Hiring Wisdom: Are You Doing Research When You Interview?

Every interview is an opportunity to not only learn about the applicant, but to do some important market research work as well.

The answers to the following questions are key to the design of an effective employee recruiting campaign:

How did you hear about this position? The best way to decide where your recruiting budget should be spent is to keep track of where applicants come from (job boards, “Now Hiring” signage, company website, etc.). This data can be even more invaluable if you break it down further and isolate the sources for the people who are actually hired and those who became your best employees.

For example, let’s say most of your applicants are walk-ins and you hire most of your new employees from this source. But what if most of those people last less than 90 days?

If so, walk-ins may be your most costly source of employees. On the other hand, let’s say you find that most of your very best, long-term people were referred by other employees. Wouldn’t your budget be better spent beefing up the employee referral program?

Why do you think you would like to work here? Again, it’s most effective to look at the answers for the people you actually hire. One of my clients found the No. 1 attraction mentioned by those hired was that they lived within five miles of the plant. This helped them hone in on recruiting people who live nearby. In another scenario, if most of your new hires tell you they were attracted by the company’s flextime policy, feature it in your recruiting ads.

This was originally published on Mel Kleiman’s Humetrics blog.