Online Surveys Help Recruitment

(In addition to being a mentor and friend and golf partner for ten years, Steve Rae’s living the American Canadian Dream. He took risks, worked long hours, and went above-and-beyond what was required to semi-retire in his early 50s and travel the world with his lovely wife Carolyn and help schlubs like me follow in his footsteps. He’s the newest contributing editor to The Daily Blur.)

Here’s a huge time-saver when hiring new staff.

You wrote your killer ad to attract the right person, have the 14 questions to ask, but here’s the trick to getting the right answers from potential job seekers.

Ask the questions in an online survey before you ever interview anyone.

Why? It makes your job of whittling down the short list so much easier.

As I was refining this process with my own company, I learned people let their guard down more than when interviewing in person. Often they tell you the most amazing things they’d never say in interviews. They might rag on their boss, or tell you of their plans to move to Australia in the near future. (Or in one case the person answered that they had once filled in for the job they were applying for and found it tedious and repetitive. But they want to work for us now? I don’t think so!)

Here’s what you do:

1. Pick an easy-to-use online survey.
2. Upload your questions.
3. Download the tabulated results.
4. Prepare to be amazed at how much you learn about these people.

This will save you so much time when hiring. You might learn you just want to interview one or two from the 120 applicants. Maybe you won’t want to interview any of them, or maybe you just have to meet the person whose resumé hadn’t stood out before… but because they answered your online survey questions with such aplomb you just can’t ignore them.

Congratulations! Now you have a better system for vetting potential hires AND more time to devote to the other important things you do everyday when running your business.