Interviewing the Masses

My interviewing style has evolved over the years.  At first I sat quietly in the corner and listened to everyone else ask questions.  If I had to speak to them by myself, I would ask four or five short questions and give them a green light.  I still hesitate to completely discount someone unless they absolutely cannot carry on a conversation.  I went from not knowing how to talk to a candidate to having a list of prepared questions ahead of time.  I still like having prepared questions for positions that have a lot of openings, high turnover, low autonomy, several qualified candidates, etc.  If someone gives me a particular answer to one of these I will expand on it.  When interviewing with a partner or a panel I also like to have this list to make sure we don't miss anything.  Having a list or other notes helps me feel prepared and gives me something to fill the time with those candidates who cannot manage to tell me about themselves.

Compiling Questions 

To compile this list I take a look at the requirements and speak with the supervisors involved.  I like to think I have a good hold on the business model and how it works, but every time I have this conversation I find out something new.  I also like speaking with those who are particularly successful in this position.  What do they do differently?  What do they think makes them successful?  Then come up with behavior based questions for those qualities.  Remember we're talking about questions for the masses, such as Customer Service Reps in a call center or production line employees.  These don't need to be akin to rocket building, but just general "Tell me about a time you received constructive criticism and how you dealt with it."  For the most part these candidates are recent high school grads or individuals with a short work history, so they don't have a lot of knock-it-out-of-the-park experience to draw from.  Simple dependability and work ethic is all I'm looking for outside of the basic competencies.

Critics

I worked with an individual who was adamantly opposed to having a prepared list of questions.  Perfect, I'm a reasonable person who likes to explore new options, so let's hear your alternative.  His solution was to simply try to have a conversation with them.  Okay, I'm good with that.  There are things we need to know they can do and qualities we need to look for, but if you don't want to ask the questions we've come up with I'm more than happy to find out other ways.  He literally started the interview by asking if they could work the schedule we had open.  When the candidate said yes, he said, "Great!  You can start Monday!" and walked out.  Ah... not what I had in mind when I said you didn't have to ask the questions we had listed.  I buy into first impressions meaning a lot, and I have known within ten seconds of meeting someone that I absolutely would not hire them, but there needs to be a bit more content before handing someone a job.  You're influencing more than just the statistical numbers, there's more to this than just ensuring that a New Hire Orientation is full.  The wrong hire, even for a minimum wage job, is costly and will mess up an entire system.

We're changing lives here, people.

Happy Monday!

I always start conversations with my best friend this way on Monday mornings.  We're two time zones away, so sometimes this gets to her at 5:00 a.m. and sometimes she sends it to me at 1:00 p.m., but we both know it means, "Here's to another week, may we survive until Thirsty Thursday and the weekend!"  So, my friends, Happy Monday!

When I dropped my kids off to the Angel sitter this morning I encouraged them to tell her about our weekend.  Always curious to find out what they've remembered, I never prompt with, "Tell Angel about the art fair..." but rather, "What did we do this weekend?"  Typically they start with what happened last night (We had family game night!  We watched a movie and had popcorn!) and work backwards.  This morning my eldest immediately blurts out, "We went grocery shopping!!"  Um... okay... do you recall the last day of swimming lessons where you got to ride in a canoe?  How about the art festival?  Or our trip to the gigantic playground?  Monopoly?  Nope... my children remember I managed to feed them.  I guess the alternative could be, "My Mom pushed me down the stairs," which was the answer she gave her daycare provider at the tender young age of TWO and caused a bit of a ruckus.  Luckily she had been going to this particular provider for awhile, so the director knew she wasn't an abused child, but her teacher that day was new and apparently immediately marched her down to the front office.

