Decision Toolbox Blog: Blog/News

First installment in a series by Kim Shepherd, CEO, Decision Toolbox

According to CareerBuilder’s 2012 Candidate Behavior Study, 77% of workers are actively searching for a new job or are open to a new opportunity.  If you’re an employer, this insight should raise the alarm that the employment marketplace is shifting, and you probably ought to put renewed focus on the retention of your top talent.  Creative leaders know that strong employee retention is often directly correlated to the strength of an organization’s culture, thus the ongoing cultivation of a solid corporate culture is high on their list of priorities. VIDEO: Corporate Culture – Why bother?

In a 100% virtual environment like we have at Decision Toolbox (DT), it can be particularly easy for employees to feel like islands, disconnected and not a part of the goals and happenings of the organization.  For these reasons, we take DT’s corporate culture very seriously and are laser-focused on creating very sticky “cultural glue” that assures no one on our team feels like an island and employees feel supported, productive and engaged.

In this blog series, we’ll discuss the importance of creating cultural glue in any organization and will share creative ideas and tips that we’ve implemented to super glue our unique culture, one that is geared toward being an “A” company and building and keeping top teams that last. VIDEO: Corporate Culture – Be an employer that attracts (and keeps!) top talent

Stay tuned for more posts on this timely topic!

After 20 years in the recruitment services and Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) space, Decision Toolbox (DT) has learned a thing or two about what it takes to consistently make great hires. We know when it comes to recruiting, time is typically of the essence – it’s all too easy to get caught up in the vortex of “hurry, we need someone yesterday!” Unfortunately, a rushed process and poor planning typically result in wasted time, rework and, often, a less than stellar hire.  To avoid these pitfalls, our advice is to stop and take some valuable time up front to get very clear on what you need, what you want and how you plan to get it.  Constant calibration and course changing once a search is launched is wasted time and will not get you to your goal – a top-notch new hire – most efficiently and effectively.

Success in 34 Steps

In identifying what you need in your new hire, be very honest and realistic about the must-have vs. nice-to-have qualifications and qualities you seek.  Once you have clarity on what you’re looking for, a well-defined, streamlined process is in order.  At DT, the hallmarks of our services are measured by Quality, Speed and Cost, and our recruitment process supports these aspects at every turn. Ours is a Six Sigma-inspired process, carefully boiled down to the 34 steps we have deemed essential to landing a great hire.  Here are a few suggestions to trim the fat and, thus, boost the efficacy of your recruitment process, Decision Toolbox style:

• Evaluate: Carefully assess each step of your process and identify those aspects that your internal/external clients and candidates value the most.
• Eliminate:  Jettison the fluffy, time-wasting steps that add little value to your process.
• Analyze:  Get into your numbers. A data-driven process enables constant analysis and allows course adjustments to be immediately implemented, if needed.

Creativity Reigns

Though some argue that Six Sigma introduces rigidity to a process, we say “not necessarily”. With the 34 critical steps as our cornerstones, our process remains completely supple, flexible and scalable.  By focusing on delivering high value in the form of improved hiring manager and candidate experience, faster delivery, systematic problem solving, and more, we are able to continually offer creative solutions to meet the varying needs of our clients.

With the Memorial Day holiday upon us, there’s no better time to step up our efforts to help unemployed U.S. veterans enter or re-enter the civilian workforce. There are currently more than 250,000 unemployed veterans in the marketplace, and this number is expected to rise to nearly 1 million veterans seeking employment in the U.S.

In return for the sacrifices they have made for us and for our country, we believe it’s our collective duty to do what we can to assist these men and women in the next chapter of their lives.

Being a national, full service recruitment firm and Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) provider, we at Decision Toolbox (DT) feel we’re in a unique position to do just that.  Enter our Vetted Vets program, designed to bring a pool of pre-qualified veterans and quality job opportunities together, and give our veterans a 2-week head start on these opportunities.  In addition to feeling the satisfaction and positive reputation that comes with doing the right thing, other benefits of hiring veterans include:

• Vets make highly valuable employees through their reliability, dedication, loyalty, leadership skills and team attitude.
• Tax incentives are available to employers for hiring veterans. The credit ranges from $2,400 for hiring veterans who have been looking for a job for more than four weeks to $9,600 for hiring veterans with service-connected disabilities who have been looking for a job longer than six months.

