, maintenance and operation of a software or system.

ERP manager: Oversees a company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) activities, which includes the software a company uses to support business functions like accounting, project management, manufacturing, supply chain, and human resources. 

General industry terms

DevOps: Short for development and operations. This describes a specific approach to software development based on integration and communication between software development, QA and IT teams. It’s useful for releasing and optimizing new features quickly.

Agile: An approach to software development in which software is built, deployed and refined in increments rather than all at once. It’s user-centric and encourages swift and flexible response to feedback.

Waterfall: The predecessor of Agile. An approach to software development in which each carefully planned and documented phase must be fully completed before the next phase can begin. Testing and optimization only happen once the full scope of development is complete.

Scrum: A management framework that outlines a series of tools, meetings and roles for efficiency product delivery. Teams use scrum to self-manage and continuously adapt. 

Kanban: Pronounced “KAHN-bahn.” A system that helps development teams visualize their work. Work is represented on a kanban board, which allows team members to see the status of any piece of work at any given time. 

Big data: The term used to describe the massive and ever-growing volume of data that can be used strategically to improve business outcomes.

Cloud computing: The delivery of software and other technical services over the internet (i.e. “the cloud”) versus via a download on a local machine.

Algorithm: A set of rules, similar to a set of instructions, a computer follows when performing operations. 

Scalability: The ability of a system or network to accommodate growth.

Open source: A term used to describe software whose code is free and available to the public. It is developed by a community for public use rather than by a company for commercial sale.

iOS: A mobile operating system developed by Apple.

Android: A mobile operating system developed by Google.

Framework: A platform for developing software applications. A foundation upon which developers can build programs.

Source code: The instructions that tell a piece of software, website, or application how to work. Source code is written in a programming language like Java, CSS or Ruby.

Database: A collection of information stored and used by software, organized in a way that makes it easily accessible.

Relational database: A database model in which data is stored in tables. Most databases used in modern applications are relational databases.

Version control: In software development, a process for tracking and managing changes made to code. Version control gives developers visibility of who is working on what and enables multiple people to be working on a piece of code at the same time. 

Deployment: The process of making an application or piece of software available for people to use. 

Continuous delivery: A software development practice in which every change is made releasable, so that a new version of the software could theoretically be released at any time. 

Sprint: A length of time dividing the different parts of a project. For example, a team might develop a new feature over a two-week sprint. 

Programming languages

HTML: Hypertext Markup Language. This code is used for structuring web pages and the content on them.

CSS: Cascading Style Sheets. This programming language directs the visual aspects of a website, like fonts, colors, and spacing, through a series of style sheets.

JavaScript: A programming language that defines the behavior of a website. It can be used to make elements interactive and controls how HTML and CSS elements function.

PHP: Originally stood for Personal Home Pages. This is a scripting language especially useful for developing web pages.

Python: This is a scripting language designed to be easy to read and use. It can be used to create dynamic web content, applications, plugins and 2D and 3D imaging.

Ruby: An object-oriented scripting language designed to make programming easier by making assumptions. In other words, you don’t have to start from scratch with each new project. Ruby is the language used in the Ruby on Rails web application framework.

SQL: Structured Query Language. This programming language is used to access and modify information in a database. It’s used in web database development and management.

C: A general-purpose programming language created in the 1970’s. It’s a procedural language, meaning that it is comprised of a series of steps that must be performed one after the other. It’s one of the simplest programming languages to learn and can be used to write a wide variety of programs. 

C++: A more complex, powerful operating language that is useful for developing games, operating systems, and other high-performance computing systems. It’s object-oriented, meaning that its code is organized around objects (pieces of data) rather than functions and logic. 

C#: Pronounced “c sharp.” It’s a programming language that’s more complex than C and C++, but also less prone to errors. It’s used to build applications that run in Microsoft’s .NET framework. 

Architecture terms

OOP: This is an object-oriented programming methodology for software/application design based on a system of interacting objects. Many commonly used languages are object-oriented, such as Java, Python, and C#.

MVC: Model-view controller. A software/application design model based on three connected parts: the model, which manipulates the data; the view, a.k.a. the user interface; and the controller, which controls the change in the model.

SOA: Service-oriented architecture. An architecture methodology that aims to help a business efficiently add new services. In SOA, application components work with other components via a network.

UML: Unified modeling language. A programming language used to design and construct software systems via object-oriented development.

API: Application programming interface. A set of commands and functions that allow programmers to interact with an external system. This saves them from having to write code that already exists from scratch. The Windows API, for example, gives developers access to UI and elements like windows and scroll bars so they don’t have to create them independently.

Markup: A type of computer language that uses tags to define various elements. It uses standard words (a.k.a. it’s readable by humans) rather than programming syntax. The two most common examples of markup language are HTML and XML.

XML: A markup language that can be used to provide context for a set of data. For example, if you were sending a list of books, you might use XML tags like <Title>, <Author>, and <Publisher> to clarify which lines within the list contain these particular fields. 

REST: Stands for representational state transfer. It’s a way of building APIs that allows applications to exchange data in multiple formats, making it easier for different computer systems to communicate with one another. 

SOAP: Simple object access protocol. It’s a secure way to build APIs by encoding data in the XML format. A REST API is more flexible than a SOAP API, given that data can be exchanged in various formats. 

Skills, tools, and programs

AWS: Amazon web services. A cloud services platform with various functionalities that help developers deploy web applications.

Bootstrap: An open-source web development framework used to build websites incorporating HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It was developed by team members at Twitter.

jQuery: An open-source JavaScript library. It helps web developers easily add functionality to their websites by referencing a jQuery JavaScript file, rather than writing the code themselves.

MySQL: An open-source relational database management system based on SQL. It’s most commonly used in web servers, but can be used in dynamic web pages that access information from a database.

Git: Pronounced with a hard /g/ sound, like the word ‘get.’ A version control system that stores source code and its development history. It enables teams to track changes, merge code and revert to earlier versions if needed. 

GitHub: A software development and code-hosting platform that helps users work together on projects while maintaining version control. GitHub also offers valuable developer resources like code review, discussions and wikis.

Kubernetes: An open-source platform that automates the deployment, scaling, management and maintenance of application containers across a cluster of nodes. It helps developers derive maximum utility from containers and build cloud-native applications that can run anywhere.

Apache: The most popular web server software, released in 1995. It’s open-source and enables a computer to host one or more websites that can be accessed via the internet with a web browser.

