Questions about travelling and re-location

It is worth covering any travel or location issues before deciding on which candidates to take to the next stage, as these can often be the reasons for offers being turned down.

If your interviewee is living some distance away then find out how carefully they have thought about their travel arrangements. Junior-level candidates can sometimes make some very optimistic assumptions about travel times.

Be wary of candidates who currently drive ten minutes to work but now think they can commute for one and a half hours on public transport. In many cases they will find this is exhausting and often decide to leave.

I notice that your last job was very local to you, but this company is the other side of town. How are you going to get here?

We do not have parking facilities, so have you checked how you will get here?

At senior levels you may be seeing candidates who will have to re-locate if you offer them a job. If you were aware that your applicants would be applying from across the country or even internationally then you should have included the cost of a re-location package in your recruitment budget.

Re-locating staff can become very complicated, especially if they need to sell their current home and buy another property. They may well have children in school in a crucial year who cannot be moved immediately or a partner who cannot re-locate because of their job.

Offers that include re-locating are often declined because the candidate’s partner is not totally in favour of the move. Try finding a way of having a conversation with the partner to assess their thoughts on re-locating.

Keep to open questions and avoid making assumptions.

What would you do about re-locating if we offered you the job?

Have you looked at the price of property / rents near here?

You mentioned your partner; will they re-locate with you?

Are there any other factors affecting your re-location?

You want to make sure that they have thought this through at this stage, not later.

Travelling may be part of the job that you are recruiting for and you need to make candidates aware of this and to ensure they can meet this requirement. State what they will need to do and why, so it is clear that this is a necessity of the job.

Do you have any problems meeting this requirement?

Do you have a similar situation currently?

Make sure you ask ALL candidates the same questions in the same way. Do not confine these questions to women whom you assume have child care issues. This will be discriminatory.

Questions about salary and notice period

It is vital to make sure you have a good understanding of what the candidate is currently earning but at this point salary packages can become ‘enhanced’ perhaps with bonuses added in and so on, so you need to ensure you receive a complete breakdown.

What is your current (or ‘your last’, if they are not working) basic salary?

Do you get a bonus and / or commission?

How much did you earn in total last year?

Always ask them to quantify bonuses or commissions. Just having a bonus potential does not mean you earn it. Find out if they are due to be paid any bonuses and whether handing in their notice would affect this. (This may result in their wanting to defer their resignation, or you may have to buy them out of their bonus – see Chapter 15, The Offer). If you are still not sure that you are getting the true picture, ask:

What does your last P60 state that you earned? / Is that what it states on your P60?

Do you have a company pension, and what are the company’s contributions? Is it a final salary scheme?

If they have a final salary pension you may not be able to match it, so you will have to build something else into any offer.

Finally do not forget to ask for their notice period; do not assume that it will be a month, as it can be several months and more for high-level candidates.

What is your notice period?

Is that negotiable, as we really want someone sooner?

We have an important meeting next month. If you were offered the job, could you attend?

These two questions help you to plan accordingly but they also demonstrate the candidate’s level of interest in the job.

Giving the candidate information

Many candidates come out of an interview without knowing anything more about the job or the company because the interviewer has forgotten to include this or they have simply run out of time.

An interview is a two-way process – you are making a decision but so is the candidate. Many interviewers assume that the candidates are desperate to accept the job and forget they have a choice and are likely to be applying for other jobs too. If you want them to join your company, you need to make them really interested and ‘sell’ it to them.

You can let them know of any future company plans, how the company has grown or how the role they are applying for could develop. If the person you are replacing has been promoted, tell the applicants – it’s good news!

If there are any negatives you should also disclose them. Most candidates will respond to this honesty and if they are currently working in your market sector they are likely to be aware of any problems you are having. Explain what the problems are and most importantly what you are doing to counteract them.

Final questions – yours and theirs

At the end of any interview always inform the candidate what will happen next and in what timescale. Make sure you have discussed your company and the job fully, including salary package.

If this is a candidate you think you are interested in, then ask them what their thoughts are.

Are you interested in going to the next stage?

If we offered you the job, would you take it?

