07 Jun Should Candidates Be Paid To Interview?
Recently I heard of a consulting #civilengineering firm who asked a candidate to spend an entire day at their office to meet with a wide range of folks to experience a “day-in-the-life” of working there.
💭My first thought was, ‘an entire day, are you kidding me?’💭
🤔But then I got to thinking, maybe this is not a bad idea after all.
Let me give an example as to how this process would work, but first let’s lay the groundwork:
📌Depending on the seniority of the candidate, they would go through the typical interview process with the hiring manager – maybe an introductory Zoom call and then a face-to-face meeting over breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
📌After two meetings both Employer & Candidate have a pretty good idea of the opportunity, the role, expectations, etc, and it is evident that both sides are feeling pretty good about one another.
📌On paper, everything seems to align thus far.
Culture at this point has been communicated, but not experienced…and I’ve been doing this long enough to know that sometimes, there can be wide gap between what is preached on company culture versus the reality of the situation.
So what better way to have a candidate experience the company culture then to immerse them into your organization for a day?
What would might a schedule look like for this immersive interview experience you ask? Here would be an example:
🕰️8:30AM – 10:30AM: Informal meetings/interviews with a wide swath of staff – technical, managerial, marketing, etc.
🕰️10:30AM – 11:00AM: Visit with HR to get a full understanding of benefits.
🕰️11:00AM-12:00 Noon: Site visit with some employees on a prominent/high profile project currently being worked on.
🕰️12:00NOON-1:30PM: Lunch with the employees who led the site visit.
🕰️1:30PM – 2:30PM: Schedule some sort of office or group wide training to demonstrate the importance of professional development.
🕰️2:30PM-3:30PM: Allow the candidate to work with team he/she would be assigned to on a specific project and ask them for their insight and approaches to that specific project, and how they might overcome any challenges being experienced.
🕰️3:30PM-4:00PM: Candidate meets with hiring manager to share feedback on the day and to have any final questions answered.
🕰️4:00PM-5:30PM (Optional): Invite candidate to a pre-planned office happy hour so the candidate has the opportunity to interact with employees in a social setting.
💵💰And last but not least, have a check prepared for the candidate that equates to one day’s pay for them in their current role.💵💰
Is this a feasible approach?
Would you agree or disagree with this interview technique?
Please comment below, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
#civilengineer#civilengineers#civilengineeringjobs#interviewing#interviewtips#recruiting#talentacquisition
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