Oracle: A relational database management system designed for enterprise grid computing. It helps global enterprises to manage and process information across far-reaching and local networks in a cost-effective way.

AI: Artificial intelligence. A field of study that works to engineer computers that function and reason like humans.

Machine learning: An artificial intelligence skill set involving algorithms that enable a computer to learn and adapt over time rather than following a set of static code.

Get Help from the Tech Recruiting Experts

Are you overwhelmed by the stack of IT applications on your desk? Are you not sure how to select a candidate who will actually be able to accomplish what you need? 4 Corner Resources can help. Our team of information technology staffing professionals can help you sort through the tech speak and identify talent with the experience you need to get the job done.

In today’s business world, your technology can make or break your ability to grow. You need an IT team that’s agile, adaptable, and innovative, able to help you apply the latest technology to solve your problems and serve your customers. We’ll deliver top-tier talent with these skills to your door. Contact us to start sourcing qualified, motivated professionals in your field today.

What is a Temp Agency?

Please allow me to apologize before providing the answer. Despite owning a staffing firm (aka a “temp agency”) for nearly two decades, I’m yet to come up with a simple sentence answer to this question…but here’s the best I can offer without using any industry jargon: Temp agencies find people to work in jobs for a limited period of time.

Clearly, a single sentence doesn’t cut it, so let’s go further. This scenario illustrates what a temp agency is, and the role they play in the job market:

ABC company needs to hire someone with a specific skill set to perform a job that will take approximately three months to complete. The need is urgent, but once the job has been completed, ABC Company has no additional business need for the worker’s services. The solution is for ABC Company to use a temp agency to identify, recruit, and qualify prospective workers. Once selected, the individual who performs the work for ABC Company will do so as an employee of the temp agency. The temp agency profits by charging ABC Company an amount greater than they pay the employee for each hour worked.

But since I mentioned industry jargon, here are a few additional things to know:

• A temporary staffing agency can be known by several names, including staffing agency (or firm/company/service), contract staffing agency(firm/company/service), recruiting agency(firm/company/service), recruiter, and headhunter. As someone who works in the industry, I wouldn’t necessarily use these terms interchangeably, but it’s very common to do so. I’ll reserve the nuanced differences for a different article and simply say I personally associate a “temp” hire with a short-term need.
• Generally, the temporary worker is a “W2 employee” of the agency, who handles all hiring, firing, payroll, and benefits.
• A temp worker is often referred to as a “contractor”, or “contract employee”
• Most temp agencies work with their clients on a contingent basis, meaning there is no upfront payment or revenue guarantee unless and until work is performed.

In addition to the short-term, urgent need in the scenario above, companies will use temp agencies to solve a wide variety of staffing and hiring challenges, like unexpected absences, swings in demand, and seasonal hiring.

Companies of all sizes hire from temp agencies because they are flexible, low-risk staffing solutions that offer access to specific skills quicker than most other hiring methods. Candidates use agencies because they can quickly provide access to flexible employment and help workers build valuable experience to use on their resumes. 

When the initial temporary period ends, the worker may be offered an opportunity to stay on board with the company as a contractor, apply for a different position with the agency, or join the company as a permanent staff member. A temp agency typically works with several different clients at any given time, which means they can consider workers for numerous positions and determine which, if any, are the strongest fit.

How Does a Temp Agency Work?

First, a company kicks off the relationship by contracting with a temp agency to fulfill a specified set of hiring needs. The company outlines its desired skills, the duties candidates will be required to perform, and the duration of the work. Then, the temp agency locates and screens candidates to meet those needs as part of the recruiting process.

Agencies earn a profit by billing their client, the company where the work is being performed, a rate greater than they pay the worker. With rare exceptions, the labor rate and bill rate are calculated hourly. The marked-up rate is not all profit for the temp agency, however, as they are responsible for covering all payroll taxes and fees, worker’s compensation, and liability insurance. These charges, often referred to as the payroll “burden” range between 17% – 22% of the labor rate.

Is Temp-to-Hire a Good Idea? 

Whether temp-to-hire is right for your business depends on the urgency of the need, the type of role, and the expected duration. Hiring a worker under this arrangement allows you to experience their hard and soft skills, culture fit, and overall impact on the business before making a permanent hiring decision. If you have a short-term need or a lack the internal resources to conduct a thorough recruiting effort, then temp-to-hire can be a great option.

The Benefits of Hiring From a Temp Agency

When using a third party for recruiting and staffing, you will benefit from their immediate reach and access to a vast pool of experienced and qualified talent. This can save valuable time, helping you quickly identify the best candidates for the role. 

Less administration

Hiring temporary workers means less administration for your business. The agency will handle all of the onboarding paperwork, including tax forms, payroll processing, background checks, and more.

Faster hiring process

Hiring from a temp agency often speeds up the process of finding the best, most experienced candidates for a role. Temp staffing solutions excel above direct-hire staffing when there is an urgent, immediate need to fill a vacancy.  

Immediate access to skilled temporary workers

When using temporary staffing specialists, you gain access to a massive network of candidates, many of whom have a track record of successful assignments. For perspective, we have more than one million candidate resumes in our internal database – thousands of whom we have previously placed on assignment. Our clients benefit by hiring temporary staff when new skills are needed that don’t currently exist on their team.

Related Blog: Pros and Cons of Temporary Staffing 

How to Find the Best Agency to Partner With

To identify the most suitable agency for your company, conducting a thorough search that considers your specific needs is important. Begin by considering the basics of your staffing requirements:

• What skills or qualifications must candidates possess?
• How many workers do you need?
• How long do you need them?
• What’s your budget?

Next, research temp agencies in your area. Look at their specialization, experience, and reputation for delivering qualified talent. Review online reviews and seek out referrals from other business leaders you trust. 

When you speak with prospective agencies, explain your needs and assess how well they seem to understand them. Inquire about the tools and methods they use for finding and screening candidates, ensuring those processes align with your company’s standards. Ask questions to learn about their system for working with clients and their level of communication, responsiveness, and flexibility. 

Before you decide who to work with, you should have full visibility into the agency’s fee structure and be fully comfortable with all terms of the contract. If the initial contract is not to your liking, negotiate more suitable terms so you can feel fully confident in your new staffing relationship.

