Tips for recruiting and interviewing prospective employees

(The following article is based on Ms. Vargas' seminar at the AAMGA University Weekend, which was held in August in Scottsdale, Ariz.)

For many companies, losing an employee is like falling victim to a natural disaster. The vacancy, like a tornado's spiral, touches down without warning and cripples a once-healthy community. As a human resources professional for 10 years, I've done my share of personnel triage in the wake of an employee's departure, rationing resources and responsibilities until reinforcements arrived.

I've learned over a decade, however, that staff openings, like meteorological conditions, are natural, foreseeable–sometimes, even desirable–phenomena. Employees retire and relocate. Businesses grow. The key to weathering such inevitable workplace changes is preparation.

Prepared employers keep their composure and their companies intact by following a PATH, a planned alternative to hiring. Businesses that subscribe to the PATH paradigm view personnel losses as the cyclical occurrences they are, and therefore continuously recruit new talent. When a vacancy hits, instead of scavenging the job market for recruits, the PATH employer consults a cache of quality candidates for a replacement.

Like any sound emergency preparation plan, PATH begins before a need arises. While your agency is fully staffed, have your human resources department (or person, as the case may be) analyze the operational and hiring consequences of a potential departure: How will the duties of the empty position be divided up? Will a temporary replacement be necessary? What training will a new hire need and who will provide it? How much will training cost?

The human resources report will uncover your agency's staffing snags. Address these immediately. Do you have a short-staffed department that would collapse under the strain of an impromptu resignation? Make this department the first priority of your PATH hiring plan. Is one division swamped while another craves more challenges? Integrate the two divisions and distribute the work. By analyzing your agency's personnel profile and troubleshooting its deficiencies, you will identify where help is likely to be needed.

Once your agency's contingency plans are in place, the next step is to learn to see your business through the candidates' eyes. Learn what good candidates want, then design your business to attract the talent to you. Money is always an effective lure. Stay current with pay scale trends. Develop a competitive benefits package. If financial incentives are out of the question, introduce non-monetary ones, like flextime. Mention these amenities in future job postings.

Brush the cobwebs from those plaques and trophies, and display your agency's awards prominently. These honors show recruits that your business is exceptional. Our company was recently nominated for the “Best Place to Work” award from the South Florida Business Journal. Hundreds of organizations throughout the Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties competed for the award. We were one of 18 finalists. We got second place, missing the grand prize by less than two points. We have our second-place plaque displayed in our reception area, and when recruits come in I tell them, “We didn't win that award because a bunch of business associates said, 'It's your turn this year, so we'll give it to you.' We got that award because our employees said that this is a good place to work.”

As you hone your pitch, don't forget to include the not-so-attractive aspects of the position. Be ready with explanations when a candidate asks the tough questions–and be truthful. Learn to give an honest impression of your business so that after you fill a vacancy, you don't find yourself looking for a replacement six months later.

Before you can hire anyone, however, you must gather recruits. Start your search at home. Survey your staff for replacements and recruit recommendations. Is a promising intern ready to enter the work world? Do you have a part-timer who would like to go full-time? Is a long-standing employee poised to assume more responsibility? Promoting from within saves time and money. Think of the dollars necessary to place help-wanted ads, ads that yield between 200 and 300 applicants per job vacancy. Somebody has to read all those resumes, which takes time away from the resume-reader's regular duties, and reduces your agency's productivity. Or, with minimal expense and workplace disruption, you could train and promote an in-house applicant. This low-cost alternative requires only that you spot the talent already under your own nose.

If your local pond is under-stocked, fish in more open waters. PATH employers cast their recruiting nets as wide as possible. They know that networking is a good way not only to drum up new business but also to hunt down new talent. Shake hands and exchange business cards at as many conferences, job fairs and insurance-industry meetings as possible.
If your company isn't a member of an insurance-industry association, join several. I serve on the board of the Insurance Professionals of Miami-Dade, a local chapter of the National Association of Insurance Women. Check your area for local chapters of NAIW and organizations like the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, the American Risk and Insurance Association or the American Association of Managing General Agents. Global organizations, like the International Federation of Risk and Insurance Management associations, also exist. In addition to face-to-face networking opportunities, your membership in these groups could include free job postings in their print and online publications.

