Recruiters are always in search of the perfect candidate. But what makes a candidate perfect? Certainly, they need the right experience. Hopefully, they have the right educational background and soft skills. And the right attitude is enormously important.
But there is another factor to consider. Does the job you are offering make realistic sense for the candidate? In a tight job market, job hunters pressured by mounting bills and extended periods of unemployment go further and further outside their original strategy because, well…they need a job. Who doesn’t?
Perhaps the next step in a manager’s career is a Director level position. But here the candidate sits, giving every indication that the manager’s job you are offering (a lateral move), is the perfect opportunity for them.
I am not faulting the job hunter. Today’s job hunters are savvy researchers and persuasive candidates and my heart goes out to every job hunter suffering through an extended period of unemployment.
But let’s not forget recruiters face unemployment as well. I have been there myself and after a month of job hunting, I started looking for jobs at different levels, at different salaries, and in different industries. So, the question is, how can recruiters make sure their candidates are making the right move for them and for their companies?
The Detective’s Instinct:
The way job hunters prepare today, recruiters have to be detectives. They need to trace the roots of why a candidate is sitting before them.
Determining a candidate’s true motivation is a crucial, yet often challenging, aspect of the recruitment process. Here’s a breakdown of commonly used strategies to help you find the best fit:
- Understanding the “Why”:
- A key part of understanding a candidate’s motivation, is understanding the “why” behind their actions.
- Recruiters try to understand why a candidate made certain career choices. They also must have a crystal-clear understanding of why a candidate is looking for a new role.
- Use Behavioral Interviewing:
- We have focused on behavioral interviewing in this column many times. Put simply, the technique focuses on past behaviors as predictors of future performance. Rather than “tell me about yourself”, modern recruiters mostly ask questions that require candidates to provide specific examples of how they’ve handled situations in previous roles.
By analyzing these examples, recruiters gain insights into a candidate’s values, priorities, and what truly motivates them.
- Probing and Follow-Up Questions:
- Recruiters cannot simply accept initial responses at face value. They must ask follow-up questions to delve deeper into a candidate’s reasoning and motivations. This helps uncover inconsistencies and hidden agendas.
- Reference Checks:
- Recruiters use reference checks to verify information provided by the candidate and gain a more objective perspective, however there is a caveat to this.
To avoid pre-programmed praise and really learn about a candidate, I suggest using a candidate’s background with previous (not current), employers to find your own references that overlapped with your candidate’s tenure at a specific company. Once you connect, you are far more likely to get unrehearsed responses. LinkedIn is invaluable for finding references that can deliver “real” answers.
A recruiter’s quest to find the perfect candidate is so much more than screening resumes, conducting interviews, and choosing the candidate with the best experience. Thinking like a detective, however, will put you on the right track to finding that elusive perfect candidate.
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