Redefining Applicant Red Flags

By Stephanie Hammerwold

Early in my HR career, I was trained on recognizing a long list of so-called red flags on job applications. These are the kind of thing that could land someone in the reject pile and included things like gaps in employment, criminal record, spending only a year or two in each job (a.k.a. job hopping), certain reasons for leaving a past job and more. The list of red flags was long, and sometimes I could go through a pile of applications and find a reason to rule out everyone.

The reality is that no one’s employment history is perfect. Perhaps it is time that we reevaluate the traditional HR red flags and look more at who a person is now.

How Red Flags Can Become Barriers for Some Applicants

The reality is that there are many reasons someone may have had a bad experience at an employer or a gap in employment—reasons that may have little bearing on their likelihood of success at a new job. Yet so many HR decisions are based on scrutinizing someone’s past to the point where we are going on a fault-finding mission.

Some red flags can become huge barriers. Take criminal record, for example. There are many job seekers with criminal records who struggle to find work because that record follows them around even though they have paid their debt to society. The first HR director I worked for told me that anyone who checks the application box indicating a criminal record should be tossed in the reject pile without being given consideration. The reality of this blanket action was that we were tossing out plenty of good candidates. Since my early days in HR, I have volunteered in a women’s jail and have also started a nonprofit dedicated to working with formerly incarcerated people. In that time, California has become a state where employers cannot ask about criminal background until a conditional offer has been made. But employers can still make a decision to not hire at that point, so it still could be viewed as a red flag.

A recent episode of Invisibilia tackled the issue of whether we end up repeating patterns. The episode focuses on the story of a woman who had a rough childhood that included being in and out of jail. She ultimately ended up turning her life around, went to school and eventually earned a law degree. When she applied to take the Bar, she was denied based on her past. The panel was concerned that because of her past issues, she could relapse in the future even though she had demonstrated stability in the years since she went to school. What the episode found was that humans are complex, and our behavior often cannot be reliably predicted based on past behavior. Yet this idea that we need to scrutinize someone’s past to predict whether they will be a good employee persists in HR and hiring.

When a Red Flag Isn’t a Red Flag

Barriers can also include lengthy gaps in employment or the decision to leave a job because a person was miserable there. Think back on your own work history. Are there times you left a job because you had a horrible boss? Or maybe you decided to take an extended amount of time off work for personal reasons. Are those things that make you a bad employee in your current job? Probably not. So why do we use them as criteria to determine if a candidate would be a good fit?

As I have refined my interview style over the years, I have started to ask less about the traditional red flags (e.g. gaps in employment, reasons for leaving a job) and started focusing my questions more on how candidates worked in their previous jobs.

Let’s look at the example of someone with a gap in employment. There are all kinds of reasons someone may take time off work, and most of those have nothing to do with what kind of employee that person will be. Whether it was taking time off to raise a family, travel the world, care for a sick family member, serve time, sleep in, write a novel, look for a new job, go to school or simply to take a few months to relax between jobs, most reasons for a gap have little bearing on what an employee will do when working for you.

New Ways to Read a Job Application

As I mentioned, I have updated my interview style to focus more on culture fit. Of course I am checking to make sure someone has the required technical skills, but many of my questions ask candidates to provide an example from their work history.

For example, I have been interviewing a lot of senior software engineers lately. I work at an organization with a flat structure. Rather than having middle managers, we expect our seniors to take on an informal leadership roles. This means I want to look for candidates who are more interested in mentoring junior-level employees than they are in taking on a fancy manager title.  So I ask questions that require candidates to give examples of how they did this in the past. I also want to see if their goal is to take on a management role or if it is to contribute to an overall team effort. At my current company, we are looking for people who want the latter.

Rather than seeing work history as a place where we can find fault with a candidate, it is time that we see it  as a vast array of experiences. Whether experiences at a past employer were good or bad or if decisions made were good or bad, these are all things that contribute to who a person is now. What matters more is how a person grew and changed from that experience rather than a mistake made in the past.