Vetted Vets

The Vetted Vets program affords transitioning U.S. veterans an advantage in the job market:  a 2-week head start on job openings. How is this done? For the first two weeks of a Vetted Vets search, we will ONLY look at applicants who are U.S. veterans. We will:

• Develop unique marketing tools to attract the right vets for the job.
• Disseminate the position through direct channels to veterans transitioning from the military.
• Manage the vet applicants in our unique recruiting portal, including video answers to one or more job-specific questions (when possible).
• Vet them via phone interview.
• Present the top veteran candidates to hiring managers for final review.

Decision Toolbox is pleased to offer the Vetted Vets program to employers at an extremely low price, cutting deeply into our own revenue. Why, you may ask? Because it’s simply the right thing to do and is our way of giving back.  We look forward to working on this win-win initiative with employers that are looking to do the same.

For more information on the program and how to participate, visit Vetted Vets.

(Pictured: Decision Toolbox founders, Debra and Jay Barnett circa 1992)

A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.
~ Wayne Gretzky

Founded in Southern California in 1992, this year Decision Toolbox (DT) rings in its 20^th year in the recruitment services industry.  Much has changed in our space over the years and while we’ve always been ahead of the curve, we’ve proudly maintained a keen focus on continual growth, evolution and original creation. Wise but always learning, we like to think of ourselves as part Yoda and part Grasshopper (a Yodopper, if you will).

The Early Years

In the beginning, Decision Toolbox was known as Pullscreen Communications, focusing on “double impact advertising” as a way for companies to maximize newspaper ads and avoid the high fees associated with using headhunters.  The company’s founders, Jay and Debra Barnett, were passionate about bringing new, win-win alternatives to the recruitment space, where clients would say “Thank you” when they received their bill, rather than “Ouch”!  Meanwhile, across town, Kim Shepherd was busy launching a new division of her recruitment firm focusing on high volume services at low fees.  When Kim became a client of Decision Toolbox, she and the Barnetts realized that their companies were completely complimentary and aligned on providing an innovative, quality-focused, low fee alternative to high cost headhunters.  What would make better sense than for these like-minded entrepreneurs to partner on their shared vision?  And in 2000, that’s just what they did when Kim Shepherd joined Decision Toolbox as CEO.  Many have since asked, “Why would a company choose to leave money on the table and NOT jump on the high fee bandwagon so common in the recruitment services arena?” The answer is quite simply “because it’s the right thing to do” – and this founding philosophy remains at the heart of what Decision Toolbox is today.

What’s in a Name?

Some have asked, “Why the name Decision Toolbox?”  Because every step of the hiring process presents a decision point for someone in the process – the client, the applicant, the recruiter, the candidate – and we provide decision support tools and resources to help ensure the right decisions are made at each step.  Today, our name is more relevant than ever as we have been inventing and adding groundbreaking tools to our toolbox throughout our 20 year history, and that makes for one deep toolbox!

What We’re Doing is Where It’s Going

Since status quo is not in DT’s DNA, our rear-view mirror is rather small.  We only look back long enough to identify how we can do something better, and then move forward with implementing those ideas and more.  As of this writing, DT is a 100% virtual company with nearly 100 employees located across the country.  Our clients range from smaller start-ups to large, well-known organizations.  We are known for recruitment best practices – leveraging technology and building out processes – and thought leadership in the human capital space. The last 20 years have certainly been a wild ride and we are proud of our accomplishments, but that’s enough of the past.  Our goggles are in firmly place, our foot is on the gas, and we’re eyeing where we’re going next!

DT Timeline

• 1992 – Jay and Debra Barnett found Pullscreen Communications
• 1993 – the company is rebranded as Decision Toolbox, and the cornerstone DT decision making tool is born – the Jobinfo Writeup, a hand-crafted, job-specific marketing piece not designed to attract the MOST applicants for a position, but the RIGHT applicants
• 1994 – DT launches additional ground-breaking decision making tools:  the job-specific Resume Supplement and Hiring Manager Interview Worksheet
• 1995 – as the Internet takes off, online versions of DT’s decision making tools are introduced
• 1996 – Decision Toolbox introduces Recruiting Machine, its proprietary technology platform and Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
• 1999 – applicant sourcing is added to DT’s services
• 2000 – Kim Shepherd joins DT as CEO and immediately builds out a full-service recruitment team
• 2001 – things change as terrorists attack the U.S. on 9/11, the dotcom bubble bursts and recession ensues
• 2002 – DT survives the economic downturn by going 100% virtual – this proves to be a fortuitous turning point for the company
• 2003 – Decision Toolbox introduces its first RPO offering, years before it becomes industry standard
• 2003-2008 – DT continues to fine tune processes and add functions into Recruiting Machine, including candidate video interview clips
• 2008 – DT Hires first salesperson – VP of Sales
• 2010 – Kim Shepherd publishes her first book, The Bite Me School of Management: Taking a Bite Out of Conventional Thinking
• 2011 – DT builds out Sourcing Team, Quality Department and DT University (DTU), an online training program for internal new hires
• 2012 – Kim Shepherd champions “Vetting Vets”, an initiative to qualify U.S. veterans for entry or re-entry into the civilian workforce
• 2013 – Stay tuned!