Best Practices for Hiring Through a Temp Agency

Be transparent

The more information you can give the temp agency, the better their chance for success. Provide clear and detailed job descriptions, hiring expectations, and any policies you expect to be followed.

Ask about their recruiting process

The temp agency is responsible for screening and qualifying candidates, but that doesn’t mean it should be ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ Ask about your temp agency’s processes for finding and hiring candidates up front to ensure you’re on the same page. 

Set expectations

As the relationship starts, define what you consider to be the markers of success. Set realistic goals and deadlines along with regular meetings at which you’ll check in on progress and share feedback. 

Provide an accurate timeline for onboarding

While one key benefit of using temporary staffing is getting workers into positions quickly, the more details you provide, the better the chances of hiring success. Give clear direction and timeframes on the the interviewing, hiring, and onboarding process.

Be mindful of compliance

Most states have very specific laws regarding temporary labor. One upside of working with a reputable temp agency is that they should have all this covered. Still, it’s up to you as the employer to do your due diligence to ensure you’re working with a partner operating fully within the terms of the law.

FAQs

Email templates can make the process of setting up interviews less tedious and more convenient for both interviewers and interviewees. We’ll explain how to draft an interview scheduling email that contains all the relevant details and builds excitement about your upcoming conversation. 

Why Use Email to Schedule an Interview?

Offer convenience

Most professionals are busy. Receiving a phone call, especially in the middle of the workday, can interrupt other important activities. Email is the platform of choice for scheduling interviews because it’s accessible yet noninvasive. It gives the candidate time to look at their calendar and respond at a convenient time. 

Facilitate automation

Interview scheduling emails are highly conducive to automation. With your ATS or a specialized scheduling application, you can sync your team’s calendars and streamline the process of finding a suitable time slot for all parties. This reduces multiple back-and-forth messages and frees up time to work on other tasks. 

Create a paper trail

Email is great for creating a permanent record that all parties can refer back to. Rather than relying on their memory or a note scribbled in their planner, an interviewer or candidate can easily reference the email thread to confirm the date, time, and other important details of the interview. 

What to Include In an Email Scheduling an Interview

• Job title and company. Make it clear which position the interview is for since candidates are likely to have applied for multiple jobs. 
• Proposed date and time. Offering a few available slots for the candidate to choose from makes it more likely that you’ll find a suitable time with just one message. 
• Name of interviewer(s). Include the full name and job title of each interviewer who will be participating. 
• Interview purpose. Explain what this interview aims to accomplish, like if it’s a screening call to verify basic qualifications, a first-round interview, a final interview, etc.
• Interview location. If you’ll be speaking in person, be sure to provide a precise address. 
• Interview format. Specify whether it will be a one-on-one, panel, group, or virtual format. 
• Interview length. Help the candidate adequately prepare by giving a start and end time. 
• Other helpful details. Provide any other relevant information that will assist the candidate in attending the interview, like parking details, public transit options, what to bring, and so on. 

Tips for Writing an Interview Invitation Email

1. Use a straightforward subject line

This is an email you definitely don’t want candidates to miss. Help ensure your message is opened by using a subject line directly stating what’s inside. Here are two options:

Invitation to interview – [job title] at [company]

Interview availability 

2. Maintain your brand voice

Interview scheduling emails can be short and casual or longer and more formal. The most appropriate option for you depends on your brand. Maintain consistency by using the same style, voice, and tone as the rest of your recruitment materials. 

3. Express enthusiasm

In many cases, this email will be the candidate’s first interaction with a real person in the company. Make the most of it and build excitement on their end by expressing your enthusiasm about their candidacy. 

4. Encourage additional engagement

This is a great time to expand a candidate’s knowledge of your employer value proposition. Offer additional opportunities to engage with your brand, like a short video that showcases your company culture or a checklist of how to prepare for a successful interview. 

5. Follow up promptly

Once a candidate responds to your email, don’t delay in moving forward. Keep the recruiting process moving and increase your ability to hire your first choice by carrying out the interview in a timely manner. If you don’t hear back within a day or two, send another message to follow up. 

Interview Scheduling Email Template #1 – Post-Application

Subject line: Interview invitation – [job title] at [company name]

Hello [candidate name], 

Thank you for submitting your application for the [job title] role with [company name]. After reviewing your resume, we believe your qualifications could make you a strong fit for the position. We’d like to schedule an interview to share details of the job and learn more about your experience. 

Please review the following time slots and let me know if one of them would work for a 30-minute conversation with [interviewer name, title]. The interview will be held at [location name, address]. 

• [Interview date and time 1]
• [Interview date and time 2]
• [Interview date and time 3]

If the times above do not work for you, please propose a few alternatives that would be suitable and we’ll go from there. 

We are eager to speak with you!

Best regards,

[Sender’s name]

Interview Scheduling Email Template #2 – Cold Candidate Outreach

Subject line: [Job title] opportunity with [company name]

Hi [candidate name],

I hope this message finds you well. My name is [sender’s name] with [company]. I came across your LinkedIn profile and your qualifications stuck out to me. Based on your skills in [skill area] and background in [background area], I think you could be a strong candidate for a [job title] position we currently have open. You can get a feel for our company mission by watching a one-minute video here [provide link]. 

Are you interested in learning more about this opportunity? If so, please let me know when you’re available for a 20-minute call. The purpose of this conversation would be to outline the requirements of the position, give you a chance to talk about your previous job experience, and answer any questions you might have about the role. 

Here are some times I’m available this week:

• [Interview date and time 1]
• [Interview date and time 2]
• [Interview date and time 3]

Please let me know if any of these options work, or if there’s another time that would be better for you. 

I look forward to your response.

Best,

[Sender’s name]

Interview Scheduling Email Template #3 – Confirmation Email

Subject line: Interview confirmation for [date]

[Candidate’s name], 

Thank you for providing your availability. Your interview is scheduled for [date] at [time]. Here are the important details:

• Interviewer: [name, title]
• Interview location: [location]
• Interview format: [format]
• Interview length: [duration]

Please bring [items to bring] and be prepared to discuss [topics of discussion]. You can learn more about our company and find other helpful information to prepare for your interview here [provide link]. 

If for any reason you are unable to attend the interview or need to reschedule, please call me directly at [phone number]. 

We look forward to speaking with you soon.

[Sender’s name]

Interview Scheduling Email Template #4 – Follow-Up

Subject line: Following up – invitation to interview

Hi [candidate’s name],

I wanted to follow up on my previous email inviting you to interview for the [job title] position with [company name]. Are you still interested in being considered for the role?

