Hiring Wisdom: Yes, Everything in the Hiring Process is a Test

If you haven’t heard me say it before, you will hear it now: Everything you do in the hiring process is a test.

One of the best tests is asking applicants to actually show you how they would do the job. If you were going to hire a chef, have her cook a meal. If you were hiring a stylist, have him do someone’s hair. Ask the auto mechanic applicant to diagnose and repair a car. Here’s the tricky part though…

Under some state laws, if any productive work is performed by an applicant for which you the potential employer are paid, the applicant must be paid for performing that work and it must be reported to the proper government bodies.

So, the next time you have someone do anything to show that they can do the job before they are hired, make sure you receive no
compensation or real value for the work they do.

By all means, have the chef cook you a meal or the stylist do your hair or work on a wig, but make sure you receive no remuneration/real value for the work they perform.

Come see Mel Kleiman talk about how Great HR is Simple — It’s Just Not Easy at the TLNT Transform conference in Austin, TX Feb. 26-28, 2012. Click here for more information on attending this event.

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