By Kim Shepherd, CEO, Decision Toolbox

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

We are all keenly aware of the devastating affect the recession has had on the employment landscape over the last several years and, unfortunately, as our troops return from Afghanistan and Iraq in increasing numbers, chaos will continue to rain down on our battered employment marketplace.

The existing candidate glut primarily created by the recession will soon be further flooded by up to 1 million vets with the greater troop pull-down, and a pull-back of involvement in further U.S. military actions around the globe.  For younger troops, aged 18-24 years old, the unemployment rate is currently 13.1% for males and 21.6% for females -  nearly double and triple the unemployment numbers respectively for non-veterans.  Adding to the list of challenges felt by young vets is their apparent lack of “job experience”, career direction, and low confidence in their ability to thrive in the civilian workforce.  They are not sure what to do, how they fit in, or how their skills may be valuable or marketable outside of the military.

Though many companies may be theoretically committed to hiring vets, they are not sure how to find them, how their skills are transferable to available opportunities, or how to integrate and support them once hired. For jobs requiring lower skill levels such as truck drivers, assembly workers, and welders, the military is a natural source to pull from due to key skills required to be a successful infantry soldier – discipline, reliability, ability to follow directions and complete tasks, and loyalty, to name a few. With a typical turnover rate of 100-200% in these types of positions, the chances of retaining vets in these roles is extremely high, and thus, return on investment (ROI) can be extremely favorable.

For officers, returning to the employment marketplace is equally daunting.  I recently had the honor of speaking with 100 colonels and generals at Camp Pendleton in California about their impending return to the civilian workforce.  They, too, are not sure how they fit in, and tend to think they need to take a step down to managerial jobs upon their return. However, the truth of the matter is, these are not managers, these are leaders. They have the unique ability to strategize, and to mentor and motivate others in the most challenging and uncertain circumstances – this is not management, this is leadership.  Hiring organizations must realize the transferable nature of these skills to the business world and the incredible value these vets can bring to their leadership teams.

Stay tuned for follow-up entries on this evolving topic and how these changes and challenges will continue to have a profound effect on the status of human capital over the next several years.

By Kim Shepherd, CEO, Decision Toolbox

Though 2012 has just begun, smart business leaders are already looking ahead, planning where their organizations will need to be in 2015. More and more companies are realizing the benefits of transitioning to a virtual model and in a few years virtual work environments really will be the norm.

Decision Toolbox has been a 100% virtual workplace since 2003. Being pioneers in this space, we have learned firsthand that there is very much more to a virtual workplace than having employees work from home offices. We feel so strongly about this that we’ve adopted the term “cloud culture” to describe our own unique virtual environment.

Top business reasons for transitioning to the cloud include:

• Cost savings – rather than paying for sticks and bricks, cloud culture companies can invest in the best people, tools and technology for business success
• Scalability – cloud culture organizations can grow quickly and turn on a dime — as more talent is added, there is no need for more office space, furniture, equipment. etc.
• Quality – in a cloud culture company, there is nothing for under performers to hide behind – there are no appearances to create distraction — it’s all about the numbers, baby!

Remember, to be successful in the cloud, you must ACT as though you have bricks and mortar and maintain the same cornerstones that are essential for success in a traditional workplace – culture, performance, appreciation, continuous improvement – and more.

Ditching the Sticks and Bricks
So you’re sold, you want to aim for the clouds, but how is this done? Before you start sending your people home to work you need to map out specifically which metrics and performance measurements you need to follow to ensure business is on track. A great way to identify your organization’s critical KPIs is to run your company remotely for a week or two. In short order, you’ll figure out exactly what metrics you need to know — is my sales force making the number of calls they need to be making, and so on. In a traditional business model, KPI’s and other metrics can get squishy. In a virtual environment, they cannot be an afterthought because they’re all you have to go on.  When you’re purely focused on the three P’s that make a company tick – performance, productivity and profit – yours will truly become a higher performing company and productivity will be off the charts.