If so, kindly let me know of your availability this week for a 45-minute Zoom interview. This would be a panel interview with [interviewer 1] and [interviewer 2], who are looking to learn more about your strengths and qualifications.  

I look forward to your response. 

Best,

[Sender’s name]

Interview Scheduling Apps

Many applicant tracking systems have scheduling capabilities built in. However, a range of standalone apps can also streamline interview scheduling, communications, and reminders. Here are a few of our top picks:

• Calendly. With over 20 million users in 230 countries, this tool is one of the simplest and most universally understood scheduling platforms. 
• YouCanBookMe. Get up and running within minutes and send scheduling invites by email or SMS. 
• TimeTap. Use a dedicated booking page to streamline scheduling across team members and locations. 
• GoHire. Organize interviews with dozens of candidates in a few quick clicks. 

The email to schedule a job interview is one of the first direct interactions a candidate will have with your company. This makes it an important opportunity to set a positive tone, communicate expectations, and generate excitement about the job. By sending a friendly, professional email to request an interview, you’ll keep your hiring process on track while contributing to an enjoyable candidate experience. 

Related: Top Recruiting Apps

Even so, the healthcare recruitment field presents a unique challenge for employers as chronic talent shortages persist. The unemployment rate in the healthcare field continues to hover around a ten-year low, making it all the more important for recruitment professionals to have a laser-focused strategy when targeting this industry.

Follow these healthcare recruiting tips to establish a strong talent pipeline and differentiate yourself from other employers in this space.

9 Healthcare Recruiting Tips to Attract Talent

Employ creative sourcing methods

Some call the healthcare staffing shortage an outright crisis. An estimated 100,000 baby boomers turn 65 daily, many of whom need care. Nurses, home health aides, and lab technicians are some of the hardest positions to fill.

In the face of these unprecedented shortages, healthcare recruitment professionals and staffing agencies must step outside the confines of traditional recruitment channels to source new and hard-to-reach talent.

One way to do this is by geotargeting hiring campaigns beyond your local market. Some states are hit harder than others by the talent shortage; if you’re in one of them, use state and zip-code-based targeting to reach outside of your region when hiring ads using PPC and social media.

Next, make sure you’re putting your best foot forward digitally speaking. When was the last time you updated your website’s jobs page? If it’s been a while, give it a facelift. Most career pages are stale and formulaic—they all look the same. Attract more candidates by infusing your careers page with originality. Use imagery and design elements that reflect your employer brand (more on this later in our list), and be sure to convey clearly and prominently the benefits of working for your organization.

Finally, step up your employee referral program. Referrals remain strong as employers’ top source for candidates; ensure you’re making it worthwhile for your staff to participate. Cash is always a strong incentive, but don’t forget about in-kind incentives like additional time off and other employee perks. Communicate with your staff about open positions clearly and often.

Use your social media presence

Though it took some time, the healthcare field has joined the rest of the business world on popular social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. 99% of hospitals now have a Facebook page, while 50% have a Twitter account.

To execute social recruiting effectively, it’s a must to understand your audience, both in terms of your followers and the platform in general. On Instagram, which skews younger, it might make sense to promote for open positions like nurses and physician assistants. Still, it might not be the best place to reach candidates for C-suite positions, who are typically more seasoned in their careers and thus older. Facebook, however, might be the perfect place to reach those candidates.

You’ll also want to ensure your recruiting department works in tandem with your marketing and/or social media department to coordinate messaging and grasp what type of content resonates best with your audience. For example, if your brand voice is heartfelt, posting a humorous video wouldn’t make sense.

Speaking of video, use it! Video continues to be the most engaging type of post on Facebook, with 30 to 90 seconds being the ideal video length. If you’re not already, you should strongly consider investing in professionally produced videos for your recruitment efforts.

Related: Showcasing Your Company Culture on Social Media

Focus on benefits to set yourself apart

In such a competitive landscape, the best candidates will look at more than salary when comparing compensation between potential employers. Set yourself apart from top healthcare talent by promoting the most desirable aspects of your benefits package.

Among the upper crust of candidates, healthcare and retirement packages aren’t optional—they’re must-haves, and it’s a deal-breaker if a job doesn’t offer them. Other benefits that workers described as “essential” were 401K matching (42% of workers), bonuses and stipends (39%), and parental leave (30%). Among “non-essential” perks, flexible work hours were the number one demand. 

If you offer other perks, like free food, a casual dress code, cell phone subsidies, or pet-friendly policies, make sure they’re prominently included within your job postings, and consider testing advertising that leads with these items in terms of messaging.

Related: How to Design an Employee Benefits Plan

Elaborate on growth opportunities

Employees increasingly seek value and purpose at work, and one way to give that to them is through growth opportunities. Millennials, in particular, prioritize this factor, with 59% of workers in this age group saying opportunities to learn and grow are extremely important to them when applying for a job. 

Despite the importance of this factor to candidates, many job listings merely touch on it or fail to mention it entirely. Capture the most attractive healthcare talent by not only mentioning career growth opportunities in your postings but elaborating on the specifics of what they look like. It’s worthwhile to make it a point of discussion when recruiting candidates face-to-face or over the phone.

Target passive candidates

Sometimes, candidates are hired because they were in the right place at the right time; the same holds true for companies that land top talent.

In general, hiring peaks in certain parts of the year and slows to a crawl in others. The holiday slump and the post-graduation, late-spring spike are perfect examples. Take advantage of the cyclical lulls in hiring activity by ensuring your recruiting efforts remain active. This is the perfect opportunity to target passive candidates who may have more downtime than they typically do and may be more open to speaking with recruiters.

This is also a great time to step up your networking efforts. Circle back with previous strong candidates who did not wind up with your company for one reason or another. Hold informational calls with referrals and others in your network. Send holiday cards with warm greetings to professional contacts to keep your name top-of-mind.

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Cement a strong employer brand

Many hospitals and healthcare organizations look nearly identical from the outside. On the inside, of course, it’s a different story, but it’s hard for candidates to know what sets you apart. Your employer brand differentiates you from other organizations that, on the surface, appear similar, and it goes beyond just your visual identity, like your logo and color scheme.

