Recruiting: Which method is the best way to get to know your candidates?

Finding the right candidate for a vacant position often involves a great deal of effort and expense. Recruiters in particular, who have to sift through many profiles at the same time and choose between different personalities, are faced with a major challenge.Are you wondering how to find the best candidate for your vacancy? By choosing the right method for the interview, you lay the foundation for your decision. But how can you minimize the time and effort required to find the right employee who will stay? We have summarized the most common methods for evaluating candidates for you.

The job interview

Probably the best-known method is the job interview. Nowadays, it is often conducted online and can be standardized or semi-structured. The first method has the advantage that applicants can be easily compared with each other, as everyone is asked the same questions. The disadvantage, however, is that there is little scope for individualization and the interview could resemble a cross-examination, as questions are simply ticked off a list.

A personal interview at the company has the advantage that the applicant can be scrutinized more closely. How do they behave in the office and with colleagues? Posture and facial expressions also say a lot about the candidate. These are much easier to observe in person than in front of a laptop camera.

STAR method in a semi-structured interview

In a semi-structured interview, there is – next to a planned part – a free part for individual questions. Many renowned companies already use the STAR method. A semi-structured interview is an excellent method to find out how the applicant reacts in certain situations. The abbreviation STAR means:

• Situation (What situation?)
• Task (What was the task?)
• Action (What was the specific action?)
• Result (What result was achieved?)

As an example, you give the candidate the following situation, which he could describe:

The applicant has started at company XY to expand an area (Task) that is currently not going well (Situation). By coming up with a creative campaign (Action), he was ultimately able to increase the performance of the area by XX percent.

This situation analysis makes it possible to discover which challenges the candidate has already overcome and how he or she resolves a particular solution. It also makes it easier to compare candidates and structure the interview. A reliable candidate describes the situation clearly and comprehensibly and you can quickly recognize whether he or she is just getting caught up in a story.

The group interview

In a group interview, you can specifically test the interpersonal skills of your applicants. You can find out who is a team player and who is a lone wolf and directly compare the knowledge of the participants.

You can also discover how individuals react in stressful situations. Who stands out and keeps calm when competitors try to outdo each other. Depending on the vacant position, you can set various tasks for the group interview, such as a role play between two candidates, a presentation or working out a strategy in group work.

The application lunch

The interview lunch is more suitable for executives or manager positions that play an important role in your company.

As they often represent your company and are expected to aquire new partners or customers you can use an application lunch to find out how the candidates would behave at a business lunch. Pay attention to how the applicant interacts with the staff and if they have good manners. The candidate's conversation skills can also be assessed at such a lunch. Find a good balance between small talk and application questions to get to know the candidate as well as possible on different levels.

Assessment

The assessment or assessment center is a psychological method in recruiting. It is mainly used in larger companies in order to select a large number of applicants. They are usually supervised by psychologists or managers and carried out in coordination with the HR department.

There are many different types of tasks for an assessment center. Often two or three of the following components are combined: Personality questionnaires, intelligence or capacity tests, simulations or role plays, in-post exercise, webcam tests or online role plays, in-depth interviews and 360-degree feedback.

An online questionnaire can be used to pre-select the applicants who will actually be invited to the assessment. In the company group exercises and individual exercises can be combined in order to get to know the candidates both individually and as a team. The assessment center takes about a day, which is the easiest way to evaluate a large number of applicants.

Trial working day

A trial working day helps the company to get to know an applicant as they would behave in everyday working life. How do they perform completing certain tasks? How do they interact with colleagues? At the same time, the candidate should also be given an insight into the company and get an idea of how things are done there.

There are no clear guidelines as to which tasks a potential new employee may or may not perform. However, the applicant should be given trial tasks, not take on any work completely independently or conduct real sales talks. Ideally, they should support the team in a temporary role.The trial day is very time-consuming for both the company and the applicant. While someone should always be available to answer any questions that may arise, the applicant spends a whole day at work for which they do not yet have an employment contract. Recruiters should therefore always weigh up carefully how many candidates they would like to invite for a work trial.

Applicants do not have to be paid for their work, but some companies do provide voluntary compensation for expenses such as travel costs or meals.

Select a method to suit your requirements

There is no general answer as to which method is most suitable for your company. It always depends on the vacant position and the size of the company. For example, a smaller company with only a few applicants and a small HR department has no capacity and no need for an assessment center.The STAR method can be combined very well with a job interview or group interview, for example. It can also be incorporated into a business lunch. However, this should only be considered for manager positions.

Let us advise you

Work with our assessment experts to find the method that suits your company. With our TalentStyles assessment, which is based on various areas of personality diagnostics, we can help you make the right decision.

You will also learn how to identify the potential of your applicants based on their skills and not just their qualifications.

Contact us now