I love to hear about employers who are stepping out of the old-fashioned Machine Age mindset to treat their employees and job applicants like valued collaborators.
I am glad to hear those stories, but I am never short of correspondence describing the opposite scenario!
Too many organizations cling to outdated beliefs that damage their employer brands and drive the most talented job-seekers away. Here are some of those archaic beliefs:
1. In the hiring process, employers make all the important decisions. Job-seekers need to impress job-seekers -- not the other way around.
2. It is perfectly right and appropriate for employers to ask job-seekers to expose their inner thoughts and fears, including asking the questions "What's your greatest weakness?" and "What are you working to improve in yourself?"
3. Because employers hold all the power in the hiring equation, it would be outrageous for a job-seeker to ask their interviewer any of the questions they've been asked to answer themselves.
4. "Trick" questions like "What kind of zoo animal is most like you?" are wonderful interview questions because they show you how the applicant sees himself or herself.
5. Job-seekers who don't want to jump through the hoops you set out for them are simply unworthy of working in your amazing company. They show their unworthiness by leaving your interview pipeline before you've had a chance to dismiss them!
Employers who cling to these ancient beliefs hurt themselves, their customers and their shareholders.
The smarter and more capable job applicants are, the faster and farther they will run away from organizations that treat them like dirt.
Smart employers actively sell job candidates on their opportunities -- not just in their job ads, but all the way through the recruiting process.
Here are five new questions -- new to me, anyway -- job applicants heard on job interviews in 2021, along with a sample answer for each question.
These questions spring from the same "Grovel, Knave" school of thought that inspired every previous crop of obnoxious interview questions, like "What's your greatest weakness?" and "With so many talented candidates, why should we hire you?"
Read more at Forebs.com