Your employer brand encapsulates who you are as a company and why a candidate would find value in working for you–especially elements that make you different from other companies in your field. Do you invest in new technology that makes work easier for your staff? Prioritize work-life balance in your policies? Have great benefits for families? Whatever your points of differentiation are, they should be key elements of your employer brand. 

Fine-tune your recruiting messaging

Customize, customize, customize. The more you can speak in terms that are relevant to your talent pool, the more individuals you’ll convert into applicants. 

The campaign you use to recruit for a medical assistant should look different than the one you use to recruit for a health information technician. The same goes for differing levels of seniority, locations, experience levels, and so on. Just as a B2C company conducts market research to understand its customers, you may need to invest in market research to understand your target candidate better so you can incorporate your findings into more tailored messaging. 

Partner with educational institutions

Educational institutions like colleges, universities, and technical schools can be a great source of new talent. Hospitals can partner with nursing schools to provide hands-on training and fill temporary vacancies. Organization leaders can speak at campus events to help develop the next generation of talent while exposing students to the company’s employer brand. Educational partnerships are a viable long-term strategy to establish pipelines of eager, freshly qualified applicants. 

Always be optimizing

The job market fluctuates just as much as the economy, so what’s working to attract candidates today may not be as effective six months down the road. The key is to consistently assess your progress and make any necessary tweaks to get the most from your recruiting efforts. 

Some areas to consider are:

• Core recruitment KPIs like cost per hire and time to hire
• Effectiveness of employee referral program
• Strength of candidate experience
• Strength of employer brand
• Efficiency of recruitment processes like pre-screening, reference checking, and interview feedback

Regularly look to the future to anticipate events that may put staffing at risk, like holidays and peak vacation times. Conduct rolling interviews for temporary staff to cover any staffing holes you anticipate, if applicable. Revisit last year’s hiring expectations and compare them against actual hiring numbers to guide your efforts.

Finally, don’t forget to zero in on internal candidates for open positions. This is exceptionally useful for succession planning. Reports state that internal candidates account for anywhere between 15% and 28% of hires, but only 2.3% of employees have applied for internal positions. Don’t neglect your existing employees as an important part of your ongoing recruiting pipeline.

Partner With a Professional Healthcare Recruitment Agency for Your Hiring Needs

To maximize your healthcare hiring efforts, consider working with seasoned recruiting professionals like the team of headhunters at 4 Corner Resources. We are a staffing agency specializing in sourcing healthcare professionals from our wide talent network for positions such as claims specialists, medical coders, pharmacy technicians, data entry specialists, and more.

We offer contract and direct-hire staffing solutions to suit your needs and have fee structures that are tailored to your role, from flat fees for high-volume hiring to retained search agreements and percentage-based pricing.

We’re eager to learn about your goals for the year ahead and how we can help set you up for success when it comes to healthcare staffing. Contact us now for a free and confidential consultation.

We commend you for taking the time to read this article. It shows that you care about your company and are devoted to improving your interviewing skills. Before we begin sharing some of the questions to ask in an interview, we wanted to clarify a few things:

‘Candidate,’ ‘Interviewee,’ and ‘Applicant’ refer to the person who is interested in a new job.

‘Hiring Manager,’ ‘Interviewer,’ ‘Recruiter,’ and ‘Employer’ refer to the person hiring for the new job.

Quick Tip: It’s important to spend a minute or two building rapport before asking the interview questions. Something as simple as asking, “How’s the weather in (city name)?” or “How has your day been so far?” can go a long way toward making your applicant feel comfortable and open to dialogue.

The Best Interview Questions to Ask Candidates

Please tell me about yourself.

Some candidates may choose to share information about their personal life, work life, or both. This question can be used to gauge the values, personality, and depth of the individual you are interviewing while gaining an understanding of what they are (or aren’t) comfortable talking about. If they share absolutely no information about their personal life, it may make them uncomfortable if you talk about yours. And vice versa. Their answer can be used as a baseline to set the tone for the rest of the interview.

What interests you most about this position?

This question is a great indicator of the interviewee’s preparation and passion. Did they take the time to review the job in detail and understand the role? Are they passionate about the type of work they’d be doing, or do they just want a job?

Based on the candidate’s answer, you should gain a strong sense of whether or not they understand the position and are passionate about it. If it’s clear they don’t understand the position, but you think they’d be a good fit, now is a good time to explain it to them.

What are your strengths/weaknesses?

This interview question is extremely common and has almost grown to become expected by job seekers. Asking about your candidate’s strengths and weaknesses can be useful for various reasons.

1. It allows you to evaluate the applicant’s self-awareness.
2. It’s reassuring to hear strengths that align with the type of work you are hiring for.
3. It can help weed out potential underperformers if their weaknesses are essential to perform the job.

How has your past experience prepared you for this role?

One of the most important goals of an interview is to learn whether a candidate’s prior experience qualifies them for the job. Whether they have direct experience in a similar role or indirect experience that can translate, you need to discern the duties they’ve held in the past that will set them up for success in this position. This question gives them a chance to elaborate on that experience. It will also help you gauge how well they understand the job requirements.

Why are you leaving your job?

Understanding why the candidate is leaving their current job (or has recently left) can save you from devastating surprises and poor team fits.

Worst case scenario: you find out that the interviewee was recently fired for some unforgivable act (which, of course, is a good thing to find out before making an offer).

Best case scenario: You find out that their current employer is simply failing to meet your company’s standards in a category that is a strength.

Whether the candidate is underpaid, underappreciated, overworked, laid off, or has hit a glass ceiling, it’s important to understand their situation to determine whether your job opportunity will provide what they are looking for.

What is your ideal work environment?

We often emphasize the importance of company culture, but culture fit is a tricky thing to analyze when hiring. It’s easy to place too much focus on likability or similarity when culture fit is really about whether a candidate will thrive in a given environment. This question is an effective way to assess a candidate’s alignment with your workplace. It gives them a chance to describe their preferred physical environment, work conditions, and level of interaction with colleagues, all of which are important elements of culture fit. 

Tell me about your leadership experience.

Developing and retaining talented employees is one of the best strategies to build a skilled, knowledgeable workforce. Thus, it pays to identify people who will be motivated to grow into leadership positions with the company (if they aren’t in a leadership role already). Allowing candidates to discuss their leadership experience can help you identify growth potential and learn how comfortable a candidate is with duties like delegating, project management, and giving constructive feedback.

Related: Strategic Leadership Interview Questions to Ask

What do you consider to be your biggest professional accomplishment?