How to Overcome Interviewer Bias

By Stephanie Hammerwold

As much as we try to make the interview process fair by sticking to work-related questions and avoiding discussion of protected classes, our own biases sometimes sneak into our hiring decisions. Maybe you tend to lean toward single parents because it resonates with your own experience being raised by a single mom, or perhaps you had a bad experience hiring someone with a criminal conviction, so now you automatically throw such candidates in the reject pile. Unfortunately, making such assumptions may mean that you miss out on great candidates, and it could also mean that your hiring process is unfair and possibly discriminatory. It is, therefore, important to understand our own biases and to actively work to adjust the hiring process to overcome such biases.

What is Interviewer Bias?

One of the most common forms of bias comes in the form of stereotyping. Take, for example, a job like firefighter, which is physically demanding. If you assume a candidate is not strong enough to be a firefighter because she is a woman, you are relying on stereotypes rather than assessing if the candidate meets the physical requirements for the job. Stereotyping during the interview process can cause big problems, especially when stereotypes about protected classes result in negative hiring decisions. Such practices are discriminatory and could cause legal trouble for an employer.

We may also be tricked by our first impressions into thinking a candidate is exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. This is called the halo/horns effect. This might show up in a bias toward attractive candidates. The candidate’s charm and good looks may get in the way of an interviewer seeing potential problems. Conversely, a candidate who checked yes to the application question about criminal conviction may automatically be viewed as untrustworthy even if the rest of their application and interview are glowing. Such biases get in the way of making good hiring decisions.

We are often drawn to those similar to us, and this can be another bias pitfall. Maybe your estimation of a candidate improves once you find out they are the same religion as you or they share similar political views. Just as with stereotypes, such criteria may be discriminatory and get in the way of really understanding if someone is qualified for the job.

Recognizing Your Own Biases

Overcoming bias starts with recognizing your own prejudices and biases. Once you acknowledge such things, you can be aware of how they may influence your hiring decisions. When I first started interviewing candidates early in my HR career, I noticed that I could easily be swayed by a hard luck story. While some of these candidates were truly ready to move beyond the problems of their pasts and could end up being star employees, sometimes my bias got in the way of recognizing red flags, and I ended up with a few bad hires. Since my early days in HR, I learned to recognize when my desire to root for the underdog was clouding my judgment.

None of us is completely free of bias and prejudice. The important thing is to understand how these things may influence the employment decisions we make. Doing the work before interviewing candidates will ultimately lead to a process that is fairer and free of potentially discriminatory practices.

Structured Criteria & Selection Process

After understanding your own biases, take some time to create a structured hiring process. Start with a job description that clearly lists the qualifications. This is the foundation for establishing criteria against which you can evaluate all candidates. When you determine a reason for rejecting someone, you should be able to point to specific qualifications on the job description that they do not meet.

Have a set of interview questions that are the same for all candidates. This is a good way to ensure interviews stay on track and do not veer into areas that might allude to protected classes. It also helps to limit interview conversations to areas that are relevant to making a good hiring decision and encourages uniformity in the type of information gathered from each candidate.

Make Selection a Group Effort

It is also useful to have several people involved in the hiring process. Pay attention to what others in the hiring process are using to make their decisions, and address any bias you see in how they evaluate candidates. It can also be useful to run selection criteria by others to ensure that criteria are free of bias and are focused on qualifications, skills and experience relevant to the job.

Working with others in the hiring process can be especially beneficial for those new to interviewing who may not yet be aware of their own biases. It is a good opportunity to openly discuss how certain biases may influence decisions and for veteran interviewers to also check in with themselves in an effort to keep the interview process bias-free.

How to Address Blemishes in Your Work History

By Stephanie Hammerwold

Most of us have some kind of blemish in our work history. Maybe you were let go from a job, you have a long gap in employment or you check yes to the question about having a criminal conviction. Those things can be stressful when filling out job applications. If you are called for an interview, it can be an added challenge to figure out how to explain them while still making yourself look like the ideal candidate. In these situations, it is important to remember that things like criminal convictions, gaps and terminations are not the full story of your experience and qualifications. By preparing in advance and thinking through standard responses to these questions, you can turn a blemish into a positive and use it as a way to show you are the best candidate for the job.