Another critical factor for the success of your company in the clouds is your people. You must hire right. “A” players micromanage themselves better than you ever could.  They see metrics tracking as an opportunity to strut their stuff and display their results rather than as a way to be watched over by “big brother”.

Finally, the key to sustaining the three P’s in the clouds is to continually focus on and build out your culture.  Keeping people truly connected and not feeling like islands can be tricky – especially as you grow.  This is where real creativity comes in. At DT, we’re constantly adding “sticky factor” to our cloud culture. We have weekly team meetings, virtual water coolers and chat rooms, internal newsletters, unique onboarding and training processes, annual all-staff meetings – and the list goes on – all designed to keep employees connected, engaged and drinking the DT Kool-Aid.  As witnessed from our last annual all-staff meeting in Las Vegas, it is possible to build a strong unified spirit and camaraderie among people who have never actually met in person. Though our company doubled in size since our last annual meeting, the Vegas gathering was truly a love fest!

Top Five Tips for Achieving a Cloud Culture
To recap, below are five tips to building a successful cloud culture company:

1)   Lose the office – ok, that’s an obvious one

2)  Get some strong technology in place to track your metrics

3)  Hire A players who can be trusted to perform and manage themselves – keep top-grading as needed

4)  Stay focused on your culture – act as though you have sticks and bricks – get creative to keep everyone feeling connected and engaged

5)  Implement top-down leadership – this is not for the faint of heart – you need a bold, visionary leader in place who lives, eats and breathes the cloud culture

Going virtual truly is so much more than working from home. A successful transition requires a commitment to continually sharpen the saw and to aim for far more than having a virtual workplace, aim for a true cloud culture!

The final installment in an eight-part series, “Employment is Broken”, by Kim Shepherd, CEO, and Jeff Bloch, CMO, Decision Toolbox

You’ve followed our creative tips for successfully attracting, selecting, interviewing, hiring and onboarding employees in today’s challenging marketplace.  So, now that they’re in, how do you KEEP THEM?

Many organizations fall down in the final stages of the employment process – RETENTION & DEVELOPMENT – by neglecting to nurture and engage their employees and view them as candidates to be continually courted and mentored.  This is really the point where cultural glue kicks in.  Cultural glue cements your corporate culture, permeates your entire organization, can make a good team great, and holds teams together during tough times.

Creating Cultural Glue

Below are a few creative examples for developing sticky cultural glue in your company, and making it an inspired workplace where employees are “switched on” and no one wants to leave:

• Flip the hierarchy – empower employees, respect their time, encourage  their ideas.
• Leverage fresh eyes – ask new hires to point out processes in your company that don’t make sense – because they probably don’t!
• Keep employees engaged and looking forward – change up employee work routines with new challenges every 18 months – ask them what their goals should be.
• Pods, Tiger Teams, Tsunami Planning – group employees into Pods of 4-7 each, ask them to meet monthly for intensive Tiger Team meetings where they develop solutions to existing problems or challenges. Ask these same Pods to come together quarterly for Tsunami Planning meetings where they solve problems that haven’t happened yet!
• Hold mutual reviews – review your employees quarterly and have them review you.  Ask them, “How can we BOTH do things better moving forward?”
• Celebrate boo-boos – share mistakes openly and without judgment to help others avoid repeating the same boo-boos.

Creating cultural glue takes real thought, complete buy-in from the top, and constant focus to be kept in place, but it’s well worth the effort.  Make your organization a place where employees want to STAY and can GROW.  Remember, creativity is the difference between managing and leading others!

Installments five and six in an eight-part series, “Employment is Broken”, by Kim Shepherd, CEO, and Jeff Bloch, CMO, Decision Toolbox

The fourth critical stage of engagement in the employment process is HIRING.  Once you’ve successfully attracted a quality applicant pool, suited and sifted your way through to select your top candidates, then connected personally and professionally with your finalist, you don’t want to inadvertently abort your mission in the offer stage!  Further, the manner in which you ONBOARD precious new hires sets the tone for their experience (and longevity) with your company.  Planning and ownership of the process will help ensure a successful launch…

Laggard & Co. vs. Best-In-Class, Inc.