This is a great question because it helps you gather many different pieces of information about a candidate. First, it gives them the chance to talk about a job-related win, which gives you an idea of the results they can achieve. Second, it tells you what kind of accomplishments a candidate views as important, which sheds light on their values. Finally, it forces the candidate to think on their feet, which helps identify adaptability and resourcefulness. 

Do you have any questions for me?

This question is arguably the most important to ask the interviewee. When you have finished with all the others, this should be your final interview question. Allowing the candidate to ask you questions after the interview is crucial to a positive applicant experience.The last thing you need is an uninformed candidate accepting a job offer without knowing what they are getting into.

Other Questions

Before we get into the bad interview questions to ask candidates, here are a few more good ones.

• What was your greatest failure, and what did you learn from it?
• Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
• Are you interviewing with any other companies?
• How would your friends describe you?
• Have you ever had trouble working with a peer or manager?
• Why have you changed jobs so frequently?
• If hired, what would be your 30-60-90-day plan?
• What can you tell me about this industry?
• Are you willing to relocate?

Worst Interview Questions to Ask Candidates

Knowing what not to ask candidates in an interview can be just as important as knowing what questions you should ask. Do yourself and your company a favor by quickly refreshing yourself on some no-no questions to avoid asking during a job interview.

Off-the-wall questions

Questions like ‘If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be and why?’ might seem like a unique way to assess candidates’ creativity and quick thinking. In reality, though, these questions tell you little about the skills that are actually relevant for the job and can even alienate some candidates. 

Instead of asking wacky questions just for the sake of being wacky, keep questions focused on qualities that are tied to performance. There are ways to do this while still asking out-of-the-box questions. For example, ‘If you had an unlimited budget, what would you change about our industry?’ is a unique question that will no doubt get you some unique answers, but it’s still relevant to the job and field. 

Risky questions

Some interview questions aren’t just bad, they’re illegal. Employers in the U.S. are not allowed to discriminate in hiring based on a person’s race, religion, sex (which includes gender identity and sexual orientation), age, parental status, citizenship status, national origin, or disability. In some states, asking about a candidate’s prior salary is also illegal.

The following questions are problematic:

• What is your salary history?
• Are you married?
• Are you pregnant (and/or do you have children)? Where do you live?
• Do you have any disabilities?
• What is your nation of origin?
• Are you a citizen?
• Have you been convicted of any crimes?
• How old are you?
• What is your race?
• Are you religious?

It’s important to note that these questions are frowned upon and could expose you and/or your company to serious legal issues if you ask them. While this list is not exhaustive, these are some of the most important questions you must avoid.

You also want to avoid questions that hint at any of the above topics or could be viewed as a roundabout way of asking them. For example, ‘Where is your accent from?’ might be something you ask out of genuine interest, but it’s a red flag because you’re prompting the candidate to disclose their national origin.

Closing Thoughts: Tips for Interviewers

Beyond the interview questions, we wanted to leave you with a few closing tips:

• Be conversational. Don’t blast question after question without allowing the applicant to ask questions or seek clarification.
• Be open-minded. Don’t assume these open-ended questions have only one right/wrong answer. Seriously consider the candidate’s answer without any bias.
• Be real. The interview experience is an equal opportunity for both parties to learn more about the company and the people they will be working with. Try to be yourself during the interview; it can be as formal or informal as you decide.

All in all, interviewing is an essential key to hiring and retaining top talent. The best recruiters and hiring managers know how to interview well, and many choose to use the questions provided above in this article. We hope that we can provide you with some useful interview questions to ask candidates.

Related: How to Be a Good Interviewer

If you have any additional questions, please contact us! 4 Corner Resources is a team of headhunters and recruiters that will assist with your hiring needs. We offer direct hire recruiting, contract staffing, and payrolling services.

Top Traits to Look for in Salespeople

When hiring salespeople, it’s important to look for the right combination of skills, personality traits, and experience that best aligns with the organization’s goals and the demands of the particular role. In general, here are some top characteristics that most great salespeople share. 

• Communication skills. Clear and articulate communication is necessary to convey the product’s value proposition. Look for strong written and verbal communication skills. 
• Persuasiveness. Salespeople need to be convincing. Look for candidates with a proven track record of being able to influence the behaviors and decisions of others positively. 
• Resilience. Frequent rejection is an inherent part of sales. Resilient candidates will be better able to bounce back from setbacks and use rejections as fuel to get to the next closed deal. 
• Adaptability. Effective salespeople can use a range of tools to get the job done. If one approach isn’t working, adaptability allows them to change tack and try another strategy. 
• Empathy. Understanding and relating to customers’ needs and concerns is key to successful selling. Empathetic salespeople build better relationships with clients.
• Product knowledge. A good salesperson needs to have a deep understanding of the product or service they are selling. This knowledge allows them to answer questions and tailor pitches effectively.
• Goal-orientation. Sales is KPI-driven. Seek out candidates who are motivated by goals and are committed to achieving targets.
• Time management. Salespeople frequently juggle multiple clients and accounts. Look for individuals who can prioritize tasks and manage their time efficiently.
• Self-motivation. Successful salespeople should be self-starters who can stay motivated and on task without constant supervision.
• Negotiation. Negotiation is a critical aspect of sales. Look for candidates who can negotiate while maintaining positive rapport and a sense of a shared goal.
• Creativity. Creativity helps salespeople overcome customer objections and find unique ways to form relationships.
• Tech adoption. In the modern sales landscape, tech skills are a must. Candidates should be familiar with tools like CRMs and data analytics systems and should be willing to try new ones. 

How to Find Salespeople

1. Identify your needs

You can’t find the perfect person for your sales position if you can’t specifically define what the position entails. Start by identifying your needs and then determine what the right salesperson looks like for you, your team, and your organization. Review your current business needs and assess any experience gaps in your sales department. List out the skill set and experience level you require and look for salespeople who can fill those gaps. 

2. Write a compelling job description

Be clear and concise when writing a job description. Make sure the expectations are clear and attainable. If you oversell how good the job is, you’ll probably attract a lot of candidates, but you’ll lose your new hires down the line. Be honest in your assessment of the job description. Identify which skills and experience are mandatory for the position, which will weed out applicants who aren’t fit for the job. 

