Picture this scenario – you are interviewing for a job you really, really want. Things have been going great. You’re connecting with the team, and you’re slinging answers to your typical interview questions like a pro. You’ve finally reached the last interview of the day. Your interviewer asks, “If you could be any kind of animal, what would you be?” You freeze.

What?

While this question may seem completely random, you may encounter something similar throughout your interview process. There are many other types of tough interview questions that interviewers ask to get a better idea of your experience, your interest in the role, and your personality. At PSG, our team is equipped to help you work through how to answer these toughies. My colleagues, Michael Bergeron, Senior Staffing Manager, and Frank Gentile, Director, have offered some of their own examples and insights to get us started!

1. “What’s something you would change about yourself?”
   1. “The answer is never “I’m perfect.” Hiring managers are looking for a little humility and self-reflection, which is challenging to do mid-interview. I would practice an answer ahead of time, making sure the weakness you’re discussing isn’t critical to the job. Also, it is never a good idea to say that your fault is your organizational skills, as all roles need them. Same thing with punctuality!” – Michael Bergeron
2. “When I talk to your manager, what will they tell me?”
   1. “Hiring managers will want to get an idea of what they’ll hear from your manager when they call for references. This is an excellent time to discuss your strengths and weaknesses. As you are preparing for your interview, come up with three strengths and one weakness that you have supporting example stories for that you can discuss with your interviewer. These stories can also come in handy later on to help you answer other potentially tough questions. – Frank Gentile
3. “Why are you interested in this job?”
   1. “The biggest mistake people make on this question is that they never mention specific items from the job description. You can gush about the company you’re interviewing for, but make sure you still mention some of the key duties from the job description!” – Michael Bergeron
   2. “The position you’re interviewing for should be a natural progression from your current role or aligned with your professional goals. This will help you hone in on why you want the job, and why you’re excited about the responsibilities– Frank Gentile
4. “What are the low points of your current role?”
   1. “Your interviewer is hoping to get a sense of how you respond to or handle potential ‘lows’ within your role. Talk about something that is outside of your control, such as a change within the team. However, you need to ensure that your response isn’t shedding a negative light on the company, your peers, your boss, etc. You want to make sure that you are turning this ‘low point’ into a positive. Did you view this ‘low’ as a challenge and rise to it?” – Frank Gentile

5. “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
   1. “If you are asked this question, don’t fall into the trap of trying to explain where you think you’ll be – no one really knows! Instead, let your interviewer know that your current focus is on attaining the role at hand. You look forward to mastering it, and, when deemed appropriate, you’ll be more than willing to take on additional responsibilities. This shows that you’re dedicated and focused on being an immediate value add to the team.” – Frank Gentile

And, finally, because I know you’ve been waiting:

6. “If you could be any kind of animal, what would you be?”
   1. “Questions like these are unorthodox, but they can show up. Managers don’t actually care what animal you would be – they want to see your creativity, logic, and how you think on your feet. Use this as an opportunity to insert your personality into the interview, and don’t freeze up! For example, my usual answer is a Peregrine Falcon because; 1. They have no natural predators 2. They have sharp eyesight 3. They are the fastest animal on earth, and 4. I could fly, so I wouldn’t have to take the MBTA anymore!” – Michael Bergeron

Any of these questions sounding familiar? Any interview questions you’ve encountered that you want advice on? Need help picking out what your animal would be? Reach out to us – we’re here to help!

4 Reasons Your Job Postings Don’t Work

Now, hear me out – there could be way more than 3 reasons why your postings are not working (spelling errors much?), but these are all too often overlooked and very easily fixed.

1. It’s not targeted, and quite frankly it’s boring.

This sounds harsh, but job postings need to be able to sell to your ideal candidate.  This is your opportunity to grab their attention and then sell why your organization and this role is the one they should apply for.  Right now, good candidates have a lot of choices so the first step is to get them to notice you.  Best way to do that?

#1 – Know who you are targeting!  Do some research and figure out who that is and what is important to them.

#2 – Use your research.  Is your targeted candidate someone who values growth? Highlight that in a real way in your posting (X company has grown by X amount in the last 2 years and we are projected to continue…)

#3 – Highlight your company culture – and no I do not mean stating that you have cold brew on tap.

