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Ready to Expand Your Team? 3 Signs It’s Time to Hire

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As a business owner, you know that when you hire is as important as who you are. Adding a new employee too early or too late could derail even your best-laid plans. How do you know when it’s time to take the leap and put out the ad? These are the three signs it’s time to find a new helping hand. 

You’re Missing Out on New Opportunities 

You know you’re ready to grow your business, and prospective clients want to join in on the fun. However, you can’t find time in your production schedule or calendar to bring on a new client much less serve them well. So, you have to let them go, essentially handing their business to your competition on a silver platter. 

Missing out on new opportunities is a classic sign you need to hire. A new member of staff costs money, but they help your current team add value to every account and enable you to take on new ones. 

Your Top Performers Struggle to Meet Deadlines 

Everyone misses a deadline once in a while. However, when you reach a point where you’re paying overtime hours and your team still can’t pick up the speed on their turnaround times, then they may need the extra help. 

Hiring an extra pair of hands takes work off everyone’s plates so they can get the job done on time. 

You Need to Pitch In Every Day 

As a leader, you have a lot on your plate — like the fate of your business. You need to focus on big picture goals and management. If you’re not at the helm of your company, it doesn’t take long for a business to go off-course. Once it does, it could take months to right it again. 

While every leader should get involved in the day-to-day work, it shouldn’t dominate your schedule. Your team needs you at the helm, steering the ship. 

If you find yourself rolling up your sleeves and doing the legwork more often than not, then you could be in need of a new employee. 

Do You Recognize These Signs? 

Hiring strategically has as much to do with the timing as it does the candidate. If you are turning away business, watching deadlines fly by, and find yourself in the weeds, then you likely need to hire ASAP. 

Are you on the hunt for an extra pair of hands? RightStone can help. Get in touch to learn how the RighStone 360 process can help you get the candidates who will grow your business. 

Reveal a Candidate’s EQ with These Interview Questions

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You have a shortlist of candidates who check all your boxes. They have the education, experience, and skills needed to fill the vacant role at your company.

Hiring a new employee requires you to find someone who does more than tick boxes. You want someone who will fit in, work well with other people, and even lead someday. You want someone with high levels of emotional intelligence (EQ).

You won’t find a candidates’ EQ profile in their resume. But you can figure it out before you hire them by asking the right interview questions.

What is Emotional Intelligence (EQ)?

A person’s emotional intelligence or EQ is their ability to understand and manage their own emotions both to deal with their own experience and to empathize with others.

You can spot a person with a high EQ because they usually:

  • Communicate clearly and effectively
  • Show empathy for others
  • Deal with stress using healthy mechanisms
  • Defuse conflict rather than create it

Attracting people with a high EQ to your company should be a top priority. They’re not only great workers and colleagues, but they also make great leaders. But how do you figure out whether a candidate possesses the kind of EQ that you want? You ask.

How to Use Interview Questions to Reveal a Candidates’ EQ

The best interview questions for revealing a candidate’s EQ go beyond asking about their strengths and weaknesses. It’s rare that someone will articulate their abilities simply because you ask them to spell them out.

Instead, you can learn more by asking them about specific scenarios and their response.

A few good questions include;

  • Share the worst piece of criticism you’ve ever received at work. How did you respond?
  • Talk about a time you saw a dispute between two co-workers. What did you do?
  • Tell us about a time you faced an ethical dilemma at work. What did you do?

But don’t just ask them about the scenario. Use follow-up questions to learn more about their responses to learn not only how the situation unfolded but how it shaped their experiences.

Don’t forget to pay attention to their body language and tone. Candidates who look or sound pained when answering these types of questions usually don’t respond well to stress or conflict, which also reflects their EQ.

Hire Emotionally Intelligent Teams

You know you want team members who have the skills and experience to get the job done, but their EQ is as important as their IQ. By asking the right interview questions and using follow-up questions wisely, you can choose candidates who are both good at their jobs and pleasant to work with.

Learn more

At RighStone, quality is part of our process. Get in touch to learn how we find candidates who not only fit your required skills but your corporate culture and personality.

The IT Talent Shortage Is Still On – How Are Companies Connecting with Top Talent?

