Improve Your IT Recruitment Process

Train your IT department to get involved in the recruitment process to attract and select the best talent.

Own the IT recruitment process

Train your IT department to get involved in the recruitment process to attract and select the best talent.

Follow this blueprint to:

• Define and communicate the unique benefits of working for your organization to potential candidates through a strong employer brand.
• Learn best practices around creating effective job postings.
• Target your job posting efforts on the areas with the greatest ROI.
• Create and deliver an effective, seamless, and positive interview and offer process for candidates.
• Acclimate new hires and set them up for success.

Get involved at key moments of the candidate experience to have the biggest impact

RECRUIT QUALITY STAFF

Hiring talent is critical to organizational success

Talent is a priority for the entire organization:

Respondents rated “recruitment” as the top issue facing organizations today (McLean & Company 2022 HR Trends Report).

37% of IT departments are outsourcing roles to fill internal skill shortages (Info-Tech Talent Trends 2022 Survey).

Yet bad hires are alarmingly common:

Hiring is one of the least successful business processes, with three-quarters of managers reporting that they have made a bad hire (Robert Half, 2021).

48% of survey respondents stated improving the quality of hires was the top recruiting priority for 2021 (Jobvite, 2021).

Workshop overview

Enhance Your Recruitment Strategies

The way you position the organization impacts who is likely to apply to posted positions.

Develop a strong employee value proposition

What is an employee value proposition?

And what are the key components?

The employee value proposition is your opportunity to showcase the unique benefits and opportunities of working at your organization, allowing you to attract a wider pool of candidates.

Creating a compelling EVP that presents a picture of your employee experience, with a focus on diversity, will attract a wide pool of diverse candidates to your team. This can lead to many internal and external benefits for your organization.

How to collect information on your EVP

Existing Employee Value Proposition: If your organization or IT department has an existing employee value proposition, rather than starting from scratch, we recommend leveraging that and moving to the testing phase to see if the EVP still resonates with staff and external parties.

Employee Engagement Results: If your organization does an employee engagement survey, review the results to identify the areas in which the IT organization is performing well. Identify and document any key comment themes in the report around why employees enjoy working for the organization or what makes your IT department a great place to work.

Social Media Sites. Prepare for the good, the bad, and the ugly. Social media websites like Glassdoor and Indeed make it easier for employees to share their experiences at an organization honestly and candidly. While postings on these sites won’t relate exclusively to the IT department, they do invite participants to identify their department in the organization. You can search these to identify any positive things people are saying about working for the organization and potentially opportunities for improvement (which you can use as a starting point in the retention section of this report).

1.1 Gather feedback

1. Download the Improve Your IT Recruitment Workbook.
2. On tab 1.1, brainstorm the top five things you value most about working at the organization. Ask yourself what would fall in each category and identify any key themes. Be sure to take note of any specific quotes you have.
3. Brainstorm limitations that the organization currently has in each of those areas.

Download the Recruitment Workbook

1.2 Build key messages

1. Go to tab 1.2 in your workbook
2. Identify themes from activity 1.1 that would be considered current strengths of you organization.
3. Identify themes from activity 1.2 that are aspirational elements of your organization.
4. Identify up to four key statements to focus on for the EVP, ensuring that your EVP speaks to at least one of the five categories above.
5. Integrate these into one overall statement.

Examples below.

Sample EVPs

Sources: Built In, 2021; Workology, 2022

Ensure your EVP resonates with employees and prospects

Test your EVP with internal and external audiences.

Want to learn more?

Recruit IT Talent

• Improve candidate experience to hire top IT talent.

Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

• Gender diversity is directly correlated to IT performance.

Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT

• Good business, not just good philanthropy.

Enhance Your Recruitment Strategies

The way you position the organization impacts who is likely to apply to posted positions.

Market your EVP to potential candidates: Employer Brand

Employer brand includes how you market the EVP internally and externally – consistency is key

The employer brand is the perception internal and external stakeholders hold of the organization and exists whether it has been curated or not. Curating the employer brand involves marketing the organization and employee experience. Grounding your employer brand in your EVP enables you to communicate and market an accurate portrayal of your organization and employee experience and make you desirable to both current and potential employees.

The unique offering an employer provides to employees in return for their effort, motivating them to join or remain at the organization. The perception internal and external stakeholders hold of the organization.

Alignment between the EVP, employer brand, and corporate brand is the ideal branding package. An in-sync marketing strategy ensures stakeholders perceive and experience the brand the same way, creating brand ambassadors.

Ensure your branding material creates a connection

How you present your employer brand is just as important as the content. Ideally, you want the viewer to connect with and personalize the material for the message to have staying power. Use Marketing’s expertise to help craft impactful promotional materials to engage and excite the viewer.

Visuals

Images are often the first thing viewers notice. Use visuals that connect to your employer brand to engage the viewer’s attention and increase the likelihood that your message will resonate. However, if there are too many visuals this may detract from your content – balance is key!

