Talent Hunt and Interviews

Talent Hunt

In search of right people with right skills and attitude could be termed as Talent Hunt. This may yield the right and the expected results in terms of people. It was also said that “When you hire people who are smarter than you, you prove that you are smarter than they are”, so said Robert Henry Grant.

There was a saying in recruitment perspective ‘people are your most important asset’ but is not always accurate, says Jim Collins. He claims that rather than “people”, it is the “right people” that make up the best asset of an organization. 

Acquiring the best candidate for a job role can be strategic move in order to gain the competitive advantage for an organization. On the other hand, ineffective recruitment and selection can also result in enormous disruption, reduced productivity, interpersonal difficulties and interruptions to operations, customer service and long-term costs. 

As it is clearly understood in today’s context, its paramount important to have a strategy as far as an employee sourcing. The recruitment and selection function can become a costly and inefficient process if not approached in a systematic and proactive manner. A recruitment and selection strategy may include the following,

• Ensures the organisation has the necessary skills, knowledge and attributes to meet current and future strategic and operational requirements 
• Ensures supply meets demand requirements 
• Increases the pool of potential applicants 
• Improves the selection process by ensuring that only those applicants that meet the requirements of the position are selected for further investigation 
• Can impact on the likelihood that a suitable candidate will accept a job offer 
• Increases organisational effectiveness

The other side of the story is that, the applicants also may expect certain things from the employer / organizations they apply, as well. The employee must treat them fairly, reasonably. They may also expect how this organization which they applied for, involved in employee well-being in terms of health and the wealth. Also, the employment security, good working conditions and safe work environment also matters an applicant is concerned. These treatments should attract the best talent in the market, like magnet attracts the iron.

Job Interview

Conducting a good interview is an art every employer / organization aims to master. Learning to ask the right questions with appropriate pacing allows you to interview more candidates more effectively, and in less time.

An interview can be regarded as a critical step in the selection process. It is in fact a conversation between two or more people (the interviewer and the interviewee) where questions are asked by the interviewer to obtain information from the interviewee. Effective interviews provide an additional basis for comparing candidates, supplementing information gleaned from the applicant questionnaire and investigation.

Interviewers need to do three things in an effective interview, viz, Define, Discover and Decide. They should know clearly what they are looking for in the ideal candidate. Then they need to check whether those attributes are present in the candidates. Finally comes the decision.

The above process can be further elaborated by referring to its stages. They include: 

Identify: Defining the requirements,

Specify  : Developing the person specifications and finally

Codify   : Designing the ways of testing the required specifications.

In doing the above, job analysis is a vital exercise that need to be performed.

It's not always quick and easy to get hired. The job interview process can be lengthy. Being interviewed once and getting a job offer is typically a thing of the past. Today, many companies have an Involved Interview Process starting with screening interviews, which often take place on the phone, followed by in-person interviews, second interviews, and even third interviews.

Now the trend is that even before an employee is enrolled to an organization, his / her personality type is identified through a technique called Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®).

It indicates your personality preferences in four dimensions:

• Where you focus your attention – Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I)
• The way you take in information – Sensing (S) or INtuition (N)
• How you make decisions – Thinking (T) or Feeling (F)
• How you deal with the world – Judging (J) or Perceiving (P)

The four letters that make up a personality type can help us to understand an individual and his / her interactions with others. In order to find out what is a MBTI® personality type, then need to complete the MBTI® questionnaire and take part in a feedback session from a qualified MBTI® practitioner.

All of these mechanisms are used at an interview to get on-board the best out of bests to achieve the objectives of an organization in line with the company strategy. 

Interviewing is an art and a science. One needs to have expertise as well as experience in successfully handling recruitment interviews. Defining the right requirement, discovering the right match and deciding on the right candidate are the vital steps to follow. Managers, administrators and leaders alike can improve on all these aspects in order to ensure that the right person handling the right job in the right manner in producing right results (Dharmasiri, 2017)

References

AHRI [no date]. RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION. Available at <https://www.ahri.com.au/assist/recruitment-and-selection> [Accessed on 30th March 2018]

Dharmasiri, A (2017). Recruitment interviewing in Sri Lanka: Problems and prospects. Daily FT[Online] 16th October Available at http://www.ft.lk/columns/Recruitment-interviewing-in-Sri-Lanka--Problems-and-prospects/4-641554 [Accessed on 29 March 2018]

Doyle, A (2018). Job Interview Process. Available at < https://www.thebalancecareers.com/steps-in-the-job-interview-process-2061363> [Accessed on 5th April 2018]

Hopkins, C (2017). How to Interview someone in 5 steps – The Ultimate Guide for Employers. Available at https://fitsmallbusiness.com/how-to-interview-someone/ [Accessed on 01st April 2018]

Opp, (no date). Myers-Briggs Personality types. Available at https://www.opp.com/en/tools/MBTI/MBTI-personality-Types [Accessed on 2nd April 2018]