Be Honest

It may be tempting to lie about areas of concern in your work history, but be careful. Potential employers may do reference and background checks, and lying could be grounds for automatic rejection. If you are hired based on false information, and an employer later finds out, they could terminate your employment for falsifying the application.

Instead of coming up with an elaborate excuse or outright lying, use the interview as an opportunity to take control of the story of your blemishes and put a positive spin on what happened by showing how you have learned from the experience, grown or changed your life for the better.

Criminal Convictions

As an HR professional who has interviewed countless applicants in the course of my career, I have received this question many times: how do I address my past criminal convictions in a job interview? This is one of the biggest hurdles for anyone with a conviction looking for a job.

Addressing convictions starts with the job application. If this question comes up on the application, keep your answer brief. State the year of the conviction and a few words to describe it with a note that you will discuss it in more detail during an interview. You can also learn about various tax credits and federal bonding available to an employer when they hire an ex-offender. Programs include the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) and the Federal Bonding Program. The National HIRE Network has a list of programs offered at the state level. Sharing information on these programs can help encourage an employer to give you a chance, and it also shows you did your research prior to applying for jobs.

When it comes to the interview, keep your explanation brief. Once again, remember to be honest and take responsibility. Use the interview as an opportunity to show how you have improved and made changes in your life.

For example, if you have a drug conviction, explain that you made some bad choices in the past and have since gone through treatment and have successfully maintained your sobriety. This helps show an interviewer that you are able to move past blemishes in your past. If you participated in any education or vocational training while incarcerated, mention those things during the interview. This will help turn your conviction into an inspiring story about how you overcame a major challenge in your life rather than just being about the conviction.

Gaps in Employment

When the recession hit in 2008, many employees were laid off from jobs and had a hard time finding work. As a result, it is not uncommon to see gaps in employment on resumes and applications. Even if you have gaps in employment for reasons other than being laid off, it does not mean you have a strike against you in the job search. Just as with any other blemish in your work history, use the gap to show something positive.

For example, many parents take a few years off when raising young children. When reentering the workforce after a long gap used to care for children, do not hesitate to mention the other ways you used your time. Volunteering in your child’s school, organizing a fundraiser or managing carpool are all activities that use skills relevant to a job. And let’s not forget that the effort to manage children’s schedule is a job in and of itself. The same is true for any gap involving caring for a family member.

Gaps in employment may also be caused by searching for work in a bad economy, and most interviewers will see this as a viable reason for for an employment gap. Even time off to travel or to focus on an activity can be a plus in an interview and give you an interesting story to tell.

If your gap in employment was for health reasons, remember that you do not need to disclose details about your diagnosis or treatment. Simply stating that you took time off for health reasons is sufficient.

Terminations

Another tricky thing in an interview is addressing a termination. Just as with the other blemishes we spoke of, take the opportunity to show how you have learned and grown from the experience. Explain what you are doing differently now so that you can ensure an employer that whatever the reason is for termination was before will not be an issue in a new job. For example, if you were fired for attendance issues, explain how you have addressed what was causing the problem. You might say, “I had a hard time getting to that job because my car broke down regularly, which interfered with my ability to arrive on time. I have since bought a new car, so I no longer have issues with reliable transportation.”

Avoid using this question as a chance to badmouth a former employer or a horrible boss. Doing so in an interview may leave the interviewer wondering if the issue was really with the employer or if it was with you. While it is true your boss may have been a horrible person, it is not necessary to go into that in an interview.

This is another area where honesty is important. It would be better to take control of how the story of your termination is told rather than lying and having a potential employer find out by checking references.

Focus on Your Accomplishments

Remember that the story you tell about your work experience should focus on your accomplishments. Convictions, gaps and terminations are only a small piece of the story. Be confident in drawing an interviewer's attention to the good things on your application because that will ultimately be the impression you leave them with. Your accomplishments can include a variety of things like work achievements, school, volunteering and anything that demonstrates your readiness for the job.

Finally, remember to make a good impression. This includes dressing for the job you want and not just throwing on jeans and a T-shirt. Even if you are interviewing for a retail or warehouse job, dress up and look professional. Speak professionally and confidentially, and do not be distracted by your cell phone. All of these things help counter any negative impression the blemishes in your work history might make.