Language

Wordsmithing is often the most difficult aspect of marketing. Your message should be accurate, informative, and engaging. Work with Marketing to ensure your wording is clever and succinct – the more concise, the better.

Composition

Integrate visuals and language to complete your marketing package. Ensure that the text and images are balanced to draw in the viewer.

Case Study: Using culture to drive your talent pool

This case study is happening in real time. Please check back to learn more as Goddard continues to recruit for the position.

Recruiting at NASA

Goddard Space Center is the largest of NASA’s space centers with approximately 11,000 employees. It is currently recruiting for a senior technical role for commercial launches. The position requires consulting and working with external partners and vendors.

NASA is a highly desirable employer due to its strong culture of inclusivity, belonging, teamwork, learning, and growth. Its culture is anchored by a compelling vision, “For the betterment of Humankind,” and amplified by a strong leadership team that actively lives their mission and vision daily.

Firsthand lists NASA as #1 on the 50 most prestigious internships for 2022.

Rural location and no flexible work options add to the complexity of recruiting

The position is in a rural area of Eastern Shore Virginia with a population of approximately 60,000 people, which translates to a small pool of candidates. Any hire from outside the area will be expected to relocate as the senior technician must be onsite to support launches twice a month. Financial relocation support is not offered and the position is a two-year assignment with the option of extension that could eventually become permanent.

“Looking for a Talent Unicorn: a qualified, experienced candidate with both leadership skills and deep technical expertise that can grow and learn with emerging technologies.”

Steve Thornton

Acting Division Chief, Solutions Division, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA

Case Study: Using culture to drive your talent pool

A good brand overcomes challenges.

Culture takes the lead in NASA's job postings, which attract a high number of candidates. Postings begin with a link to a short video on working at NASA, its history, and how it lives its vision. The video highlights NASA's diversity of perspectives, career development, and learning opportunities.

NASA's company brand and employer brand are tightly intertwined, providing a consistent view of the organization.

The employer vision is presented in the best place to reach NASA's ideal candidate: usajobs.gov, the official website of the United States Government and the “go-to” for government job listings. NASA also extends its postings to other generic job sites as well as LinkedIn and professional associations.

Interview with Robert Leahy

Chief Information Officer, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA

2.1 Assess your organization’s employer brand

1. Go to tab 2.1 in the Improve Your IT Recruitment Workbook.
2. Put yourself in the shoes of someone on the outside looking in. If they were to look up your organization, what impression would they be given about what is like to work there?
3. Run a Google search on your organization with key words “jobs,” “culture,” and “working environment” to see what a potential candidate would see when they begin researching your organization.

You can use sites like:

• Glassdoor
• Indeed company pages
• LinkedIn company pages
• Social media
• Your own website

Want to learn more?

Recruit IT Talent

• Improve candidate experience to hire top IT talent.

Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

• Gender diversity is directly correlated to IT performance.

Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT

• Good business, not just good philanthropy.

Enhance Your Recruitment Strategies

The way you position the organization impacts who is likely to apply to posted positions.

Create engaging job ads to attract talent to the organization

We have a job description; can I just post that on Indeed?

A job description is an internal document that includes sections such as general job information, major responsibilities, key relationships, qualifications, and competencies. It communicates job expectations to incumbents and key job data to HR programs.

A job ad is an externally facing document that advertises a position with the intent of attracting job applicants. It contains key elements from the job description as well as information on the organization and its EVP.

Write an Effective Job Ad

• Ensure that your job ad speaks to the audience you are targeting through the language you use.
  • E.g. If you are hiring for a creative role, use creative language and formatting. If you are writing for students, emphasize growth opportunities.
• Highlight the organization’s EVP.
• Paint an accurate picture of key aspects of the role but avoid the nitty gritty as it may overwhelm applicants.
• Link to your organization’s website and social media platforms so applicants can easily find more information.

A job description informs a job ad, it doesn’t replace it. Don’t be lulled into using a job description as a posting when there’s a time crunch to fill a position. Refer to job postings as job advertisements to reinforce that their purpose is to attract attention and talent.

An effective job posting contains the following elements:

Bottom Line: A truly successful job posting ferrets out those hidden stars that may be over cautious and filters out hundreds of applications from the woefully under qualified.

The do’s and don’ts of an inclusive job ad

*Source: Ladders, 2013

Before posting the job ad complete the DEI job posting validation checklist

*Source: Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT

3.1 Review and update your job ads

1. Download the Job Ad Template.
2. Look online or ask HR for an example of a current job advertisement you are using.

• If you don’t have one, you can use a job description as a starting point.

Want to learn more?

Recruit IT Talent

• Improve candidate experience to hire top IT talent.

Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

• Gender diversity is directly correlated to IT performance.

Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT

• Good business, not just good philanthropy.

Enhance Your Recruitment Strategies

Focus on key programs and tactics to improve the effectiveness of your sourcing approach.

Get involved with sourcing to get your job ad seen

To meet growing expectations, organizations need to change the way they source

Focus on key programs and tactics to improve the effectiveness of your sourcing approach

Internal Talent Mobility (ITM) Program

Social Media Program

Employee Referral Program

Alumni Program

Campus Recruiting Program

Other Sourcing Tactics

Take advantage of your current talent with an internal talent mobility program

What is it?

Positioning the right talent in the right place, at the right time, for the right reasons, and supporting them appropriately.

Leverage social media to identify and connect with talent

“It is all about how we can get someone’s attention and get them to respond. People are becoming jaded.”

– Katrina Collier, Social Recruiting Expert, The Searchologist

Reap the rewards of an employee referral program

Avoid the Like Me Bias: Continually evaluate the diversity of candidates sourced from the employee referral program. Unless your workforce is already diverse, referrals can hinder diversity because employees tend to recommend people like themselves.

Tap into your network of former employees

Make use of a campus recruiting program

Info-Tech Insight

Target schools that align with your culture and needs. Do not just focus on the most prestigious schools: they are likely more costly, have more intense competition, and may not actually provide the right talent.

Identify opportunities to integrate non-traditional techniques

Partner with other organizational functions to build skills and leverage existing knowledge

Use knowledge that already exists in the organization to improve talent sourcing capabilities.

To successfully partner with other departments in your organization:

• Acknowledge that they are busy. Like IT, they have multiple competing priorities.
• Present your needs and prioritize them. Create a list of what you are looking for and then be willing to just pick your top need. Work with the other department to decide what needs can and cannot be met.
• Present the business case. Emphasize how partnering is mutually beneficial. For example, illustrate to Marketing that promoting a strong brand with candidates will improve the organization’s overall reputation because often, candidates are customers.
• Be reasonable and patient. You are asking for help, so be moderate in your expectations and flexible in working with your partner.

Info-Tech Insight

Encourage your team to seek out, and learn from, employees in different divisions. Training sessions with the teams may not always be possible but one-on-one chats can be just as effective and may be better received.

5.1 Review the effectiveness of existing sourcing programs

1. As a group review the description of each program as defined on previous slides. Ensure that everyone understands the definitions.
2. In your workbook, look for the cell Internal Talent Mobility under the title; you will find five rows with the following

• This program is formally structured and documented.
• This program is consistently applied across the organization.
• Talent is sourced this way on an ad hoc basis.
• Our organization currently does not source talent this way.
• There are metrics in place to assess the effectiveness of this program.

Want to learn more?

Recruit IT Talent

• Improve candidate experience to hire top IT talent.

Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

• Gender diversity is directly correlated to IT performance.

Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT

• Good business, not just good philanthropy.

Enhance Your Recruitment Strategies

Interviews are the most often used yet poorly executed hiring tool.

Create a high-quality interview process to improve candidate assessment

Everyone believes they’re a great interviewer; self-assess your techniques, and “get real” to get better

If you…

• Believe everything the candidate says.
• Ask mostly hypothetical questions: "What would you do in a situation where…"
• Ask gimmicky questions: "If you were a vegetable, what vegetable would you be?"
• Ask only traditional interview questions: "What are your top three strengths?”
• Submit to a first impression bias.
• Have not defined what you are looking for before the interview.
• Ignore your gut feeling in an attempt to be objective.
• Find yourself loving a candidate because they are just like you.
• Use too few or too many interviewers in the process.
• Do not ask questions to determine the motivational fit of the candidate.
• Talk more than the interviewee.
• Only plan and prepare for the interview immediately before it starts.

…then stop. Use this research!

Most interviewers are not effective, resulting in many poor hiring decisions, which is costly and counter-productive

Most interviewers are not effective…

• 82% of organizations don’t believe they hire highly talented people (Trost, 2022).
• Approximately 76% of managers and HR representatives that McLean & Company interviewed agreed that the majority of interviewers are not very effective.
• 66% of hiring managers come to regret their interview-based hiring decisions (DDI, 2021).

…because, although everyone knows interviewing is a priority, most don’t make it one.

• Interviewing is often considered an extra task in addition to an employee’s day-to-day responsibilities, and these other responsibilities take precedence.
• It takes time to effectively design, prepare for, and conduct an interview.
• Employees would rather spend this time on tasks they consider to be an immediate priority.

Even those interviewers who are good at interviewing, may not be good enough.

• Even a good interviewer can be fooled by a great interviewee.
• Some interviewees talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk. They have great interviewing abilities but not the skills required to be successful in the specific position for which they are interviewing.
• Even if the interviewer is well trained and prepared to conduct a strong interview, they can get caught up with an interviewee that seems very impressive on the surface, and end up making a bad hire.

