Selection of the Candidate

Once you have used one of the employment services company you will hopefully have a selection of candidates to choose from to fill your vacancy. The normal way for people to apply for a job is to send a covering letter and a CV, or to fill out a company application form. If you have used a specialist employment company then much of this paperwork will already have been sorted out and you may only be involved in the interview stage.

From a written letter and a CV it is hard to get a good feel for the candidate, apart from an idea of where they have worked and what qualifications that they hold. This does not help to determine the person’s attitude to certain types of work or environments.

Candidates must always be interviewed, whether it is an informal chat or a formal board interview to be able to assess the candidate properly. In an interview you must always try to challenge the candidate with questions that will test their experience or qualifications. An interviewee will perform well if they steer away from very short answers and they try to expand on a question answer, making it interesting and providing the interviewer with more information about themselves. Of course all companies are different and the different types of people will suit different environments, it is just a matter of trying to understand the type of person that you are interviewing. Allowances have to be made for nerves on the day of interview and people will be making sure they give a good impression and their attitude may change once they are employed. A good way to find out more about a person is to check out their references from their previous employers so that you will get another impression of their capabilities and their suitability.