Unless you are absolutely sure about your decision, be careful not to make this sound like an offer. People often hear what they want to hear and this can lead to disappointment. Tell them if you have other candidates to see or if you need to discuss the ones you have seen with other people.

It is worth knowing how they will respond and it gives you the chance to answer any of their questions or doubts, or you can ask:

Do you have any other questions?

Do you have any reservations about our company or the job?

This can throw up some difficult questions for you to respond to such as:

Why is this job vacant?

Why is the person in this role leaving?

These are the most common end-of-interview questions and you need to give an honest, but whenever you can positive, answer. Explain why the person is leaving – they have been here three years but now wanted to train to be a teacher. The fact they have been there three years is a positive point.

Why are you recruiting externally – don’t you promote from within?

There are rumours that you are making people redundant. Are they true, and how will this affect this role?

You have re-structured several times recently. Why is this?

Your company has been getting very bad press because . . . Why is this and what are you doing about it?

Remember that despite these issues this candidate has attended the interview so they are still interested in your company. Again give them an honest answer. All companies have problems but the candidate needs to understand the reasons for them and what has been done to resolve the issues.

What are my chances of being offered this job?

How do I compare with other candidates?

Unless you are very sure about this candidate, keep your answer neutral by saying:

‘It is difficult to say, as I still have other people to see’, or ‘It’s difficult to say because we have had such good applicants and we are still interviewing.’

You may have a clear ‘favourite’ amongst your candidates but it is worth reviewing and marking each one to ensure that you select the one most suited to your role.

You may also have included psychometric or other types of testing or a practical task, so make sure that these are evaluated alongside your interview assessment before making your final decision.

Assess the candidates

At the end of your interviews you must assess the candidates and decide which to take to the next stage or to make an offer to.

Using the points system, as discussed earlier, is a useful tool at all stages and will ensure you have a uniform and fair system for evaluating applicants. We looked at awarding five points for each ‘essential’ skill, two for ‘desirable’ and one for ‘useful’. You can adjust this in any way you want, but ensure the points are heavily weighted for the essential skills.

Write up your interview notes. If you are new to interviewing or do not do it very often, it is very easy to confuse candidates and forget the details. Include any areas you want to investigate at the next interview.

If more than one person has been involved the ideal situation is to assess the candidates individually and then compare notes.

Decide on which candidates to take to the next stage, remembering to highlight any areas that need probing further or points that you have not yet covered.

Split decisions

If you are in the lucky position of coming to the end of your selection process but have two or more candidates that you can’t decide between, then what do you do?

This situation is unlikely and usually means that the candidates have simply not been assessed in enough detail, so ask yourself the following:

Have they met ALL the ‘essential’ criteria?

Which ‘desirable’ criteria does each one have?

Finally, which ‘useful’ criteria do they have?

You may now have identified a point of difference between the candidates or you may have found that you had not investigated all of these areas.

Go back to the candidates and ask them about the areas you missed. This could be done by telephone or through your recruitment consultant, or you may decide to ask them back for another interview.

Be cautious about calling candidates back for unscheduled interviews. This can make them ‘cool off’ as you or your company can be seen as indecisive.

If you do opt for another meeting, then explain why.

Plan the meeting so that you ensure that you will get the information you need.

What will you ask?

Is there anyone else they should meet? Maybe someone was away from the business when the interviews were being conducted or there is another member of the team that they will interface with. This will also be another view on deciding between the two.

Can you think of some more situations that you want them to discuss?

Alternatively could you introduce another element in the decision making such as psychometric testing, a task or a trial afternoon if they have not already been carried out?

What about the obvious? Is one looking for a more realistic salary than the other, or does one have a more workable notice period than the other? These are not in themselves reasons to hire or not to hire someone, but if it’s still a split decision then factor this in.

Finally, if you still have two identically matched individuals then in these circumstances you can hire the one you like best!

• Make sure you have salary and notice period information.
• Make sure they have enough information to decide if they want to take their application further.
• Establish if they are going on to other interviews and where they are in this process. Don’t lose them.
• Explain to them what will happen next and give a timeline.
• Assess the candidate – are you taking them to the next stage?
• Highlight any areas to be covered at the next meeting.