Preparing the Perfect Interview

Step 5: Define decision rights

Establish decision-making authority and veto power to mitigate post-interview conflicts over who has final say over a candidate’s status.

Follow these steps to create a positive interview experience for all involved.

Step 1: Define the ideal candidate profile; determine the attributes of the ideal candidate and their relative importance

Define the attributes of the ideal candidate…

Caution: Evaluating for “organizational or cultural fit” can lead to interviewers falling into the trap of the “like me” bias, and excluding diverse candidates.

…then determine the importance of the attributes.

The job description is not enough; meet with stakeholders to define and come to a consensus on the ideal candidate profile

Definition of the Ideal Candidate

• The Hiring Manager has a plan for the new hire and knows the criteria that will best fulfill that mandate.
• The Executive team may have specific directives for what the ideal candidate should look like, depending on the level and critical nature of the position.
• Industry standards, which are defined by regulatory bodies, are available for some positions. Use these to identify skills and abilities needed for the job.
• Competitor information such as job descriptions and job reviews could provide useful data about a similar role in other organizations.
• Exit interviews can offer insight into the most challenging aspects of the job and identify skills or abilities needed for success.
• Current employees who hold the same or a similar position can explain the nuances of the day-to-day job and what attributes are most needed on the team.

“The hardest work is accurately defining what kind of person is going to best perform this job. What are their virtues? If you’ve all that defined, the rest is not so tough.”

– VP, Financial Services

Use a scorecard to document the ideal candidate profile and help you select a superstar

1. Download the Workbook and go to tab 6.1.
2. Document the desired attributes for each category of assessment: Competencies, Experiences, Fit, and Motivation. You can find an Attribute Library on the next tab.
   
3. Rank each attribute by level of priority: Required, Asset, or Nice-to-Have.
   
4. Identify deal breakers that would automatically disqualify a candidate from moving forward.

To identify questions for screening interviews, use the Screening Interview Template

A screening interview conducted by phone should have a set of common questions to identify qualified candidates for in-person interviews.

The Screening Interview Template will help you develop a screening interview by providing:

• Common screening questions that can be modified based on organizational needs and interview length.
• Establishing an interview team.
• A questionnaire format so that the same questions are asked of all candidates and responses can be recorded.

Once completed, this template will help you or HR staff conduct candidate screening interviews with ease and consistency. Always do screening interviews over the phone or via video to save time and money.

Info-Tech Insight

Determine the goal of the screening interview – do you want to evaluate technical skills, communication skills, attitude, etc.? – and create questions based on this goal. If evaluating technical skill, have someone with technical competency conduct the interview.

Step 2: Choose interview types and techniques that best assess the ideal candidate attributes listed on the position scorecard

There is no best interview type or technique for assessing candidates, but there could be a wrong one depending on the organization and job opening.

• Understanding common interviewing techniques and types will help inform your own interviewing strategy and interview development.
• Each interview technique and type has its own strengths and weakness and can be better suited for a particular organizational environment, type of job, or characteristic being assessed.

No matter which interview types or techniques you use, aim for it to be as structured as possible to increase its validity

The validity of the interview increases as the degree of interview structure increases.

Components of a highly structured interview include:

1. Interview questions are derived from a job analysis (they are job related).
2. Interview questions are standardized (all applicants are asked the same questions).
3. Prompting, follow-up questioning, probing, and/or elaboration on questions are limited. Try to identify all prompts, follow-ups, and probes beforehand and include them in the interview guide so that all candidates get the same level of prompting and probing.
4. Interview questions focus on behaviors or work samples rather than opinions or self-evaluations.
5. Interviewer access to ancillary information (e.g. resumes, letters of reference, test scores, transcripts) is controlled. Sometimes limiting access to these documents can limit interviewer biases.
6. Questions from the candidate are not allowed until after the interview. This allows the interviewer to stay on track and not go off the protocol.
7. Each answer is rated during the interview using a rating scale tailored to the question (this is preferable to rating dimensions at the end of the interview and certainly preferable to just making an overall rating or ranking at the end).
8. Rating scales are “anchored” with behavioral examples to illustrate scale points (e.g. examples of a “1,” “3,” or “5” answer).
9. Total interview score is obtained by summing across scores for each of the questions.

The more of these components your interview has, the more structured it is, and the more valid it will be.

Step 3: Prepare interview questions to assess the attributes you are looking for in a candidate

The purpose of interviewing is to assess, not just listen. Questions are what help you do this.

Preparing questions in advance allows you to:

• Match each question to a position requirement (included in your scorecard) to ensure that you assess all required attributes. Everything assessed should be job relevant!
• Determine each question’s weighting, if applicable.
• Give each candidate a chance to speak to all their job-relevant attributes.
• Keep records should an unselected candidate decide to contest the decision.