This morning dawned with a new opportunity... we have a new employee starting today.  I have been anticipating this event for awhile, my chance to start fresh and get onboarding right, to show off the new office team that I am so proud of and prove that we can integrate a new employee and make them feel welcome.  So far she's had to wait for me to finish printing off the handbook, been locked out of the computer system, can't take the Practice Management system training because they're doing maintenance work, and hasn't met half of the staff because nobody was in this morning when I took her around.  Hey, chances for improvement!!  There's always a silver lining.  I'm not calling it a complete failure because I'm an incurable optimist and I have the rest of the day to salvage.  I do also have to change over to a new payroll system to ensure everyone gets paid on Thursday, make decisions regarding our insurance renewal so nobody has a lapse in coverage, and take my daughter's birth certificate to her new school (yes, secretary, I remember that you need the birth certificate and a utility bill with our new address.  I haven't forgotten, I'm just juggling a lot of things and you're being shifted around the priority list because school doesn't start until Sept 3.  Thank you for making sure my kid can start on time and keeping the school organized.  Stop leaving me voicemails).  However, this eager new hire is my priority today and I want to start her career here on a positive note, without leaving her sitting around wondering what to do or where to find the restroom.  So I'm going to take her to lunch and to the other office and be available for questions at any time.  You can have the birth certificate and immunization records tomorrow, and the new payroll implementation specialist can call my cell phone.  I have a life to change today.

In the Beginning...

Our 6th grade play had that as the opening line.  My English teacher had some sort of obsession with it and us kids didn't get the cultural reference.  Yes, I grew up under a rock.  I ran the lights, so I didn't ever bother finding out where it came from.  I just pushed buttons when they told me to.  However, when starting something new I always think of that line and the somewhat terrifying music that came next, accompanied by the actors emerging as monkeys on stage.  No, I don't remember the rest of the play or what it meant.  I think we were studying the Egyptians or something and it ended up being a play about the evolution of man.  So here is the beginning of my personal quest to connect with both the professional world and the Mommy world, with a lot of myself attempting to excel at both.  Luckily being an HR Manager and a Mommy require a lot of the same negotiating/juggling/patience/refrain-from-screaming-"You have GOT to be kidding" skills.

I have decided to take the SPHR Certification exam.  For various reasons, I believe this is the next step in advancing my career.  I'm choosing to completely bypass the PHR certification as I meet the SPHR requirements.  I don't know if this is even allowed in the HR Certification world, but I'm a rebel like that so that's the plan.  I am also a chronic pre-planner, so before even taking the exam I'm worrying about recertifying in three years.  Recertification credit can be earned by "Research and Publishing" HR-related articles.  Blog posts totally count, so I began thinking about what kind of blog I wanted to have.  I've tried several... a family one when we only had one child and lived in the same state as our families (which crashed and burned once I realized I was writing posts, calling my parents to tell them what had happened, and also putting it on Facebook - all of which seemed redundant so the blog ended with the appearance of child #2), one about simplifying your life when we decided to pack up a 5,000 sq ft home and move it across the country to a 2 bedroom apartment and one income (I think I had one post on that... then we got to Maine and I realized our third child was about to make his appearance and I had 5,000 sq ft of our crap to decide what to do with), along with an Etsy shop I tried to open once.  I've tried to take someone else's idea and make it fit a need I didn't have, or take something I thought was cool but wasn't really invested in and make it relevant.  This time I wanted to have a professional blog, be the cutting-edge HR Leader I've always aspired to, fill the conventional mold of someone who is taken seriously as a strategic partner.  It would be sleek!  Modern!  Neutral-colors to appeal to everyone on the planet!  Let's take a heavy dose of reality here... I don't fit that mold.  I'm not conventional.  I'm probably one of the most sarcastic, crude HR people that exist (disclaimer: yes, I know when it's appropriate and when it's not.  For example, I believe I was well into the first week of my employment here before dropping a "That's what she said" during a meeting with my boss).  I'm also a mother and a wife.  If I'm going to stick with a blog, I need it to be a place where I can share the "OMG" happenings of both my professional and personal lives, the tips I find to make it work, and the moments that make my life the most perfect it can be.  Behold, my first attempt at doing something just for me and hoping it will benefit the other aspects of my life as well.