Traditional recruitment methods can also yield positive results. Employ a hiring firm or a consultant to find the help you need. If all else fails, pay for advertising in popular trade magazines, newspapers and Web sites.

For PATH employers, however, the best solution to a recruitment problem is not necessarily the most expensive one. A low-cost, effective way to recruit is to communicate directly with the communities you serve. Develop a rapport with your area high schools and universities, and their career counselors will send job-seeking graduates your way. For older recruits, host an open house. It announces your presence in the neighborhood, alerting residents to an employer in their midst.

At our office, we focus our recruiting on college kids. Our state is one of a handful of states with a college that offers insurance as a major. I know of two others in Georgia. I called the schools in Florida and Georgia around graduation time last year and asked if I could come in and recruit. They consented and offered to set up a recruitment area. Why? Because I'm helping the schools. I'm making them look good by pairing their graduates with jobs. You could do the same in your community. Even if your local institutions don't offer an insurance major, your presence on campus could alert students to a career path they'd never considered–insurance.

Conducting the interview

Recruiting is only one part of the process of hiring promising, qualified employees. Just as important is the interviewing process. So let's assume you've whittled a mountain of resumes down to speed-bump size. You've endured a barrage of job fairs and open houses unscathed. You've interrogated every employee, friend and co-worker and for your efforts reaped a crop of quality job candidates. Now comes the hard part: choosing the best new hire among the promising bunch.

The interview, that brief encounter during which you select an employee who may be with you for years, is your salvation. Or so you try to convince yourself. All you have to do is meet the candidates, then choose the one with the talent, skills and abilities your company needs. Oh, yes–your pick must also get along with your current employees, fit in with your culture and agree to your salary terms. You have one hour to decide.

For employers without a crystal ball or ESP, interviewing can be an overwhelming, under-the-gun experience. Behavior-based interviewing, however, eases tensions while increasing any boss's ability to pick out the wheat and throw out the chaff. Unlike traditional interviews, in which the interviewer lays out the expectations of a position in boardroom-like style, a behavior-based interview encourages conversation between the job seeker and potential employer. During the chat, answers to questions about the candidate's past behavior indicate the candidate's future job performance, revealing the best employee. No special equipment or powers necessary, just a few interviewing techniques.

Whether you're tracking down bears or brokers, the key to a successful hunt is a keen eye. Before the behavior-based interview can begin, you must know what you're looking for and how to recognize it when you see it. In this process, the detailed job description is like a high-powered scope.

Keep the job description for the open position handy as you craft interview questions. Design your queries around job-specific duties and skills. If the position requires the potential employee to explain insurance plans to clients, for example, formulate a question that asks candidates to identify troublesome insurance concepts and to explain these difficult ideas simply. Such a position would require good listening skills. Include a question that asks candidates to describe the behavior of an attentive listener and recount an instance in which they were one.

While behavior-based questions may be tailored to fit any position, they typically fall into one of seven categories: direct, definitional, hypothetical, simulative, causal, explanatory and relational questions.

Direct questions, as their title implies, cut to the bone of the candidates' backgrounds. Their simple, usually “yes” or “no,” responses often uncover complex circumstances. The answer to the question, “Have you ever been fired?,” for example, while succinct, invites detailed discussion of a noteworthy work history event.

Definitional questions, which test candidates' knowledge of specific industry terms, also elicit cut-and-dry responses chock-full of crucial information. I once interviewed a young lady for a human resources generalist position. She was in her second year of college and eager to get into the HR department. During the interview, I asked her what the acronym FMLA stood for. She couldn't tell me, let alone demonstrate any knowledge of the Family Medical Leave Act itself. Her heart was in the right place, but her industry knowledge was insufficient for the position. Ask definitional questions early in the interview to determine quickly which candidates have the know-how you need.

While any interviewer may pose a direct or definitional question, only staff familiar with the intricacies of the open position should ask the other five types of behavior-based questions. These probe candidates' knowledge of industry practices and protocol, so only an expert in the same field will be able to verify credible responses.