If you don’t prepare in advance:

• You’ll be distracted thinking about what you are going to ask next and not be fully listening.
• You likely won’t ask the same questions of all candidates, which impacts the ability to compare across candidates and doesn’t provide a fair process for everyone.
• You likely won’t ask the questions you need to elicit the information needed to make the right decision.
• You could ask illegal questions (see Acquire the Right Hires with Effective Interviewing for a list of questions not to ask in an interview).

Use the Interview Question Planning Guide tab in the Candidate Interview Strategy and Planning Guide to prepare your interview questions.

Use these tips to draft interview questions:

• Use job analysis output, in particular the critical incident technique, to develop structured interview questions.
• Search online or in books for example interview questions for the target position to inform interview question development. Just remember that candidates access these too, so be sure to ask for specific examples, include probing questions, and adapt or modify questions to change them.
• Situational questions: The situation should be described in sufficient detail to allow an applicant to visualize it accurately and be followed by “what would you do?” Scoring anchors should reflect effective, typical, and ineffective behaviors.
• Behavioral questions: Should assess a behavioral dimension (e.g. meeting deadlines) and apply to a variety of situations that share the underlying dimension (e.g. at work or school). Scoring anchors should be applicable to a variety of situations and reflect effective, typical, and ineffective behavior.

Conduct an effective screening interview by listening to non-verbal cues and probing

Follow these steps to conduct an effective screening interview:

When you have a shortlist of candidates to invite to an in-person interview, use the Candidate Communication Template to guide you through proper phone and email communications.

Don’t just prepare top-level interview questions; also prepare probing questions to probe to gain depth and clarity

Use probing to drill down on what candidates say as much as possible and go beyond textbook answers.

Conduct effective interviews and assessments

Mitigate inherent biases of assessors by integrating formal assessments with objective anchors and clear criteria to create a more inclusive process.

Consider leveraging behavioral interview questions in your interview to reduce bias.

• In the past, companies were pushing the boundaries of the conventional interview, using unconventional questions to find top talent, e.g. “what color is your personality?” The logic was that the best people are the ones who don’t necessarily show perfectly on a resume, and they were intent on finding the best.
• However, many companies have stopped using these questions after extensive statistical analysis revealed there was no correlation between candidates’ ability to answer them and their future performance on the job.
• Asking behavioral interview questions based on the competency needs of the role is the best way to uncover if the candidates will be able to execute on the job.

Assessments are created by people that have biases. This often means that assessments can be biased, especially with preferences towards a Western perspective. Even if the same assessments are administered, the questions will be interpreted differently by candidates with varying cultural backgrounds and lived experiences. If assessments do not account for this, it ultimately leads to favoring the answers of certain demographic groups, often ones similar to those who developed the assessment.

Creating an interview question scorecard

Attribute you are evaluating Probing questions prepared Area to take notes

Exact question you will ask Place to record score Anchored scale with definitions of a poor, ok and great answer

Step 4: Assemble an interview team

HR and the direct reporting supervisor should always be part of the interview. Make a good impression with a good interview team.

The must-haves:

• The Future Manager should always be involved in the process. They should be comfortable with the new hire’s competencies and fit.
• Human Resources should always be involved in the process – they maintain consistency, legality, and standardization. It’s their job to know the rules and follow them. HR may coordinate and maintain policy standards and/or join in assessing the candidate.
• There should always be more than just one interviewer, even if it is not at the same time. This helps keep the process objective, allows for different opinions, and gives the interviewee exposure to multiple individuals in the company. But, try to limit the number of panel members to four or less.

“At the end of the day, it’s the supervisor that has to live with the person, so any decision that does not involve the supervisor is a very flawed process.” – VP, Financial Services

The nice-to-haves:

• Future colleagues can offer benefits to both the interviewee and the colleague by:
  • Giving the candidate some insight into what their day-to-day job would be.
  • Relaxing the candidate; allowing for a less formal, less intimidating conversation.
  • Introducing potential teammates for a position that is highly collaborative.
  • Offering the interviewer an excellent professional development opportunity – a chance to present their understanding of what they do.
• Executives should take part in interviewing for executive hiring, individuals that will report to an executive, or for positions that are extremely important. Executive time is scarce and expensive, so only use it when absolutely necessary.

Record the interview team details in the Candidate Interview Strategy and Planning Guide template.

Assign interviewers roles inside and outside the actual interview

Define Interview Process Roles

Who Should… Contact candidates to schedule interviews or communicate decisions?

Who Should… Be responsible for candidate welcomes, walk-outs, and hand-offs between interviews?

Who Should… Define and communicate each stakeholder’s role?

Who Should… Chair the preparation and debrief meetings and play the role of the referee when trying to reach a consensus?

