Finding the right candidate for available positions at your mining or construction company is an ongoing challenge.
With your hiring tactics, you want to make sure that you get the ideal candidates: the ones who will add value to your company long-term and help build a culture that makes your business a satisfying place to work. Also, candidates who’re willing to contribute their all to your latest project and will conduct themselves well at a job site.
Unfortunately, you only have a limited amount of time to get to know your candidates and discover whether they’ll be a good fit for your company and its culture. By using the best interviewing tactics that help uncover potential in your candidate, you’ll gain a better idea of how the individual will perform and thrive in your company.
Evaluating Personality and Attitude
In an interview that takes just 30 minutes to an hour, it’s easy for candidates to hide their true personalities. The problem arises later; when they’ve been working for the company for a period of time and their true colors are revealed.
Within 3-6 months, or about the amount of time it takes to settle into a new job, it’s easy to see when new employees aren’t as cooperative as you’d hoped–and as bad attitudes arise, you’ll find yourself wondering why you wanted to hire them in the first place.
With the right interview strategies, however, you can get a better look at candidates’ personalities without putting them in the actual position–and that can help you weed out the candidates with poor attitudes before they make it into your company.
- Screen resumes carefully. If you have a candidate with a history of job hopping–that is, remaining in most of their positions for less than three years–chances are, there’s a reason for it.
- Ask about past jobs–and why they left them–during the interview.
- Ask ethics-based questions. Listen carefully for your candidates’ responses and what they tell you about the candidate’s overall personality. Go for the unexpected, including questions that may make candidates uncomfortable. Ask, for example, “When was the last time you broke the rules?” or, “Tell me about a time when you failed to complete your boss’s instructions and why.”
- Ask open-ended questions that will get a candidate talking, allowing you a better chance to assess them. Try questions like, “What’s your worst-case scenario?” or, “How do you handle stressful situations at work?”
Determining Strategic Thinking Qualities
You don’t just want employees who will come into your business and follow simple instructions. You want individuals who can display thought leadership and strategic thinking skills.
In fact, 97% of executives will name strategic thinking as the most critical skill for ensuring success within their organization. Many candidates may put this simple capability on their resume, but that doesn’t mean they’re actually able to display it!
So, the best interviewing tactics include discovering whether or not your candidates are actually the strategic thinkers they claim to be.
- Give candidates a real-world problem to solve? Do you have an old piece of machinery sitting around that needs to be repaired? A situation you’re dealing with on the job right now? Toss the candidates at it and see what they can do.
- Look for teamwork descriptions. Strategic thinking doesn’t mean coming at a problem alone; instead, it means working with other members of the team to develop a solution. Make sure your candidate knows both how to identify the right stakeholders for the conversation and how to integrate them in the process.
- Listen to the questions your candidates ask you. Every good interview ends by giving candidates a chance to ask questions. Look for interview preparation: 88% of interviewers want informed candidates, and with good reason! An informed candidate will ask great questions about the positions you have open, displaying their strategic thinking skills for them to consider.
- Ask questions about previous problems the candidate has solved and how they went about it. Their previous experiences will tell you a lot about their current problem-solving skills!
Employ these Interviewing Tactics and Uncover True Potential
Identifying the right candidates for your job is often difficult. But, with the right interview strategies, you can transform the way you interact with candidates during the interview process and make it easier to pick the best workers out of the bunch.
If you’re ready to start working with high-quality candidates for your business, contact us today to learn how we can help you find them.
