Hiring Tip: How to Phone Screen Job Candidates
-
Upload
dianne-shaddock -
Category
Documents
-
view
212 -
download
0
description
Transcript of Hiring Tip: How to Phone Screen Job Candidates
Easy Small Business HR 1
Hiring Tip:
How to Phone Screen Job
Candidates
Special Report From: EasySmallBusinessHR.com
Many of the questions that you should be asking will be job specific. But
there are other questions that you should ask that will apply to most
applicants that focus on the job applicant’s soft skills.
Soft skills are also referred to as people skills, which are skills that help
you assess the applicant’s ability to communicate, to problem solve, to
give and accept feedback. It helps you to assess their level of motivation,
their listening skills, their judgment, and their decision-making skills
among other things.
Now let’s walk step by step through a typical phone screen using a
hypothetical customer service representative job.
If I were interested in hiring a customer service representative, based on
my job criteria, my ideal candidate would need to have the following
experience:
Easy Small Business HR 2
At least 2 years of experience working in a customer service role
Experience or at least a comfort level with responding to questions
and providing information both over the phone and in person to
clients.
Experience with dealing with difficult customers.
My candidate would also need to have experience and be
comfortable with databases since they will be entering information on
their customer interactions in my company database.
I’m also looking for a candidate that is calm and gracious under
pressure. And the candidate would need to be able to use good
judgment so that they can make basic decisions that are in the best
interest of a customer and in the best interest of my business.
I’d also need to determine whether I can afford to hire the candidate
based on their salary requirements.
Now I’ve reviewed the resumes that I received and I’ve selected ten
possible candidates based on the information that they provided me in
their resumes.
Now it’s time to phone screen these candidates so that I can determine
whom out of the ten I want to bring in for a face to face interview with me.
When I call these ten candidates, I’ll be asking the following questions
based on my job criteria to help me to determine whether or not to invite
them in to meet with me.
Easy Small Business HR 3
1. Why did you apply for the Customer Service Representative
position? What is it about your background that makes you uniquely
qualified for this position?
2. Tell me about a time in your current or past job where you were
confronted with a very difficult customer who would not take “NO”
for an answer. Describe the situation and the outcome.
3. What systems do you use to track information in your current or in
your past jobs?
4. What are your salary requirements?
I chose these four questions because these questions cover many of the
basic things that I need to know about the applicant’s experience based on
the job criteria that I’ve outlined.
Now let’s focus on why these questions are important to ask as part of the
phone screen.
Question No. 1
Why did you apply for the Customer Service Representative position?
What is it about your background that makes you uniquely qualified for
this position?
If this question is answered correctly, it will give me a sense of not only
the applicant’s interest in the job but a general sense of their overall
experience as well as what the applicant sees as his or her strengths.
Easy Small Business HR 4
Question No. 2
Tell me about a time in your current or past job where you were
confronted with a very difficult customer who would not take “NO” for an
answer. Describe the situation and the outcome.
The response to this question requires the applicant to provide a concrete
example of how he handled a difficult situation as well his judgment under
pressure.
Question No. 3
What systems do you use to track information in your current or in your
past jobs?
The response to this question gives me a sense of whether they have used
databases before to track information.
Question No. 4
What are your salary requirements?
The response to this question gives me a sense of what the applicant is
expecting to be paid which is important.
I recommend that phone screens not be more than 15 minutes. Remember,
the purpose of the phone screen is really to determine whether the
experience on the applicant’s resume resonates with you in the phone
conversation. You’ll have plenty of time to ask additional questions during
your face to face interview.
I wish you the best of luck in your hiring efforts!