HIRING SUPPORT

Managing the many steps in a hiring process is time consuming and yet essential to arrive at the right result - a great  candidate.  Hiring managers and their staff often have full-time roles and hiring is one more responsibility, sometimes off the side of their desk. 

Kate provides an extra set of professional hands to temporarily support your team, keep the process moving forward and get the best results.

ENGAGE KATE TO ELEVATE YOUR HIRING EXPERIENCE:

1. Job Profile & Posting:  Kate is an expert in job profile writing and can quickly and efficiently work with you to write or update a profile that will attract the right candidates while aligning with your culture and compensation structure.

When a position becomes vacant or is net new to the organization, there's some key steps to complete before it's posted.

• is the job profile 'fresh'? Out of date profiles that are mis-aligned with the current accountabilities of a position, or with the values and culture of your organization, will skew the hiring process and could result in poor outcomes.
• are the job requirements - the education and experience - too restrictive or too vague?  Either one impacts the quality of the applicant pool. 
• could the job requirements be more flexible? For example, would more years of relevant experience be considered equivalent to a degree or other formal educational requirement? This will attract a more diversely qualified applicant pool.
• are there any specific requirements and/or conditions that are missing?  For example does this role involve travelling, is it hybrid, remote or full-time on-site.
• does the language comply with the applicable provincial employment and labour laws and regulations. 

2.  Behavioural Competencies: Kate has a deep understanding of behavioural competencies and will suggest and support you in defining the key competencies that align with the role and that will be invaluable in finding the right fit at the interview stage.

Behavioural competencies are as important as the formal education and the type and length of experience; these are the attributes of an individual, essential for ensuring the right fit for the role.  For example - if you're seeking a proven leader or someone who can demonstrate strong relationship building skills, then these are stated as behavioural competencies on the job profile and posting and they shape behavioural interview questions.  

3.  Screening: Kate has screened hundreds of competitions and read through thousands of resumes and cover letters.  She can take the pressure off hiring managers and their teams who are often swamped with many other priorities.  Kate will efficiently conduct the preliminary screening and then provide an Excel summary of the results, detailing and recommending those applicants qualified to move forward.

Artificial Intelligence screening is a common practice, however AI cannot recognize nuances and could overlook individuals with unique skills, experiences, or soft skills that it's not designed to recognize or value.  

Reading through piles of job applications is time consuming and requires dedicated focus to ensure the right applicants are selected to make it through to the next step in the process. Some roles are highly specialized and may only attract a small number of applicants.  Others will draw in dozens of responses.  The quality of these potential candidates is what hiring managers are looking for, regardless of the number they receive.  As anyone who has been in a hiring manager role can testify, screening is a tricky process as the variation in style and quality of resumes and cover letters is vast.  As mentioned above, an up-to-date job profile with the right qualifications and competencies is critical to know where to zero in as you sift through the pool to find those best fit candidates.  

4. Assessment (2nd Screening): Kate supports hiring managers in the design of an effective assignment/assessment/test and with developing a marking guide to evaluate the responses.

Once the candidate pool has been established the next step is either to move directly to interview or to issue an assignment, a test or some other form of candidate evaluation, which is used as a '2nd Screening'.  These are helpful to:

• to narrow down the candidate pool where perhaps it's not practical or efficient to interview all of the applicants that made it through the screening.  
• to dig deeper into the candidates' knowledge, experience, skills before moving forward to interview, particularly for technical or scientific type positions.

5. Interview & Reference Checks:  

Interview: Kate has assisted numerous hiring panels by developing draft interview questions, organizing and scheduling interviews and participating as a panel member.

I half jokingly refer to job interviews as comparable to 'speed dating' as the hiring panel meets one candidate after another, typically for an hour to determine which will be successful.  It can be a daunting process for both sides of the table.

Reference Checks:  Kate has conducted hundreds of reference checks and is highly skilled in managing these conversations and eliciting honest answers to important questions to confirm (or otherwise) a candidate's character and past work performance.

Candidates very rarely provide a reference that is likely to be negative, which is why it's important that the person conducting the reference check is skilled in tactfully and professionally dig deeper where necessary.  Ideally references should be checked by someone who was involved in the interview so that they can ask the right questions to gain insights into a candidate's past work performance and character. 

It's helpful to have a template with a list of standard questions, however this should be used as a guide to the conversation and a place into which the referee's comments are recorded, rather than a rigid script.