Frank’s Employment

May was a very busy month for our staff!  In addition to our regular focus of matching great companies and great local candidates, reaching out to other business professionals is also essential to our service for the community.

Craig Frank, our President, was re-elected as President of the Kane DuPage Human Resources Association.

Rebecca Gundrum, one of our Staffing Consultants, was re-elected as Event Chair for the Valley Human Resources Association.  She has served on the board of this association within Valley Industrial Association for more than 12 years!

Elyse Williamson, another of our Staffing Consultants, was the featured speaker at a recent event of the Kane DuPage HR Association, as well as a member of the executive forum for the national conference of Women In Management (hosted at Elgin Community College).

What does a percentage score from a multiple-choice test tell you about a prospective employee’s software skills or relevant business acumen?  Not much.

That’s why our software skill assessments are customized in a unique way.  We care about how the applicant actually uses the software and our clients care about this too.  So our tests are designed to evaluate how effectively and consistently the person actually utilizes the tools of the software.   We routinely offer these custom skill assessments in Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and mail merge for Office 2003 and Office 2007.

But that’s not all!

Sometimes we have a client company whose skill needs for a particular opening are distinct.  That’s where we come in.  We meet with the client to discuss what skill combinations we need to measure and how best to assess these.  And then we create a custom test for use in screening our applicants for that position at that company.

• A chemical distribution company needed a math test for its prospective employees to judge their ease in hand-calculating addition, subtraction, and multiplication of percentages for combining chemicals in their warehouse.  We created a story-based test that imitated the kinds of calculations needed daily in the warehouse.
• A paper processing business planned to hire dock workers, but needed to judge their familiarity with loading and unloading using a forklift.  We learned the basic physics of forklift operation in order to create a new written test based upon common workplace scenarios.
• A direct-mail marketing firm routinely needs for their temporaries to create mail merges using Word, Excel, and Outlook.  But this includes an extra step of setting delivery-requests and converting Word documents to read-only Adobe Acrobat files.  So our standard mail merge test wasn’t sufficient.  We designed a multi-step test using all of these softwares to mimic their actual working procedures.  It was worth the investment of staff time for our skilled temporaries to have a shorter learning curve when they start that assignment.

Custom skill assessments.  Just one of the many ways that we bring the personal touch to staffing!

What questions can and can’t I ask in an interview?

Perhaps the one thing that makes a hiring manager the most nervous about an interview is the fear that they may be asking “illegal” questions.  Those who don’t interview on a regular basis are often afraid to carry on a normal conversation with an applicant for fear that they are going to cross that line and get themselves in trouble.

For the record, it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status (with regard to employment), age 40 and over, marital status, physical or mental handicap, military service, unfavorable military discharge, and sexual orientation.  For more details, you can access this link - http://www.state.il.us/dhr/.  

You cannot ask questions that might lead to discrimination in hiring.  What you can do is ask questions related to the skills needed for the job.

Can they perform the functions of the job?

The key to the legality of your interviewing questions is this - can the applicant perform the functions of the job?  Your first line of defense is to have a detailed job description for the position you are looking to fill.   With that in hand, a question might go like this:  “This job requires that you stand on your feet for up to 8 hours each day.  You will be filling and lifting boxes that weigh up to 30 lbs each from a conveyor and stacking them on a pallet, and repeating this up to 50 times each day.  Can you do that?”  Or another; “This job requires that you be proficient using Excel and able to set up spreadsheets from scratch, including formulas and macros.  Can you do that?”  “Can you give me examples of projects where you did that?”

Having a list of specific questions will accomplish two purposes.  One, you can address all of the requirements in an effort to determine the applicant’s fit for the job.  Second, you will keep yourself out of trouble by not straying into subjects that are inappropriate.

Phone Interviews

Under most circumstances, a face-to-face interview is preferred.  However, if you need to hire a receptionist or a customer service person, someone who will be regularly talking to customers on the phone, then first conduct a phone interview.  Call them at their home and talk to them over the phone before you meet them in person.  This will simulate the experience that your customers will have when they make contact with your company. 

Structured vs. unstructured

You are likely to learn more about the applicant if you don’t hold to a highly structured interview format.  Make your list of necessary questions, but avoid merely reading one after the other.  Make some small talk, ask them how the drive was from their home to your office, chit-chat about the weather or sports, etc.  Be pleasant and help them relax.  You will learn more about their personal side while avoiding the “wrong” questions.

Like meeting a new friend

When they are more relaxed with you, they will talk more freely and you will find out more about them.  Treat them like you are meeting a new friend.  Even if you don’t hire them, they will say good things about you and your company to others and make it easier to recruit the right candidate.