2. You have too many ‘qualifications’.

I get it.  You’ve got client meetings and emails to respond to, the absolute last thing that you have time for is digging through unqualified resumes – but here is the thing: no matter how many qualifications you put, you are always going to have folks that apply that are in no way qualified for the role that you are hiring for.  So why bother trying to screen them out?  Instead, use this as an opportunity to continue to sell your organization and your culture.

Now, I am not advocating for erasing requirements from your job posting.  If you are looking for someone that needs to have knowledge of InDesign, than that needs to be there – it’s the bullet points that are completely dedicated to seeking someone who is “detail oriented” I’m saying to toss.  Everyone believes themselves to be detail oriented, but having in-depth knowledge of InDesign is something a candidate can either say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to.

Keep it to 3-5 key items max.

3. You’re using Gender Coded language.

Folks, we talked about this.  I won’t go into extreme detail here (if you’re interested you can head here to learn a bit more), but here is what you need to remember:

GENDER NEUTRAL LANGUAGE = MORE APPLICANTS

Job Postings and Gender Neutral Language

What is the purpose of a job posting? To attract candidates with a desirable skill set for a specific position, Right?

So why do so many companies overlook gender coding in their online job postings and job descriptions?  The answer is fairly simple:  Folks may not realize the impact the words they use have on their audience.

Everyone wants their advertisement to stand out from the rest, which is why we will see a number of ‘buzz’ words or phrases used (does the phrase ‘we are looking for a rock star’ make anyone else roll their eyes a little?).  Facts are that some words skew more masculine and some skew more feminine and that impacts who is applying to your job.

So what do we do?

1. Educate yourself – What adjectives are more masculine vs. more feminine? What are their gender neutral alternatives?

As a quick example, we can explore one of the more commonly used adjectives – Bubbly – often times we’ll see this word in an advertisement for front desk personnel, administrative roles, or receptionist positions.  While we may use this word to attract someone who is outgoing the word itself sits on the more feminine side and may screen out those that don’t identify in that way.  Consider replacing the word all together with something more neutral.

2. Review, change, re-post

It’s easy to make the right changes in your posts – especially with tools out there like the Gender Decoder for Job Ads.  This is my all-time favorite tool and I frequently double check what I’ve written to ensure that the post uses neutral language that will not unknowingly screen out qualified applicants.

3. Make it part of your everyday

Last but not least – embrace gender neutral language in your everyday communication.  Using the ‘they, them, their’ pro-nouns when referring to someone (either in a written post or in conversation) keeps your language inclusive!  While some of these changes can be tricky, you are ultimately ensuring that every individual you interact with feels comfortable.

There is A LOT we as staffing professionals can do to weave this into our everyday (job postings, interviews, etc.).  This only scratches the surface, but is certainly a step in the right direction!

The Evolution of ‘Shirley’ – PSG’s Resume Robot

Technology has taken us to places we never thought we’d go before.

• Real time health and wellness tracking? Check
• A drone delivering your paper towels for that week? Double Check
• Snapchat filter that turns you into a baby? Triple Check

So why did it take us till 2017 to leverage technology to do the tedious work for us?  We didn’t know where to start!

Once upon a time, one PSG team member was tasked with sitting in front of their computer, Outlook inbox open, poised and ready to qualify a resume as soon as it came in.  We figured out a while ago, that if we reached out to a qualified applicant in 5 minutes or less – we were (x) amount more likely to get that individual on the phone.  Of course – getting that person with the stellar resume to answer a call from an unfamiliar number is not always the easiest.  So we started emailing them.

As we took steps to modernize our recruiting process, we kept asking ourselves ‘there must be a better, faster way to qualify these resumes’.  We were having a valuable member of the PSG team spend countless hours staring at an inbox when they could be impacting other areas of the business, and while this is a crucial role we knew that there had to be a better, fast, more efficient way.

Here’s what we did:

• We pulled together tens of thousands of resumes
• We reviewed resumes of candidates successfully placed into opportunities with our clients
• We pinpointed common keywords on those resumes, and fed them into our algorithm? (Think ‘administrative’ or ‘Microsoft Office’)

After that a dedicated team met daily to review the results.  How many resumes were qualified correctly? How many were missed? Why were they missed? What changes need to be made to push the qualified % up?

It took months of tweaking key words, working with the algorithm to make sure the right words were identified in the right spot, and A LOT of painstaking attention to detail.

But we got the robot to be 90% accurate in qualifying incoming resumes.

The best part? Since this is now out of the hands of a human, technology moves so much faster!  We went from scheduling one out of every 5 candidates, to one out of every 3! AMAZING!