How to ensure you recruit the right person for your vacancy!

 

With a growing FM industry and fewer individuals with the required skills, recruiting the right person for vacancies in your operation is becoming increasingly difficult and demands more time than previously. Making the wrong decision about who to hire can cause a tremendous drain on your time and the efficiency of your FM operation. It only takes two seconds to offer someone employment, but can take months to replace an incorrect hire.

 

The key to ensuring that you hire the right person is by ensuring that you conduct the perfect interview. Over the last 28 years I have asked numerous Facility Managers who manage large teams of staff what interview training they have received and very few comment that they have had any at all!   Most Facilities Managers see recruitment as a necessary evil and a distraction from getting on with the operational issues of their role.

 

So what is the perfect interview? There is a significant mindset change that you must make. You have to ignore the subjective issues about whether you like the person or not and ensure that you recruit the right person for the role rather than trying to recruit a new friend. To enable you to recruit the right person for the role you need to understand what exactly you are looking for a) the role the person needs to do and b) what skills and competencies they will require to be able to do the role. I am amazed at how many companies’ interview individuals without a full job and person specification, or have not spent the time thinking about what they want the person to do. Many opt for just interviewing candidates to “see what is out there”, and end up confused and not portraying their organisation efficiently. My tip for FM’s hiring staff is to treat the process the same as awarding an outsource contract, with full specifications and service level agreements and the CV’s being treated as tenders, subjected to the same scrutiny that a supplier would be in a presentation, through interviewing the candidate.

  

So what are the tips for hosting the perfect interview?

 

1. Research

You can never do enough research about your vacancy and the potential employee.

• Ensure you know what exactly the role entails and that you have created a full job and person specification.
• Break the job down into five or six selection criteria. Usually in FM these are:

1, Facilities Management knowledge / Track record

2, Communication Skills

3, People Management skills

4, Financial acumen / Budget control

5, Customer service skills

6, Personal Circumstances (Location, salary, personality etc)

• Review the candidates CV thoroughly, then review the website of their current employer for key facts and search the Internet for any extra information about the individual. Some companies are now looking at individuals entries on Facebook or Myspace for a better insight to the person.
• Ensuring not to breach the confidentiality of the candidate, speak to industry colleagues to get first hand opinions.

2. Plan the interview

Plan to have ten minutes preparation time in interview room before the schedule interview time to refresh yourself of the facts. Re read the specification and the candidates CV. Ensure you will be able to commence the interview at the given time. 

 

3. Preparation                                                                            

Ensure that you are dressed appropriately to portray the culture of the company. Have a prepared list of structured questions that will determine the facts and data relating to the selection criteria. Have a prepared sheet for notes that will enable you to easily grade the answers and responses from the candidate against the other contenders.

 

4. Rehearsal                                                                                          

In a candidate short market it is equally important to sell your organisation to the individual as it is for them to sell their skills to you. You should rehearse your company’s “elevator pitch” and be adept in stating who the organisation is, what you do, what the role is, why the role is available and why it is a great opportunity for them to consider accepting ( subject to being suitable).If you will have a colleague sit in on the interview you need to rehearse who will ask which questions. Ensure that your questions are clear and to the point, the interview is not an opportunity for you to show off or waffle.                                                

 

5. Remember your company literature                                                          

Take a copy of the job specification and one for the candidate in case they forgot theirs. Also ensure you use their CV as a prompt for asking supplementary questions to the prepared structured ones. Take a small portfolio of your company literature to sell the company to the candidate.

 

6. Refreshments                                                                                   

Your time is precious therefore don’t waste it by offering various tea / coffee combinations just offer water.

 

7. Facts and Data                                                                                  

It is critical that you gather facts and data from the candidate to establish if they can do the role. You should establish their experience which you must substantiate. For recruiting an FM these would be:

- Size of FM budget with full breakdown

- Size and number of locations managed

- Numbers of employees reporting to them

- Numbers of employees they provide services to

- Scope of services managed

- Cost savings

- Innovation that they personally introduced

 

To gather this information you should utilise a variety of types of questions, starting off with low order (simple to answer and relaxes the candidate prompting them to be open with you settling their nerves). Open questions, specific questions, complicated questions and even hypothetical questions.

 

Examples of killer questions are:

-“Can you please tell me which aspects of your career most directly relate to you being able to effect this role efficiently?”

-“What do you feel are your key strengths and how do you think you will be remembered by your current employer when you leave?”

-“what are the three greatest achievements you have made in your current role?”

- “Why do you want this role, and why do you think we should employ you?”

 

This information must be factually correct and must be later substantiated. The CIPD research indicates that 95% of candidates CV’s are factually incorrect! Therefore ensure that all offers are subject to receipt of satisfactory references/ clean drivers licence / certificates / medical if need be.

  

8. Personality                                                                                    

– Throughout the whole interview process assess the person’s personality, taking into account nerves. Be personable at the interview. Establish how the person would fit into the team, perhaps by getting the opinions of some of them sitting in, or by using a personality profile psychometric test.

 

9. Feedback and Action Plan                                                               

At the end of the interview ask the candidate for their thoughts as to their interest and ask the closed question:

“If this position was offered to you, would you accept it?”

Then ensure the candidate knows what the employment process will be following that interview. I think it is important to stress that few companies realise the importance the professionalism of the recruiting process is in ensuring your organisation has the best calibre candidates. Therefore the post interview process has to be as slick or more professional than the service that the FM team deliver. Sitting on applications or taking weeks to give feedback or an answer is not acceptable. Apply the same deadlines to the process as the outsourcing process.

 

10. Post Interview                                                                        

Always write that same day to the candidate thanking them for their time and reiterating your interest in their application for the role (obviously if they are unsuitable for the role then reject their application politely).

 

Key Points

 1.      Research your candidate and their current employer

 2.      Plan the structure of your interview and the structured questions

 3.      Dress appropriately

 4.      Rehearse your elevator pitch and structured questions

 5.      Take the specification, their CV and your company literature

 6.      Establish relevant facts and data

 7.      Be personable

 8.      Don’t waste interview time on refreshments

 9.      Ensure the candidate’s answers to your questions are honest and credible.

 10.    Thank the candidate, clarify post interview recruitment process.

 11.    Substantiate facts.

 12.    Write immediately afterwards thanking them for attending.