In exploring hiring and onboarding, we found that, done right, these processes are really one fluid motion.  Below is a comparison of the hiring and onboarding experience at two difference companies.  John is the candidate of choice at Laggard & Co., and Mary is the finalist at Best-In-Class, Inc.  Who do you think will start his/her new job feeling the most valued, engaged, and eager to kick butt in their new position?

Laggard & Co. (John)

• John receives a low-ball offer.  He feels negotiation is not an option (and it probably isn’t), so he accepts it.  He will likely continue to job hunt up to and after his start date.
• There is no contact between Laggard and John before his start date 2 weeks after his acceptance – he will have lots of paperwork to contend with on his first day.
• Day 1 – John’s computer and phone are not ready for him to use, induction is done by HR, and he is left alone most of the day to complete new hire paperwork.  John wonders if anyone else knows he’s there?
• Week 1 – By Friday, John’s equipment is set up and ready to use.

Best-In-Class (Mary)

• Mary receives a competitive offer and is asked how she feels about it, some negotiation may take place.
• Mary’s onboarding process begins from the time she accepts the offer, she receives a welcome letter from the company CEO and a link to complete new hire paperwork online.
• Day 1 – All equipment and passwords are issued, induction is done by the Hiring Manager, she is introduced to the team, taken to lunch, and a peer mentor is assigned as her “go-to guy” for questions.  Mary feels welcome.
• Week 1 – Mary and her Hiring manager work on 30, 60 and 90-day goals and schedule follow-up meetings.

Recipe for Success

Research has revealed that the most valuable activities among Best-in-Class organizations to make new employees feel engaged are those that demonstrate the organization’s preparedness for the new employee’s arrival and show clarity and commitment to his/her professional development.

From our example above, John will surely come on board with the same lack of investment and enthusiasm that he was extended to by Laggard & Co.  He will likely continue to look for another opportunity and will be receptive to other opportunities that come his way.  Laggard displayed a clear lack of ownership of the hiring and onboarding process and poor understanding of its impact on retention.  In contrast, Mary will come on board feeling valued and invested with her new employer. Her focus will be on her work and her success will be reflected back to Best-In-Class, Inc… 3 – 2 – 1…we have LIFTOFF!

Stay tuned for the final installment in our series where we’ll explore the final critical stages of employment – RETENTION & DEVELOPMENT.

*Special thanks to Dawn Kohler, CEO, The Inside Coach, for her contributions to this post.

Installment four in an eight-part series, “Employment is Broken”, by Kim Shepherd, CEO, and Jeff Bloch, CMO, Decision Toolbox

In the employment process, the third critical stage of engagement is INTERVIEWING.  Once you’ve successfully attracted a quality applicant pool, then suited and sifted your way through to select your top candidates, how do you effectively spend your time with the most promising talent?

Interviewing Illusions

The best way to enter into the interviewing process is to engage your brain in a fool-proof process, and NOT get caught up in “interviewing illusions”.  Today’s interviewing illusions include:

• It is a candidate-rich environment, so hiring managers are in the driver’s seat
• Unemployed candidates are not top talent
• Comparative shopping is a good practice

Let’s burst these illusions right here and now.  Yes, it is a candidate-rich environment.  However, starting in late 2009, many an organization cut 20% of their workforce – talent with the highest salaries were cut – lots of top talent was added to the applicant pool.  This point also pokes a hole in the illusion that unemployed candidates are not top talent.  Finally, the notion that hiring authorities are in the driver’s seat and have the luxury of comparative shopping with top talent is a bust.  If you’re interviewing a talented professional, they likely have at least two other opportunities in the mix, so you likely DO NOT have the luxury of time in your decision making.  A bird in hand truly is worth two in the bush.

Effective Interviewing Strategies

A challenging economy does not change the hiring dynamic.  If you attract, select and interview a promising candidate, do not shoot yourself in the foot by making the assumption that you don’t need to suit that talent and move quickly.  If you find a promising candidate, your job is to make him or her feel that you are the employer of choice, and your opening is the opportunity of choice.

The typical hiring manager of today works like this: interviews three candidates, one on Monday, the others on Tuesday and Thursday, then thinks about it on Friday and vows to make a decision over the weekend (which never happens).  Later the following week, he/she finally gets back to the promising candidate they interviewed the previous Monday and that person is long gone, OR their interest in that company and their opportunity has dwindled significantly.  The hiring manager failed to sell himself and his company as the employer of choice.  To use another bird idiom, the early bird really does catch the talented worm.