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It’s common knowledge that IT staff with in-demand skills are in short supply. The combination of the allure of big tech and the high demand for specific skill sets are making it harder than ever to attract top talent. At the same time, if you can’t hire those in-demand workers, you can’t compete.

Workers with skills in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data science, and Python are some of the most sought-after in the country. Everyone wants them, but they have skills that you can’t learn overnight. Many of these workers dedicated years to building up these skills, and now, they’re reaping the rewards.

How do you connect with top talent if you can’t compete with Google and paying sky-high salaries isn’t an option? 

Improve Your Image

In-demand employees know they can seek out top salaries. While big money is attractive, it’s not what matters most, particularly to many millennials and members of Gen Z. They place as much weight on who they work for as they do what they earn.

Before you start trying to lure in new talent, ask yourself: what makes your company attractive?

Does your website include up-to-date information about what it’s like to work with you? What are your Glassdoor reviews like? What are your current and past employees sharing about you?

Your image needs to be stellar so that when a prospective candidate looks you up, they like what they see.

Ask for Referrals

You already have one of your best recruiting resources: your employees. Employee referrals are a phenomenal way to hire new staff. Not only are they cost-effective compared to advertising a position, but employees only refer the kind of people they want to work with.

Let your employees know that you have a referral scheme in place. You might be surprised by the number of employees who have a friend who would be a good fit!

Consider Contract Staff

The current hiring landscape means more and more skilled employees are also using contractor roles rather than hunting down full-time gigs. What’s more, today’s IT landscape also means that you don’t need to hire full-time permanent employees for every role. 

Contractors add real value and desirable skills to your team over the short-term. By turning to contracts, you get access to desirable skills when required without requiring a full-time commitment from either party.

Are you on the hunt for someone with cybersecurity or AI skills? We’re ready to help connect you with talented candidates who will add real value to your team. Get in touch to learn how we do what we do.

How to Ask Interview Questions that Help You Uncover the Character of a Job Seeker

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Every employer understands that the interview is a critically important stage in the course of the recruitment process. By building a successful interview strategy, employers are much more likely to gain a clear and reliable picture of a candidate’s unique strengths, weaknesses, and career goals. A poorly-defined or underprepared strategy, on the other hand, can often lead employers to miss a golden hiring opportunity or, conversely, to hire someone who is unfit for the role.

So what does an ideal interview strategy for employers actually look like?

Asking questions that are designed to get a sense of a candidate’s technical skills and professional background is obviously vitally important. That said, those questions should not take up the entire interview. In addition to probing a candidate for his or her particular technical skills, it’s equally important for interviewers to ask questions aimed at uncovering a candidate’s unique personality and character traits. This distinction – between technical expertise and characterological strength – is often referred to as “hard skills” versus “soft skills”.

Here are some examples of interview questions that will help you to gain a better sense of a candidate’s personality, character, and interpersonal abilities:

  • Do you prefer to work alone or within a group setting? Can you explain why?

 

  • Tell me about a time that you experienced conflict with a coworker. What happened, and how did you go about resolving it?

 

  • What are your greatest passions?

 

  • What are the activities, hobbies, or pastimes that you engage in while you’re not at work?

 

  • What adjectives would your best friend use to describe you?

 

  • Who is your greatest professional influence or inspiration? Why?

 

  • Is there a book that you would recommend to someone working in this role? Why? What were the major lessons that you gleaned from reading it?

 

  • Tell me about a time that you experienced failure at a past job. What did you learn from that experience?

At the end of the day, employers should be seeking to build a comprehensive picture of a candidate during the interview process. By balancing your “hard skill” interview questions with questions that are geared towards building a picture of a candidate’s unique character, you’ll be much more likely to find someone who’s the right fit not only for the role but also for the broader culture of your workplace.

If you’re ready to connect with talented candidates who will be a perfect match for your organization, contact us today!

5 Benefits Video Interviews Can Bring to Your IT Talent Search

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The practices and technologies that drive the hiring process are constantly changing. As new communication technologies become commonplace, it’s critical for employers and job seekers alike to be able to quickly integrate them into their search for their next star employee, or for their next role. Video interviews are a prime example of an emergent communication technology that is changing the hiring process across the IT industry. Rather than having candidates come into the office for a face-to-face interview, an increasing number of employers are opting to have their prospective employees submit recorded responses to a set of predetermined questions. In this way, they’re able to cut back on the time, resources, and energy that is usually spent finding the perfect candidate.  