Easy Ways to Improve the Hiring Process

By Stephanie Hammerwold

The new year will be upon us in a few weeks, so it is time to start thinking about resolutions. With job openings increasing and unemployment dropping, it is a good time to start thinking about your hiring process and resolving to improve it in 2016. Here are a few easy ways to take the HR Hammer to your hiring process and setting up a system that helps find the best candidates to fill your openings in the upcoming year.

Job Descriptions & Ads

While it is not a legal requirement to have a job description, it is an HR best practice to do so. A good job description clearly communicates expectations to an employee, but even before someone becomes an employee, it is a tool to ensure that a candidate understands the requirements of the position. Creating or updating a job description also ensures that everyone at the company is on the same page about what the position will do.

Prior to posting an ad, review the existing job description for accuracy. Jobs evolve and change with each new person who takes on a position, so make necessary adjustments to the old description. If you are starting from scratch, get input from people already doing the job so that what you have on paper accurately reflects the day-to-day work of the position.

&&&Use your job description to create your job posting ad. Gone are the days of having to string together cryptic abbreviations to minimize the cost of a classified ad in a newspaper. Most job posting sites give you plenty of space to describe the position; however, this does not mean that you have to create the War and Peace of job postings. Remember that job seekers will be scanning many job sites, so keep your posting brief. Focus on the key responsibilities and qualifications for the position, and include something about your company culture and benefits. You can include a link to the job description on your own site for interested job seekers who want more information, but the goal of the ad is to spark someone’s attention enough to learn more about your company and to visit your career site.

Winging It

Sometimes we get so busy that preparation for an interview is little more than a quick scan of a resume while a candidate waits in the lobby several minutes before the interview starts. Unfortunately, such an approach is little more effective than trying to read and memorize a semester’s worth of material in the hours before a final exam. There is a strong possibility that you will miss out on important details and will forget to ask good questions.

To help avoid having to wing it for interviews, take some time to develop interview questions while you are creating or updating the job description. If the candidate is going through multiple interviews, this is a good way to prevent making the candidate answer the same questions over and over. It also gives you a chance to review questions for suitability and to get rid of any questions that might be inappropriate or touch on protected classes. Focus on asking about work experience, relevant training and education and questions that require the candidate to demonstrate their knowledge.

Do not forget to schedule some time to review the candidate’s resume and application prior to the interview. Get to know their experience and history so that you do not have to waste interview time on questions that the candidate already answered on paper.

Too Many Cooks in the Interview Kitchen

Now that you have a polished job description, beautifully written ad and flawless questions, it is time to take a look at who will be a part of the interview process and just how many interviews a candidate has to go through. Keep things simple, and avoid unnecessary interviews.

In all my years of interviewing job candidates, I have come to realize that you can usually get a pretty good idea if someone is a top contender within the first few minutes of the interview. That does not mean you should stop the interview after only a couple minutes, but it does mean that having the candidate come back for multiple interviews or having a large team of people conducting interviews is probably a bit excessive.

With the exception of high-level positions, you probably do not need too many people involved in the interview process. It is often good to have a second opinion, and the hiring manager and someone from HR should be sufficient. If you feel the need to include others, consider conducting panel interviews to cut down on the number of interviews. Trust your managers to make good hiring decisions. Train them on interview skills so that they do not need a bunch of people involved in the interview process for openings on their team. If you find that a number of people would like to be involved, consider quick, informal introductions following an interview, so others have the chance to briefly meet a candidate before a final decision is made.

Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You

Finally, put a process in place to make sure there is adequate follow up with candidates. At the conclusion of the interview, let the candidate know how long you expect the decision process to take. If it takes more time than planned, follow up with the candidate by making a call or sending an email. Once you have made a decision, get in touch with all candidates to let them know whether or not they got the job. Waiting for a call about a job is stressful, and a quick call or email can help ease the frustration many feel during the waiting game of the hiring process.

Stop Making Candidates Jump Through Hoops

By Stephanie Hammerwold

Applying for a job can start to feel like a full-time job itself. Searching online is time consuming, and once a job seeker finds something they are interested in, there is often a long application process. While it is important to get enough information from a candidate to ensure that a good hiring decision can be made, often companies ask for unnecessary information, which results in tedious application processes that can scare good candidates away.

