Devising little tests such as a hiring lunch and other tricks have always been around to test job seekers for cultural fit. Thomas Edison is famously reported to have served candidates a bowl of soup when he was interviewing for research assistants. He seemingly wanted to see whether they added salt or pepper to the…

Employer branding has always been important to attract top talent, but today it is more significant than ever. The emergence of a generation of super digitally savvy candidates means that the standard ways of building a strong employer brand are no longer sufficient. These candidates are smart enough to lift the curtain and dig deeper.…

In any hiring process I have been involved in, if I had a Euro (or any other currency) for the number of times I have heard these phrases I could probably retire: It didn’t feel right He/she wouldn’t fit There was something about… Trusting our instincts can help us in many ways. But in some…

The increase in the use of tech in the recruitment process has changed the way recruiters work. It’s made life easier and quicker in some ways, but whether it produces better results is another matter.  I would go one step further. Technology, and especially LinkedIn, is resulting in a whole new demographic of lazy recruiters.…

Most companies include interviews as part of their hiring process. Sometimes they are one to one, or perhaps with different members of the team or others involved in the hiring process. Interviews can be held in panels of two or more, but very often they are sequential with candidates meeting one person after another. They…

More and more organizations use video as an integrated part of their recruitment process. But a new step is the automated interview also called the on-demand interview. This is a structured interview where candidates answer a series of predetermined questions which are recorded to camera. There are a number of platforms that deal with this and…

The demand for the professionalisation of the recruitment industry seems to be at an all-time high. LinkedIn in particular is regularly filled with complaints about the way individuals have been treated by a recruiter in some part of the globe. There are also complaints from recruiters about the comportment of candidates. Often times many of…

I was intrigued to read that a recruiter had been fired by Pepsico for failing to provide a diverse short list which should have included more than one woman. I actually don’t think the lack of women on a short list is a diversity issue, but one of balance and inclusion. It’s a small thing…

Affinity bias and cultural fit plays safe and stifles diversity Affinity bias is defined as: preference for certain types of people for whom they have an affinity, such as respondents who are similar to them or that they find attractive, and including them in the sample at higher rates than others. “The right fit” is…

The UK is forging ahead with Brexit. Not only that, the amendment to protect EU citizens residing in the UK was not approved.  As the UK takes it place outside the EU, headhunters and recruiters are now trying to project skill set gaps in the coming years for British organisations. The one gap that screams…