Hypothetical questions, for example, require candidates to describe their imagined response to a fictitious work scenario. A hypothetical question for an underwriter might be: “How would you explain a situation in which you received submissions from two agents, and you quoted one less than the other?”

Simulative questions, like hypothetical questions, are designed to predict a candidate's future job performance. To answer a simulative question, however, the candidate must complete a specific task or solve a problem commonly faced in the position being filled. A marketing candidate might be asked to critique an ad campaign, or an HR hopeful directed to identify the discriminatory elements of a help-wanted solicitation. Through real-world scenarios, simulative questions test the skills that, on their resumes, candidates claim to have.

Causal questions ask candidates to identify the source of a problem and describe how it affects the agency. A causal question relating to the aforementioned underwriting situation could be: “What are the difficulties that might arise from a misquote?”

To answer an explanatory question, the candidate must explain the steps of a procedure or the rationale behind a course of action. Returning to that pesky, two-quote quandary, rational questions might include: What information must be gathered before a reliable quote can be made? What considerations have the most impact on the price of a quote and why?

Relational questions examine the candidates' relationships with individuals in the workplace. Answers to relational question divulge details about an applicant's work preferences as well as communication, leadership and critical-thinking skills. Two examples of a relational question would be: “Have you ever had a disagreement with a coworker? How did you resolve it?”

As the hopefuls arrive for interviews, keep an open mind. Don't let your prejudices reduce your candidate pool. A smart suit could camouflage an incompetent candidate. Tattoos and a pierced tongue, on the other hand, may disguise the ideal employee. A candidate's style of dress, haircut, even personality, have little relevance during an interview. These attributes are more likely indicators of one's life experiences, culture, religion or personal preference, not job performance. Such differences promote workplace diversity–a spectrum of people, ideas and perspectives–which can increase your agency's creativity and efficiency.

Be careful not to favor candidates who mirror you. You may spend an hour swapping stories with a candidate who attended your alma mater but afterward know nothing of that candidate's knowledge and skills. While behavior-based interviewing encourages some casual conversation, the focus should be the job seeker's objective qualities, like punctuality, courtesy and ability to answer interview questions thoroughly. You're looking for a professional, not a pal.

You've gathered and questioned your candidates, but the interviewing process isn't over. Now, it's time to do some detective work. Follow up inverviews with background and reference checks, but proceed cautiously. Carelessly delving into a candidate's past can lead to a lawsuit. If an agency divulges negative information about a former employee's tenure, the employee may have grounds to sue for defam-ation. On the other hand, if a former employer fails to disclose information about a candidate who endangers you or your staff, you may have grounds to sue the employer for negligent referral. A negligent referral is an employer's failure to disclose relevant information about a current or past em- ployee in response to a legitimate request. Many agencies resort to name-rank-and-serial-number responses to information requests, consequently, to shield themselves from litigation.

Carefully planned background and reference checks protect you and the employers you solicit for information. Double-check that a candidate's reference is not a friend, coworker or relative rather than a former supervisor who worked directly with the candidate. Once you find a credible reference, ask job-related questions that will give you the information you need without compromising the person. I like to ask employers whether or not the candidate is eligible for re-hire. The reference can answer the question without defaming the candidate, yet the reference's response tells me about the candidate's past job performance.

To make the most of a reference or background check, however, you must keep the information it reveals in perspective. After all, the candidate's former employer could be the cause of the candidate's dismal or resignation. Or perhaps, a glowing reference is more evidence of a candidate's rapport with a supervisor than of the candidate's true performance record. Follow the behavior-based interview format when quizzing references: Ask for specific examples of the candidate's past behavior. These are the predictors of candidates' future performance.

Follow the behavior-based interview techniques, and you will enjoy a faster, more effective interview process. Pertinent questions will eliminate the unqualified. A background check will expose phonies touting false credentials and exaggerated claims. At the end of the behavior-based interview, the only applicant remaining will be the most knowledgeable, prepared and critical-thinking candidate: your new hire.

Roslyn Vargas is human resources manager at MacNeill Group Inc., a certified managing general agent in Sunrise, Florida, and an adjunct professor at Nova Southeastern University. She has over 18 years of experience in management, with 10 of those years in human resource management, and an extensive background in training and development.