3. Search widely for candidates

Now that you’ve defined your sales position, where is the best place to post it to find that superstar salesperson? Anywhere! Everywhere! You can find excellent talent through social media, newspapers, job fairs, online recruiters, and other outlets. You’ll want to leave no stone unturned to find that ideal salesperson. Enlist the help of recruiters who can save you time and energy by finding the right candidates for you. Find recruiters who specialize in your industry. They will have the experience and connections to locate the talent you‘re looking for.  

A great way to find potential candidates is through word of mouth. If your salespeople are happy, rest assured that they will tell others about how great it is to work for your company. An incentive you can use for your current employees is a $1,000 – $5,000 finder’s fee for bringing new talent to you.

Don’t forget the candidates who aren’t actively searching for sales positions. These are usually the top-performing salespeople who don’t browse job boards because they are too busy closing deals and driving revenue for their employer. Read through profiles on sites such as LinkedIn and contact the salespeople you’re interested in. Let them know the fantastic opportunities you can provide for them, the key reasons why you believe they are the perfect fit for the position, and how interested you are in them. Some of the best salespeople are passive candidates because they know their worth and wait for companies to reach out to them.

Related: Ways to Secure Passive Job Seekers

4. Attend industry events

Industry events like conferences and trade shows are filled with salespeople. These events are a great opportunity to get in front of prospective candidates. Interacting face-to-face allows you to get to know candidates personally and see their skills in action before you broach the subject of a job. 

5. Recruit from the competition

One great thing about salespeople is that they make themselves easy to find. Search LinkedIn, industry databases, marketing materials, and your competitors’ websites to identify sales talent. Then, reach out with a friendly message to gauge their interest in employment opportunities. The key is to be respectful and to know when to back off if they express discomfort or disinterest. Check out this post on employee poaching for more helpful tips on recruiting from the competition. 

6. Partner with a sales recruiting agency

A recruiting agency that specializes in sales can give you access to a pool of qualified, experienced talent. A sales headhunter can streamline the process of finding candidates so you can hire faster and execute your business goals.

How to Hire the Best Sales Professionals

1.  Screen resumes carefully

If you’re interviewing someone with five years of sales experience in manufacturing for a position selling software technology, you might be wasting your time. Interviewing can be a tedious and stressful process, so make sure you’re talking to the right candidates. Weed out those unqualified for the position ahead of time.

The candidate you’re looking for should have a consistent track record and impressive results from previous jobs, but even those with gaps in employment can be excellent salespeople. Find out the candidate’s story. If they don’t have a valid reason for their lapse in work experience, still consider them for the role. Don’t necessarily rule them out.

Candidates who boast that they are successful salespeople without a verifiable work history to prove it might not be the best salespeople for you. Look at a candidate’s resume for what he or she has achieved in previous roles. Look for sales awards and achievements as well. Be careful not to overvalue a resume, though. While they’re a good source of information on a candidate’s education and years of selling experience, they don’t provide any insight beyond that. 

2. Ask them to give a practice sales pitch

The interview is your chance to narrow down the competition and find the perfect candidate you’re going to hire. But the process is only as good as the questions you ask. Prepare in advance the questions that will guarantee you the answers and information you need. If you start with a phone interview, listen for a candidate who has a strong, authoritative voice but doesn’t come across as pushy or sounds like a used car salesman. Watch for things like the candidate’s body language in your face-to-face meeting. Are they confident? Do they make eye contact? Do they have a firm handshake? 

In the interview, it’s good to first break the ice with an informal chat or maybe some personality-based questions. This is a good opportunity to get a feel for the candidate’s personality and how well they might fit in on your team. Then it’s time to get down to asking the specific questions related to the position. You can include key members of the team the potential candidate would be joining in this part of the interview. 

The last step is to have the candidate prepare and deliver a practice sales pitch for key stakeholders in the business. This allows you to assess how well they perform under pressure. Salespeople have to be persuasive and engaging. An ad-hoc presentation can give you insight into whether the candidate meets these requirements and is suitable for the role.

Remember that the candidate is also interviewing you. You’ll have to sell yourself and the company’s vision if you want to attract the top talent.

3. Use group and panel interviews

Group interviews, with multiple candidates being interviewed at once, and panel interviews, with candidates facing two or more interviewers, are highly useful for sales positions. Salespeople need to be confident and extroverted, so they should have no problem navigating these nontraditional interview settings. Group interviews give you the chance to see how candidates interact with one another, which can aid in identifying interpersonal skills. Panel interviews let you ‘rapid fire’ questions at candidates, which can simulate the questions and objections they’re likely to face from prospects. 

4. Check references

A potential candidate is never going to give you a bad reference, are they? If they do, you probably don’t want them anyway. So, are references helpful in finding the right salespeople? The answer is yes. You should always contact references, but then ask that reference for another reference and think about what you want to ask them in advance. The better prepared you are, and the better questions you ask, the more useful answers you’ll receive. Another reason you want to contact references is that 99 percent of the time, the candidate will know whether you contacted them or not. You want the candidate to know you’re serious about the process and doing your due diligence to find the best of the best. Otherwise, they’ll go somewhere else.

Related: Ace Your Reference Checks With These Sample Questions

5. Look for a follow-up

A great way to determine if a candidate is right for the position is if they send you a letter of thanks or follow up after the interview with questions or comments. Thank you notes are easy to do, but most applicants who get interviews don’t do them. While it may not be traditional today, waiting a day or two to see if the candidate follows up with you at all can be a great recruiting strategy.

6. Keep in contact and send an offer

The interview process can take weeks or more, and chances are, the top candidates are talking to other companies and going on interviews while you’re making up your mind on who you will select. An important aspect of the process is to keep the lines of communication open. Let those stellar candidates know how interested you are in them. If you wait until your interview process is over before making an offer to an outstanding salesperson, you might miss out because someone else has already hired them. Keeping your top picks in the loop will help prevent them from accepting offers elsewhere. 

When it comes time to offer them the position, be prepared to negotiate. The best salespeople know how to negotiate. They’re the ones who won’t settle for your initial offer but will work to get the best salary possible. If that amazing candidate rejects your first offer, they’re probably worth negotiating with. 

7. Provide thorough onboarding

As we mentioned earlier, extensive knowledge of the product or service being sold is key to a salesperson’s success. New hires should be given comprehensive instruction on the product and have ample opportunity to use it firsthand before their first customer interaction. A thorough onboarding experience will arm them with the information they need to answer questions, overcome objections, and demonstrate usefulness to close more deals. 