By integrating video interviews into your recruitment and hiring process, you can greatly increase your chances of quickly getting in touch with talented employees. 

Here are five major benefits of conducting video interviews:  

1. Accelerates your hiring process.

Finding time for a prospective employee to come into the office for an interview can be a long and frustrating process. Asking candidates to record and submit their responses to a set of questions, on the other hand, can dramatically cut back on the time that is taken up by introductions, small-talk, and travel by traditional in-person interviews.

2. Enables you to screen more candidates.

Most hiring managers out there will have found themselves in the awkward position of being less than one minute into an interview and realizing that a candidate isn’t a good fit for a particular role. Video interviews allow hiring managers to quickly assess a candidate’s suitability and quickly move on to the next applicant if it’s quickly determined that there isn’t a fit. 

3. Brings consistency to the interview process.

Even when hiring managers go into an interview with a list of questions, in-person conversations can quickly become sidetracked into other topics. All too often, the result is that candidates end up providing responses to different questions. By asking your applicants to record and submit their responses to a consistent set of questions, you’ll be ensuring that you receive equally consistent and comparable responses. 

4. It allows candidates to be more relaxed.

Meeting with an employer in person for an interview can be a stressful experience for a candidate. Even if their experience and skills make them a great fit, having to sit across a table from a hiring manager can make often make a candidate flustered and nervous. Answering questions in front of a webcam, however, is a far less daunting prospect – particularly when applicants are allowed to record multiple takes until they’re satisfied with their responses.  

5. Quickly screens out technologically-impaired candidates.

It’s important for any employer in the IT industry to quickly eliminate candidates who aren’t able to follow basic technological instructions. Recording and submitting responses to a video interview is by no means challenging (to most candidates), but there will be some who will be either too lazy or too perplexed to carry out the task, and they will be left in the wake of other, more competent candidates.

At RightStone, we’re working with IT candidates and top employers to make connections that last. To learn more about how to get connected with top talent, we’re here to help. 

 

How to Improve the Candidate Experience During Your Next Hiring Campaign

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For job candidates, the search for a new role can often be a frustratingly slow and tedious process. Unresponsive prospective employers, long and arduous email threads, automated email responses; all of these are factors which job candidates encounter all too often in the job search and which can quickly disenchant them from a particular role. A smooth, efficient, and rapid recruiting process, on the other hand, is sure to make a positive impression on job candidates and will maximize an employer’s chances of receiving an application.  

It can be challenging, however, for employers to identify the specific aspects of their current recruitment and hiring models that are in need of improvement. With this in mind, this post will walk you through four simple ways to improve the candidate experience in your next hiring campaign. 

Write a clear and up-to-date job description.

It’s not uncommon for job candidates to apply or even to interview for a role, only to discover down the line that the skills and responsibilities required by that position do not, in fact, match with their own experience. In many of those cases, a considerable amount of time and resources could have been saved if the employer had taken the time at the early stages of the process to write a comprehensive job description. 

Set expectations early on about your recruitment process.

In the search for a new role, time is of the essence. It’s important, therefore, for candidates to understand early on what they should expect in terms of timeline and communication. Every company will have a slightly different recruitment process; clarifying the details of yours to a prospective employee will make it much less likely that they’ll become frustrated and disappear.  

Keep the ball rolling with communication.

This one is crucial. Recent research has demonstrated that a lack of communication on the part of employers is the number one most frustrating part of a candidate’s job search. It stands to reason, then, that devising a strategy aimed at consistent and helpful communication is perhaps the most effective thing that any employer could do to improve a candidate’s recruitment experience. 

Go the extra mile when conducting interviews.

The interview is arguably the most critical point of the recruitment process. It is the first opportunity for candidates to meet with their prospective managers and colleagues in person and to get a glimpse of their potential future workplace. In order to ensure that it’s a positive experience for candidates, it’s important for employers to prepare appropriately. This goes beyond merely preparing the appropriate questions (although that’s important, too); proper interview preparation also means gathering the right people into the room, respecting a candidate’s time, and (as we mentioned earlier) being clear about what they should expect for next steps. 

