Want to Keep Employees for the Long Run? First, Ask Candidates These Questions

Though we refuse to swear by any secret recipe, special key, or magic formula to improve the chances employees at your company stick around for the long run, one thing we will stand behind is getting involved with team members’ engagement and retention before they officially come on board – that means asking the right questions to get the best fit candidate through each stage of the hiring process.

Is your company in high gear end-of-year hiring mode? Try these questions on for size to build and curate a more qualified talent funnel.

Starry-Eyed about a Candidate? 5 Questions to Ask before Extending the Offer

The hunt for the right person for your open opportunity can sometimes be a long, drawn out trek. It’s uncommon to feel jaded after a few solid months of sourcing and interviewing.

Coming across someone who’s a good fit for the role and company equates to striking gold, and you’re up all night Sunday, drafting an email for a job offer to send first thing Monday morning. You’ve finally found the perfect candidate and now your biggest concern is finding a way to get him or her in the office, pronto.

Before you settle on what could be a decision made out of excitement, huddle with the rest of the hiring team to evaluate a candidate’s fit for the role. Try these questions to start.

4 Things Candidates Want to Hear about Your Company

What’s your story? 

Recruiters, you may do whatever it takes to dress your open opportunity to the nines, but you’re simply grazing the surface by sticking to a script ushered by the job description. 

Typically, the phone screen and interview gives recruiters and hiring managers a chance to sell their role to a potential hire and to learn how a candidate fits within that position. Running through a list of questions, job duties, and required experiences and skills barely illustrates the company and employer brand, and shortchanges the candidate on getting an in-depth narrative of what it’s like to be part of the company’s backbone. 

Here’s what candidates are looking to learn about your company. 

5 Bold Ways to Recruit Candidates

Harvey Danger once belted, “If you’re bored, then you’re boring.”

Speaking with candidates may be all part of a recruiter’s job, but hitting the wall of interview fatigue and sticking to the same, run-of-the-mill questions and interview structure is inevitable for many recruiters who’ve been in the game for a while. Is your interview a snoozefest? It could be costing you the hire. 

6 Interview Questions for Managers at Any Level

Hiring for middle, senior, supervisor and executive management roles? Turns out the ideal candidates for any of these positions aren’t all that different from each other. 

How to Save an Interview Gone Wrong

The uncomfortable silence. Darting eyes. The ums, uhs, and so yeahs.

Unless your title is Chief Interviewer, it’s common for recruiters to be great at finding and engaging top talent, but to fall flat on the next step of the candidate experience: The interview.

Whether or not you’re a seasoned pro at chatting it up with a candidate, most recruiters eventually meet the dreaded interview fatigue. Here’s how to fix that.

Want to Engage More Talent? Disagree with Them

What’s easier to write – a list of things that make you happy, or a list of things that distress you?

We tend to hear people say they could go on and on about how much they don’t like [insert setback here], but it's usually right around Thanksgiving that folks come up with arbitratry lists of things they're grateful for. 

It’s because in this age of instant gratification, convenience and ease is expected. Things that disrupt our flow are easier to rant about because they’re unexpected, unpleasant surprises. Plus, getting things off your chest just feels good.

Recruiters, you want candidates to like you, right? But what if embracing conflict helped you make better connections with them?

Are You Underselling Candidates?

It’s an unfortunate, common mistake: Offering a candidate a lateral job switch, or worse, a step down from their upper management position.

If you wanted to drive candidates away from your funnel, this is definitely the way to do it.

But it’s also insulting and makes it clear you don’t have an understanding about the role you’re recruiting for, and for most candidates, that’s a slap in the face. Many recruiters already get a bad rap, and underselling a candidate just adds fuel to the flame.

Are you underselling candidates? Here are some reasons your recruiting and hiring strategies may be turning off top talent.

What to Say When Candidates Ask the Darndest Things

Recruiters usually have the upper hand when it comes to interviewing, right? You've broken the ice with an open-ended question along the lines of, "Tell me about yourself," and your interviewee is on his way to sharing a revealing tale of trial and error.

Then, out of nowhere, a left-fielder. The candidate floors you with a strange question about the company, and you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Cat's got your tongue. You struggle to deal with the rude awakening and mumble something passive.

We've rounded up several of the most outlandish questions asked by candidates and put them to the test with Entelo Recruiter Evangelist Loni Spratt. Read on to get her advice on dealing with awkward interview questions.