Define Interview Roles

• Set a role for each interviewer so they know what to focus on and where they fit into the process (e.g. Interviewer A will assess fit). Don’t ad hoc the process and allow everyone to interview based on their own ideas.
• Consider interviewer qualifications and the impact of the new employee on each interviewer, when deciding the roles of each interviewer (i.e. who will interview for competency and who will interview for fit).
  • For example, managers may be most impacted by technical competencies and should be the interviewer to evaluate the candidate for technical competency.

“Unless you’ve got roles within the panel really detailed and agreed upon, for example, who is going to take the lead on what area of questions, you end up with a situation where nobody is in charge or accountable for the final interview assessment." – VP, Financial Services

Info-Tech Insight

Try a Two Lens Assessment: One interviewer assesses the candidate as a project leader while another assesses them as a people leader for a question such as “Give me an example of when you exercised your leadership skills with a junior team member.”

Step 5: Set decision rights in stone and communicate them in advance to manage stakeholder expectations and limit conflict

All interviewers must understand their decision-making authority prior to the interview. Misunderstandings can lead to resentment and conflict.

The decisions being made can include whether or not to move a candidate onto the next phase of the hiring process or a final hiring decision. Deciding decision rights in advance defines accountability for an effective interview process.

Create your interview team, assessments, and objective anchor scale

1. Download the Behavioral Interview Question Library as a reference.
2. On tab 9 of your workbook, document all the members of the team and their respective roles in the interview process. Fill in the decision-making authority section to ensure every team member is held accountable to their assigned tasks and understands how their input will be used.
3. For each required attribute in the Ideal Candidate Scorecard, chose one to two questions from the library that can properly evaluate that attribute.
4. Copy and paste the questions and probing questions into the Interview Guide Template.
5. Create an objective anchor scale and clearly define what a poor, ok, and great answer to each question is.

Download the Behavioral Interview Question Library

Conduct an effective, professional, and organized in-person interview

The subsequent slides provide additional detail on these eight steps to conducting an effective interview.

Avoid these common biases and mistakes

Common Biases

Like-me effect: An often-unconscious preference for, and unfairly positive evaluation of, a candidate based on shared interests, personalities, and experiences, etc.

Status effect: Overrating candidates based on the prestige of previously held positions, titles, or schools attended.

Recency bias: Placing greater emphasis on interviews held closer to the decision-making date.

Contrast effect: Rating candidates relative to those who precede or follow them during the interview process, rather than against previously determined data.

Solution

Assess candidates by using existing competency-based criteria.

Common Mistakes

Negative tone: Starting the interview on a negative or stressful note may derail an otherwise promising candidate.

Poor interview management: Letting the candidate digress may leave some questions unanswered and reduce the interview value.

Reliance of first impressions: Basing decisions on first impressions undermines the objectivity of competency-based selection.

Failure to ask probing questions: Accepting general answers without asking follow-up questions reduces the evidentiary value of the interview.

Solution

Follow the structured interview process you designed and practiced.

Ask the questions in the order presented in the interview guide, and probe and clarify as needed

When listening to candidate responses, watch for tone, body language, and red flags

Increase hiring success: Give candidates a positive perception of the organization in the interview

Great candidates want to work at great organizations.

When the interviewer makes a positive impression on a candidate and provides a positive impression of the organization it carries forward after they are hired.

In addition, better candidates can be referred over the course of time due to higher quality networking.

As much as choosing the right candidate is important to you, make sure the right candidate wants to choose you and work for your organization.

Interview advice seems like common sense, but it’s often not heeded, resulting in poor interviews

Don’t…

“To the candidate, if you are meeting person #3 and you’re hearing questions that person #1 and #2 asked, the company doesn’t look too hot or organized.” – President, Recruiting Firm

Practice behavioral interviews

1. In groups of at least three:

• Assign one person to act as the manager conducting the interview, a second person to act as the candidate, and a third to observe.
• The observer will provide feedback to the manager at the end of the role play based on the information you just learned.
• Observers – please give feedback on the probing questions and body language.

• How did it go?
• Were you able to get the candidate to speak in specifics rather than generalities? What tips do you have for others?
• What didn’t go so well? Any surprises?
• What would you do differently next time?
• If this was a real hiring situation, would the information you got from just that one question help you make a hiring decision for the role?

Download the Behavioral Interview Question Library

Record best practices, effective questions, and candidate insights for future use and current strategy

Results and insights gained from evaluations need to be recorded and assessed to gain value from them going forward.

• To optimize evaluation, all feedback should be forwarded to a central point so that the information can be shared with all stakeholders. HR can serve in this role.
• Peer evaluations should be shared shortly after the interview. Immediate feedback that represents all the positive and negative responses is instructional for interviewers to consider right away.
• HR can take a proactive approach to sharing information and analyzing and improving the interview process in order to collaborate with hiring departments for better talent management.
• Collecting information about effective and ineffective interview questions will guide future interview revision and development efforts.