At RightStone, we’re working with IT candidates and top employers to make connections that last. To learn more about how to get connected with top talent, we’re here to help. 

 

Tips for Hiring a Programmer When You Don’t Know Coding

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In order to be able to identify and recruit high-quality employees, managers in the IT industry need to understand the specific types of experience and technical expertise that they should be looking for in a candidate. This can often be a straightforward task: if a role requires a candidate to be certified in a particular type of cloud-services platform, for example, any manager can easily find out if any given candidate meets that requirement by simply asking for his or her certification. Difficulties can arise, however, if a hiring manager does not have some basic fluency in the more technical programmer jargon. In other words, it can be tricky for managers to get a clearly defined understanding of a candidate’s experience and skills without first becoming familiar with the language of the trade.

The aim of this post, therefore, will be to provide IT managers who are newcomers to the “language” of programming with some tips for hiring top-talent candidates.

Tips for Hiring Programmers

1. Understand the job requirements.

Before you interview a candidate for any role, it will be essential to first familiarize yourself with the idiosyncrasies and unique responsibilities of that particular position. In many cases, this will require you to meet with a supervisor or colleague who will work closely with the new employee. You’ll want to find out: what are the most challenging technical aspects of this role? What are the character traits that will be conducive to success in this position? You won’t need to become an expert on each of the technical duties required by the role, but you should have an understanding of the general skills that will be required for success.

 

2. Request a portfolio from each candidate.

Having a tangible, visual sample of each candidate’s work experience can provide you with a much clearer understanding of their past accomplishments and unique abilities. It may also be worth consulting with a colleague who is more well-versed in programming to more clearly understand a candidate’s portfolio.

 

3. Don’t forget to discuss the work environment.

It will (obviously) be a priority to find candidates who have the requisite background, experience, and technical skills, but it’s equally important to make sure that you find someone who will fit well within your company culture. With that in mind, be sure to ask any candidate what they value and expect from a workplace, whether or not they’re looking for a role with flexible work options, and if they work more effectively as an individual or within a team-oriented environment.

 

4. Test their skills.

If you’re not intimately familiar with the language of programmers or coders, it can be very helpful to prepare a short examination which will test a candidate’s technical skills. Tests can take place on paper or online and can either be developed in collaboration with other, more technically-fluent.

Connect with Talent Today

At RightStone, we’re working with IT candidates and top employers to make connections that last. To learn more about how to get connected with top talent, we’re here to help.

 

 

 

Learn How to Speed Up Your IT Recruitment Process

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Many IT leaders and businesses struggle with implementing new and effective ways of recruiting top talent to their teams. This is not due to a lack of trying, but rather the constantly evolving nature of recruitment methods themselves. As our industry grows and develops, so too do the means of identifying and communicating with job candidates. In order to optimize their recruitment processes, it’s important for employers in the IT industry to position themselves appropriately and take advantage of the proper resources.

Here are some simple and effective ways to enhance your recruiting process, so that your business can begin to quickly attract expert job candidates:

Strengthen Your Employer Branding

One of the most important qualities that all leading IT companies share is a strong, engaging, and consistent brand story. In other words, all top IT employers understand the value of a coherent and attractive mission statement that candidates will be able to relate to. If your company has a strong employer brand that is communicated in online copy, blog content, and emails, it will give candidates a much clearer idea of the driving goals behind the company, and how they would — if hired — fit within that larger scheme.

Develop Personal Relationships With Candidates

Finding a new job in IT is often a lonely and frustrating road to tread. With so many automated responses and impersonal application processes, it’s no wonder that job seekers often feel alienated as they search for a new position. Employers that take the time to engage in personally communicating can make a huge impression with candidates and have a much greater chance of having an applicant follow through. This doesn’t mean that you need to personally respond to every single application, but quickly and personally reaching out to candidates whose CV and experience catch your eye is sure to keep the recruitment and interview process moving forward on the right foot.