Long & Detailed Application Process

Several years ago, a friend and former coworker of mine was looking to relocate out of state and was applying for jobs prior to her move. After spending a couple hours on the application, she heard back from a company that sounded like a good fit, but they sent her several links to a long online personality profile as well as some skills tests. Once my friend was confronted with the several hours it would take to complete all the tests, she decided to give up on that company and to look for jobs elsewhere. As a result, the company lost out on someone who would have been a great employee.

A common best practice in HR is to have a job seeker fill out an application even if submitting a resume. The job seeker then signs the application stating that all the information is true. The application serves two purposes: it is a signed statement from the applicant about the veracity of their work history and it also gives the recruiter and hiring manager all relevant information in an easy-to-read format. The problem with this approach is that we often ask far more than we need to know in the initial application.

Prior to embarking on my HR consulting career, I did quite a bit of hiring in both grocery and warehouse/manufacturing industries, both of which constantly had job openings. As such, I developed expert screening skills to sort through a large volume of applications. What I started to realize over time was that the application asked for far more information than I needed to do my initial screening. If this sounds like you, do a review of your job application.

In an initial screening, I am most interested in work history and if the person’s experience shows that they have the skills required to do the job, which means that the first thing I scan is the job history section. Many applications include a variety of screening questions that require paragraph-long responses. I often breezed right past those and did not bother to read them unless the applicant’s work history piqued my interest. Instead of asking for detailed information from all applicants, consider a shorter pre-application that gives you just the information you need to determine if someone would be worth pursing. If they are, send them a more detailed application where you can ask screening questions and for more information about their experience.

When it comes to pre-employment tests, evaluate whether the information from the test really helps in determining if someone would be a good hire. As in my earlier example, hours of tests coupled with a long application could scare good candidates away.

Endless Interviews

I remember interviewing at one company where I went back four separate times for interviews, only to not get the job in the end. The process involved a mix of a group interview, panel interviews and one-on-one interviews. It was tedious and required me to have a flexible schedule to fit in all those return trips to the company. On top of that, I found myself answering the same questions over and over again.

Making the decision to hire someone is hard, so often companies go to great lengths to have plenty of people meet the candidate. In reality, a lengthy interview process could result in losing candidates who end up taking a job elsewhere while they wait for yet another interview with your company.

To edit your interview process, start by looking at the list of people involved in interviews. I was once hiring for for an entry-level produce staff position in a grocery store. Interviews included the hiring manager, produce director, store manager, director of operations and me representing HR. When I looked at the candidate who was visibly shaking due to nerves as he stared at the five people across the table from him, it was clear to me that we had too many people in the interview room. For higher level positions, it is important to include more people in the process, but entry-level positions rarely warrant that kind of interviewing. When it comes to such hiring decisions, trust your managers to make good choices for their team. In the case of the produce position, it would have been sufficient to simply have the hiring manager and HR involved.

When you are hiring for a position that requires a number of interviewers, set up panel interviews whenever possible. This reduces the chance that the candidate will keep answering the same set of questions over and over again. It also cuts down on the amount of time a candidate must spend in the interview process.

While we are on the topic of interviews, take the time to review the questions you ask. While it may give you insight into a candidate’s critical thinking skills to ask why manhole covers are round, such questions can become unnecessary when asked of a retail worker. Do your questions give you the information you need to see if the candidate is a good fit for the particular job? If not, cross the questions off your list. Avoid questions that are not relevant to the job.

Failing to Follow Up

So, imagine that you have put someone through a long and tedious interview process and at the end of it, they hear nothing from you for weeks. Aside from the risk of losing a good candidate to another company, this also shows a lack of respect for the time the candidate has already put into the hiring process.

Let a candidate know during the interviews how long you expect the whole process to take. Even if remaining interviews, reference checks and such are delaying the process, take the time to write an email or make a phone call to keep the candidate updated. If a candidate really wants to work for you, they will be more inclined to wait and push away other offers if they know there is still a possibility they will be hired at your company.