How to Hire Right For Your Business and Your Life

If your business is fortunate enough to be hiring in today’s economic climate, you’ve probably noticed that job seekers are flocking to your online job posting. The truth is that, even though you try to give everyone a fair chance, you're probably receiving hundreds of resumes in response to your company’s posted job listing and you simply can’t read them all. So, you skim them and often make decisions on whether to pursue certain candidates based on where they went to school, the format of their resume or unexplained gaps in employment. Unfortunately for job seekers, a stand alone, paper-based resume is probably the most discriminating component of the hiring process today. Because let’s face it: Job seekers are much more than what an 8.5" x 11" piece of paper represents.   

How to hire right for your business

To learn more about job seekers quickly, consider including pre-screening questions in their online application process. Pre-screening questions are your way of making sure that a candidate has a reasonable baseline of knowledge early on in the recruiting process. Here are some examples of pre-screening questions you might use to hire for your business:

• How did you hear about our company? (This helps to get the applicant comfortable with the format of a video pre-screening question, and talking.)
• Talk about why you are a fit for this position.
• What job responsibilities do you excel at? What are your weaknesses?
• Describe how to ____. (Allows job seekers to show their technical skills.)
• Can you provide an example of a project that you've completed that had a favorable result?
• What is your leadership style?

 Pre-screening also helps job seekers to differentiate themselves by showcasing their technical skills and their “soft” communication skills before you actually interview them. As a matter of fact, many employers have introduced pre-interview questions (whether they be via video, audio or written responses) into the hiring process to efficiently weed out candidates who are not willing to put in the extra time or effort to answer these questions. Though it may make the process a bit longer, busy mom entrepreneurs can use pre-screening to narrow candidates down to the most qualified and most interested.  For mogul moms, pre-screening questions may also be a great way to cut down the time and money you spend in hiring a potential caregiver for your child.   

How to hire right for your life

Like the search for the perfect employee for your business, you are looking for that one perfect employee at home – except in a nanny or caregiver, you want someone who can make your children laugh while keeping their tiny hands and faces scrubbed clean, who can shuttle them from dance class to karate, and who makes a mean peanut butter-banana sandwich. The pre-screening process is an important step (if not the most important step) in finding a caregiver. You’ll need to glean information on your potential hire such as CPR certification, years of experience, references and the applicant’s proposed solutions to common problems that you pose during the interview (for example: What do you do if the kids refused to put on their PJs unless you give them chocolate milk?). Many online platforms will allow you to create your own list of pre-screening questions to deliver to viable candidates for audio or video response – that way the questions that you ask in every interview will be answered instantly and you can filter potential candidates based on the best responses. It’s difficult to size up a nanny just by looking at a traditional paper resume; after all, we’re all more dynamic than a list of skills and accomplishments represents. But, by screening applicants with your most common questions and then selecting only your favorites for an interactive interview, you can save time – and analyze your “gut feeling” before you are one-on-one in a room with a candidate. And that’s the beauty of using technology for hiring: It helps you cut through the noise and “go with your gut” much more quickly and cost efficiently than ever before. Use it, and your future employees (at work and at home) will thank you.