Evaluations Can Inform Strategic Planning and Professional Development

Strategic Planning

• Survey data can be used to inform strategic planning initiatives in recruiting.
• Use the information to build a case to the executive team for training, public relations initiatives, or better candidate management systems.

Professional Development

• Survey data from all evaluations should be used to inform future professional development initiatives.
• Interview areas where all team members show weaknesses should be training priorities.
• Individual weaknesses should be integrated into each professional development plan.

Want to learn more?

Recruit IT Talent

• Improve candidate experience to hire top IT talent.

Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

• Gender diversity is directly correlated to IT performance.

Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT

• Good business, not just good philanthropy.

Develop a Comprehensive Onboarding Plan

Drive employee engagement and retention with a robust program that acclimates, guides, and develops new hires.

Onboarding should pick up where candidate experience leaves off

Do not confuse onboarding with orientation

Onboarding ≠ Orientation

Onboarding is more than just orientation. Orientation is typically a few days of completing paperwork, reading manuals, and learning about the company’s history, strategic goals, and culture. By contrast, onboarding is three to twelve months dedicated to welcoming, acclimating, guiding, and developing new employees – with the ideal duration reflecting the time to productivity for the role.

A traditional orientation approach provides insufficient focus on the organizational identification, socialization, and job clarity that a new hire requires. This is a missed opportunity to build engagement, drive productivity, and increase organizational commitment. This can result in early disengagement and premature departure.

Effective onboarding positively impacts the organization and bottom line

Over the long term, effective onboarding has a positive impact on revenue and decreases costs.

The benefits of onboarding:

• Save money and frustration
  • Shorten processing time, reduce administrative costs, and improve compliance.
• Boost revenue
  • Help new employees become productive faster – also reduce the strain on existing employees who would normally be overseeing them or covering a performance shortfall.
• Drive engagement and reduce turnover
  • Quickly acclimate new hires to your organization’s environment, culture, and values.
• Reinforce culture and employer brand
  • Ensure that new hires feel a connection to the organization’s culture.

Onboarding drives new hire engagement from day one

When building an onboarding program, retain the core aims: acclimate, guide, and develop

We recommend a three-to-twelve-month onboarding program, with the performance management aspect of onboarding extending out to meet the standard organizational performance management cycle.

Info-Tech Insight

The length of the onboarding program should align with the average time to productivity for the role(s). Consider the complexity of the role, the industry, and the level of the new hire when determining program length.

For example, call center workers who are selling a straight-forward product may only require a three-month onboarding, while senior leaders may require a year-long program.

Watch for signs that you aren’t effectively acclimating, guiding, and developing new hires

Our primary and secondary research identified the following as the most commonly stated reasons why employees leave organizations prematurely. These issues will be addressed throughout the next section.

“Onboarding is often seen as an entry-level HR function. It needs to rise in importance because it’s the first impression of the organization and can be much more powerful than we sometimes give it credit for. It should be a culture building and branding program.” – Doris Sims, SPHR, The Succession Consultant, and Author, Creative Onboarding Programs

Use the onboarding tabs in the workbook to evaluate and redesign the onboarding program

1. On tab 10, brainstorm challenges that face the organization's current onboarding program. Identify if they fall into the "acclimate," "guide," or "develop" category. Next, record the potential impact of this challenge on the overall effectiveness of the onboarding program.
2. On tab 11, record each existing onboarding activity. Then, identify if that activity will be kept or if it should be retired. Next, document if the activity fell into the "acclimate," "guide," or "develop" category.
3. On tab 12, document gaps that currently exist in the onboarding program. Modify the timeline along the side of the tab to ensure it reflects the timeline you have identified.
4. On tab 13, document the activities that will occur in the new onboarding program. This should be a combination of current activities that you want to retain and new activities that will be added to address the gaps noted on tab 12. For each activity, identify if it will fall in the acclimate, guide, or develop section. Add any additional notes. Before moving on, make sure that there are no categories that have no activities (e.g. no guide activities).

Review the administrative aspects of onboarding and determine how to address the challenges

	Sample challenges	Potential solutions
	Some paperwork cannot be completed digitally (e.g. I-9 form in the US).	Where possible, complete forms with digital signatures (e.g. DocuSign). Where not possible, begin the process earlier and mail required forms to employees to sign and return, or scan and email for the employee to print and return.
	Required compliance training material is not available virtually.	Seek online training options where possible. Determine the most-critical training needs and prioritize the replication of materials in audio/video format (e.g. recorded lecture) and distribute virtually.
	Employees may not have access to their equipment immediately due to shipping or supply issues.	Delay employee start dates until you can set them up with the proper equipment and access needed to do their job.
	New hires can’t get answers to their questions about benefits information and setup.	Schedule a meeting with an HR representative or benefits vendor to explain how benefits will work and how to navigate employee self-service or other tools and resources related to their benefits.