8. Retain top performers

Now that you’ve built a team of overachievers, how do you keep your all-star sales team? How many of your hires will still be with you after a year, three years, or 10 years? If you’re landing the right people and managing them well, they will be loyal to you and the company.

The trick is to make your retention strategies personal. One size does not fit all. If a salesperson isn’t motivated by money, find out how to motivate them in other ways. This will be very important to them and the company. Give the best sales reps the most challenging accounts, larger territory, personal and professional growth opportunities, more vacation time, or flexibility in the workplace. Find out what works to retain your top performers, and they’ll keep on working for you. 

Make sure your sales strategy is sound, or your top performers will start looking elsewhere. A poorly implemented sales framework is a key to failure regardless of how good your sales team is. The right strategy, coupled with the right people, is a winning combination every time. 

Related: Highly Effective Strategies for Employee Retention

Let 4 Corner Resources Secure the Best Salespeople For You

Recruiting good salespeople is an active process, not a reactive one. It also isn’t a one-time event, but rather an ongoing exercise, which means the hunt for sales talent isn’t going to end anytime soon. Not sure where to start or need some help? We are a top-rated recruiting company that’s here to help you hire the salesperson of your dreams. Contact us today to see how we can help!

St. Patrick’s Day Contests for Your Team

There’s nothing better than a friendly competition to bring excitement to St. Patrick’s Day at work. These St. Patrick’s Day office games promote camaraderie among team members and add a bit of lighthearted competition to the celebration. Here are some engaging contests that you can easily organize:

• Leprechaun hat toss: Set up a fun ring toss game using mini leprechaun hats as targets. Employees can take turns tossing rings from a distance, aiming to land them on the hats. It’s a simple yet entertaining game that can be set up in any open space in the office.
• Pot of gold hunt: Hide small pots of gold (or gold-colored candies) around the office and have team members search for them. The one who finds the most gold wins a prize. This game encourages movement and interaction, perfect for a midday break.
• Best dressed in green: Encourage your team to wear green and have a fashion show to see who’s the best dressed. Award prizes for categories like ‘Most Creative,’ ‘Most Festive,’ and ‘Best Overall.’
• Irish trivia challenge: Test your team’s knowledge about Irish culture, history, and St. Patrick’s Day traditions. An activity like this can be a great way to educate and have fun at the same time.
• Shamrock art contest: Provide team members with paper, markers, and other art supplies to create their own shamrock designs. Display the artwork around the office and have everyone vote for their favorite.

Each of these contests celebrates the holiday, reinforces team bonding, and creates a memorable experience for all. Remember, the goal is to keep the activities inclusive and enjoyable for everyone.

Related: Team Building At Work Ideas

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St. Patrick’s Day Food Ideas

What’s a celebration without yummy treats? This St. Patrick’s Day, elevate the office festivities with these mouth-watering food ideas sure to please every palate. Here’s how you can add a taste of Ireland to your office party:

• Green-themed potluck: Invite team members to bring in dishes that are either green or Irish-inspired. Think spinach quiche, pesto pasta, or even green cupcakes. It’s a great way to eat a bunch of different foods and honor the holiday spirit.
• Candy salad: A trendy and sweet addition to your St. Patrick’s Day menu, candy salads are all the rage on social media. Mix in various green candies – like mint chocolates, green jelly beans, and lime gummies – to create a playful and colorful dessert that’s as Instagram-worthy as it is delicious.
• Irish soda bread: Enjoy traditional Irish cuisine with freshly baked Irish soda bread. This simple, hearty bread pairs wonderfully with sweet and savory spreads, making it a versatile choice for an office snack.
• Shamrock shakes: For a delicious and festive treat, blend up some homemade shamrock shakes. Use vanilla ice cream, milk, mint extract, and a few drops of green food coloring to create this creamy, minty delight.
• Mini shepherd’s pies: For a savory treat, make some mini shepherd’s pies. These bite-sized versions of the classic Irish dish are perfect for an office setting, so everyone can try a bite without feeling stuffed.

With these ideas, you’re not just treating your team to tasty snacks but also creating a memorable and engaging experience that highlights the fun and flavor of the holiday.

St. Patrick’s Day Decor Ideas for the Office

Transforming your office space with festive decor is a fantastic way to get everyone into the St Patrick’s Day spirit. From subtle touches of green to full-blown Irish-themed decorations, these ideas will help you create a warm and inviting atmosphere for your team:

Green balloon arch

Welcome your team with a grand entrance by setting up a green balloon arch at the office entryway. Mix different shades of green balloons, and maybe even add a few gold ones to mimic a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Shamrock garlands

Drape shamrock garlands around the office – over doorways and along the walls. You can buy these or have a fun DIY session with your team to make them using green construction paper.

Table centerpieces

Create simple yet impressive table centerpieces using jars filled with gold-wrapped chocolates and a few artificial green shamrocks. These can be placed in common areas like the break room or meeting tables.

Irish quote posters

Decorate the walls with posters featuring famous Irish quotes or sayings. Not only does it add to the decor, but it also introduces an element of Irish culture to the office.

Green lighting

For a more subtle effect, replace regular light bulbs with green ones in certain areas, or use green string lights to add a cozy, festive glow to the office.

DIY leprechaun hats

Set up a small craft station where employees can make and decorate their own leprechaun hats. It’s a fun activity that also adds to the overall decor.

Pot of gold corner

Create a ‘Pot of Gold’ corner in the office to serve as a photo booth spot, adding an interactive and fun element to the decor. It’s a great way to encourage employees to engage with the theme and capture memorable moments.

With these St. Patrick’s Day decor ideas, your office will look festive and feel more lively and engaging. It’s important to create an environment where the entire team can feel the joy and excitement of the holiday.

As we wrap up our list of ideas for celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in the office, remember that the holiday is about coming together in good spirits and making memories. Each effort, whether organizing team contests, providing delicious Irish food, or decorating your office, contributes to a more vibrant and engaging workplace.

Celebrating holidays like St. Patrick’s Day at work can significantly boost morale, strengthen team bonds, and break the monotony of everyday routines. These moments of shared laughter and camaraderie often become cherished memories among colleagues.

We at 4 Corner Resources wish you a fantastic St. Patrick’s Day filled with fun, laughter, and lots of lucky moments. May your day be as rich as gold and as bright as a rainbow. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!