You don’t want to be the typical hiring manager, so rework the typical process:

• Research – prior to interviews, pull up the candidates on LinkedIn to find out more about them and work what you know about them into the interview – it’s personal and they will feel you are genuinely interested in them.  They will likely leave wanting to work for you.
• Be ahead of the pack – interview all three candidates on the same day and send a text message that very afternoon to your top candidate(s) asking them back for a second time to interview you as soon as possible. You have positioned yourself as the employer of choice.
• Communication – as a rule, the hierarchy of candidate communication is: snail mail is trumped by a phone call, a phone call is trumped by email, and email is trumped by a text message.
• Add one or two creative interview questions to your mix that are playful, yet can also elicit real insight, such as “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Final Tips

When interviewing applicants for your job opportunities, remember to be humble.  An interview really is a two-way street.  Sit at a table next to the person rather than across your desk, and if you like them, invite them back to interview you, follow up immediately, and most importantly, don’t forget that the talented candidate is always holding the cards.

Check back for our next installment in the “Employment is Broken” series, where we’ll delve into the murky depths of HIRING.

Installment three in an eight-part series, “Employment is Broken” by Kim Shepherd, CEO, and Jeff Bloch, CMO, Decision Toolbox

Part one of our series set the stage for the contention that the world of employment is woefully broken, and at each of its 7 Stages of Engagement:  attraction, selection, interviewing, hiring, on-boarding, retention and development.  In part two, we discussed problems and solutions at the first critical stage of ATTRACTION.  In this part three of our series, we’ll examine the second stage of engagement – SELECTION.  Once you’ve successfully attracted a viable pool of job applicants, how do you effectively determine on which prospects to spend your valuable time?

How Selection is Broken

Without a plan, recruitment can be a real time-sucker.  The process of selection is particularly hazardous, especially in our current economy.  We have a “Perfect Storm” scenario – a candidate rich environment, a talent drought, available jobs, and high unemployment – creating hiring quicksand all around us and it’s hard to determine where the real talent is hiding.  The job market is full of overqualified applicants willing to take any job with a paycheck – for the time being.  It can be tempting to hire on an overqualified candidate at a great price for all they bring to the table, but once the job market shifts, they will be gone.  Remember, you can’t buy up the food chain for long.

Another pitfall is to assume unemployed applicants are not A-players.  You may think the unemployed are not worthy of your time.  Think again.  In late 2009, many companies slashed 10-20% of their workforce, and those cuts were made to their higher salaried positions – their A-players.  This top talent is all around us now – they may have struck out on their own to perform consulting work, gone back to school, taken a lesser paying job (as per above), or are engaged in other non-traditional means of employment until the economic smoke clears.

So, how does one avoid being sucked into the confusing selection vortex?  How do we determine who to spend our time on?  By hatching a plan, a well thought out selection process that includes both sifting and suiting.  Here’s how…

Plan your Work and Work your Plan

Once you have screened your resumes and developed a first batch of potential candidates, shoot them each an email.  For this initial email, come up with eight strong questions around the skill-set that you desire.  For example, if you’re looking for an experienced Sales Manager, you may ask questions like:

• “In the last five years, what role has building a sales team played in your job?”
• “ What size teams have you managed in the past?”
• “Provide a brief example of a time when you have turned a “B” player into an “A” player?”

Next, develop three strong questions around the soft skills that you’re seeking, such as:

• “What aspects of this position do you find attractive?”
• “Which of your personality characteristics do you feel would be most beneficial to this role?”

If an applicant is unemployed, ask about the circumstances of their unemployment.

Based on the answers you receive, narrow down your pool and set up phone “meet and greet” conversations with those in which you are most interested.  In this stage, be ready with four key logistics questions to discuss – these may be related to the job location, salary, cultural fit, career pathing, etc.  At the same time, be prepared to assume the role of Suitor, positioning yourself as the employer of choice to those A-players on the other end of the phone.  Most importantly, you recognize that everyone’s time is important, and ensure nobody’s time is wasted.

The final stage in selection is to decide who, based on your phone screening process, you should bring in for an in-person interview.  If you have done a thorough and consistent job in the initial layers of screening, you will probably have a small pool of well-qualified candidates to meet – and not too many surprises.  Call these candidates personally.  Tell them you would like to meet them, and to be prepared to interview YOU as well.  At this point, they will either opt in or out of the interview, and you’re in the home stretch!

Look out for the next installment in our series, number four, where we’ll dissect and reassemble the next stage of broken stage of employment and engagement – INTERVIEWING.