Info-Tech Insight

One of the biggest challenges for remote new hires is the inability to casually ask questions or have conversations without feeling like they’re interrupting. Until they have a chance to get settled, providing formal opportunities for questions can help address this.

Review how company information is shared during onboarding and how to address the challenges

	Sample challenges	Potential solutions
	Key company information such as organizational history, charts, or the vision, mission, and values cannot be clearly learned by employees on their own.	Have the new hire’s manager call to walk through the important company information to provide a personal touch and allow the new hire to ask questions and get to know their new manager.
	Keeping new hires up to date on crisis communications is important, but too much information may overwhelm them or cause unnecessary stress.	Sharing the future of the organization is a critical part of the company information stage of onboarding and the ever-changing nature of the COVID-19 crisis is informing many organizations’ future right now. Be honest but avoid over-sharing plans that may change.
	New hires can’t get answers to their questions about benefits information and setup.	Schedule a meeting with an HR representative or benefits vendor to explain how benefits will work and how to navigate employee self-service or other tools and resources related to their benefits.

Review the socialization aspects of onboarding and determine how to address the challenges

	Sample challenges	Potential solutions
	Team introductions via a team lunch or welcome event are typically done in person.	Provide managers with a calendar of typical socialization events in the first few weeks of onboarding and provide instructions and ideas for how to schedule replacement events over videoconferencing.
	New hires may not have a point of contact for informal questions or needs if their peers aren’t around them to help.	If it doesn’t already exist, create a virtual buddy program and provide instructions for managers to select a buddy from the new hire’s team. Explain that their role is to field informal questions about the company, team, and anything else and that they should book weekly meetings with the new hire to stay in touch.
	New hires will not have an opportunity to learn or become a part of the informal decision-making networks at the organization.	Hiring managers should consider key network connections that new hires will need by going through their own internal network and asking other team members for recommendations.
	New hires will not be able to casually meet people around the office.	Provide the employee with a list of key contacts for them to reach out to and book informal virtual coffee chats to introduce themselves.

Adapt the Guide phase of onboarding to a virtual environment

	Sample challenges	Potential solutions
	Performance management (PM) processes have been paused given the current crisis.	Communicate to managers that new hires still need to be onboarded to the organization’s performance management process and that goals and feedback need to be introduced and the review process outlined even if it’s not currently happening.
	Goals and expectations differ or have been reprioritized during the crisis.	Ask managers to explain the current situation at the organization and any temporary changes to goals and expectations as a result of new hires.
	Remote workers often require more-frequent feedback than is mandated in current PM processes.	Revamp PM processes to include daily or bi-weekly touchpoints for managers to provide feedback and coaching for new hires for at least their first six months.
	Managers will not be able to monitor new hire work as effectively as usual.	Ensure there is a formal approach for how employees will keep their managers updated on what they're working on and how it's going, for example, daily scrums or task-tracking software.

For more information on adapting performance management to a virtual environment, see Info-Tech’s Performance Management for Emergency Work-From-Home research.

Take an inventory of training and development in the onboarding process and select critical activities

Categorize the different types of formal and informal training in the onboarding process into the following three categories. For departmental and individual training, speak to managers to understand what is required on a department and role basis:

In a crisis, not every training can be translated to a virtual environment in the short term. It’s also important to focus on critical learning activities versus the non-critical. Prioritize the training activities by examining the learning outcomes of each and asking:

• What organizational training does every employee need to be a productive member of the organization?
• What departmental or individual training do new hires need to be successful in their role?

Lower priority or non-critical activities can be used to fill gaps in onboarding schedules or as extra activities to be completed if the new hire finds themselves with unexpected downtime to fill.

Determine how onboarding training will be delivered virtually

Who will facilitate virtual training sessions?

• For large onboarding cohorts, consider live delivery via web conferencing where possible. This will create a more engaging training program and will allow new hires to interact with and ask questions of the presenter.
• For individual new hires or small cohorts, have senior leaders or key personnel from across the organization record different trainings that are relevant for their role.
• For example, training sessions about organizational culture can be delivered by the CEO or other senior leader, while sales training could be delivered by a sales executive.

If there is a lack of resources, expertise, or time, outsource digital training to a content provider or through your LMS.

What existing or free tools can be leveraged to immediately support digital training?

• Laptops and PowerPoint to record training sessions that are typically delivered in-person
• YouTube/Vimeo to host recorded lecture-format training
• Company intranet to host links and files needed to complete training
• Web conferencing software to host live training/orientation sessions (e.g. Webex)
• LMS to host and track completion of learning content

Want to learn more?

Recruit IT Talent

• Improve candidate experience to hire top IT talent.

Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

• Gender diversity is directly correlated to IT performance.

Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT

• Good business, not just good philanthropy.

Adapt Your Onboarding Process to a Virtual Environment

• Develop short-term solutions with a long-term outlook to quickly bring in new talent.

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