Partner With a Staffing Agency

Staffing Agencies specialize in connecting IT candidates that are on the job market with IT companies who are searching for top talent. While most in-house IT HR departments tend to (by necessity) prioritize finding talent quickly over digging deep to find the best candidates, staffing agencies have the resources, time, and personnel to commit to reaching out directly to engineers who might otherwise be overlooked. In addition to looking for candidates to fill a role, staffing agencies can also be great resources for advocating your company’s mission statement, values, and ambitions.

Looking For Top Talent?

At RightStone, we’re working with IT candidates and top employers to make connections that last. To learn more about how to get connected with top talent, we’re here to help.

How Hiring Managers Can Learn to Think Like a Job Seeker

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When approaching the recruiting process, many hiring managers have a prepackaged set of criteria for what they are looking for from a candidate. While using some basic standards in your recruitment process is an effective way of rooting out obviously unqualified or ill-fitting candidates, a one-size-fits-all approach can result in overlooking some top talent.

A useful cognitive tool that can help hiring managers is to try to see things from the perspective of the job seeker. By understanding the thought process of job applicants, hiring managers can learn to read between the lines in job applications and catch talented candidates that would otherwise be missed through the one-size-fits-all approach to recruitment.

Here are some tips for thinking like a job seeker during the recruitment process:

Don’t Rely Too Heavily On Traditional Recruiting Platforms 

While sites like LinkedIn and Indeed.com are vital to your employer branding strategy and getting in touch with active job seekers, there are tons of talented and more passive job seekers who do not use these traditional channels to reach out. To get connected with top talent, think like a job seeker by actually taking steps to reach out to candidates through IT Facebook groups and industry-specific sites. Even sites like Twitter and Instagram can be useful resources when searching for candidates.

Think Like a Salesman

Always keep in mind the recruitment process is a two-way street. You’re searching for CVs and candidate profiles that catch your eye, and job seekers are looking for job descriptions and company profiles that stand out. When you’re building your company profile on recruiting sites and social media, pay close attention to the details that job seekers are looking for — such as copy, color scheme, and description of company culture — that will make them pause in their search and submit an application.

Keep Things Simple, Informative and to the Point

Try to imagine yourself in the shoes of the typical job seeker. In most cases, they are perusing through and applying to a huge number of job openings, one after another, day after day. The advertisements you create for an open position should indicate that you’re aware of their current situation by being straightforward, to the point and simple to understand. Give them an idea of what they’re looking for and let them know they can expect to hear from an actual human being if they’re chosen as a good fit. A little humor never hurt, either.

Find Your Next Talent Fit Here!

If you are in search of talented professionals for your team, we can help. Contact us today and we can assist you in your next candidate search.

The Benefits Social Media Can Bring to Your Candidate Search

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Social media is about more than just sharing memes and influencer marketing. Social platforms are where people spend a good amount of their personal and professional online time. From networking with business connections to staying in the know with friends, family, and community events; social media is a powerful connector of people. It can also be a powerful way to connect with potential new hires.

Some of the benefits of using social media in your search for talented candidates:

  • Good Referrals: Ask your employees to share your job postings on their personal and professional social media profiles. More than likely those talented people you hired network with lots of other talented people, possibly resulting in better-qualified candidates.
  • Cost-Effective recruiting: Social media is a free resource to share job listings. While ads and job postings on job boards have a cost associated with them, regular posts that are shared with your followers are free. You can maximize your reach by sharing available jobs on all of your social platforms – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – and spread the word. Followers might pass on the opportunity to someone in the market or they may apply themselves, and someone who’s already a fan and follower of your brand might be a great fit. Small businesses often try this method, along with asking for current employee referrals, before posting to public job sites.
  • Maximum Exposure: Limiting your job postings to online job forums means they only get in front of people who are actively looking for work. What if you could get in front of qualified talent who might be passive candidates but are interested enough in your company or position to get in touch anyway? Social media enables your brand to get in front of more people – actively searching or not – and can help you drive more interest in your position and source more candidates.

Using social media should be part of every business’s recruitment plan. Whether it’s a primary or secondary method of sourcing talent, it can be a huge benefit in your search.

If you’re looking to expand your team and are looking for talented people, we can help. Contact us today to let us assist in your search for the next right hire.

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