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"Interviewing Skills Workshop"

April 15, 2010 - Program Summary

Ellen Sibley, Founder and President of Executive Search Partnerships, A La Carte Custom Search Solutions and In-House Search Training spoke on the timely topic of interest to job seekers, hiring managers and search committees.

For many, the process that recruiters take to find and evaluate candidates is a mystery.  Ellen broke down the basics of the recruitment process, explaining that while recruitment firms may seem very similar on the surface, their exact approaches may differ, and no one recruitment firm is a good fit for all nonprofits.  Some have more expertise with certain areas of the search process, or with certain kinds of searches – so be sure to ask probing questions when choosing a firm.

One of the most important things to keep in mind is that all parties concerned in the hiring process are ultimately looking for the best FIT.  To that end, all parties must be sure to put a lot of care and thought into defining what it is the are looking for or "selling," and how they plan to go about it.  To that end:

• Hiring managers should carefully write a comprehensive job description, and make sure that everyone on the search committee is on board with that description and therefore who will be the right candidate.
• Hiring managers should make sure that the search committee knows what its role is.  Especially when recruiting firms are involved, it is helpful to define specifics in how candidates are selected and evaluated, and how the process will evolve.
• In the interview itself, hiring managers must ask the right questions to make sure that the experience, skills and qualifications of the candidate comes through, so that the manager can evaluate whether or not they are really the right fit for the team.

Ellen presented the group with a very helpful handout listing "50 Questions for Search Committees and Hiring Managers to Ask, and Job Seekers to Answer."  For job seekers, many of these questions were centered around accomplishments.  Hiring managers don't just want to know what you were responsible for, they want to know how your work impacted the organization.