Spa Business Wisdom

Interviewing Know How - Part 1

When you are creating an interview process for your company, think of it as the process that will help you find the most qualified, skilled person with the characteristics that fit your company's personality and yours. Most people ask Yes-or-No questions during the interview process, and questions about the future; but very few employers take the time to get to know the candidate in a way that would help them predict what they might actually do in a given situation. To be able to do this the best questions to use in your process are open-ended questions.

Open-ended questions are deliberately broad in nature, have no correct answer and are designed to keep the candidate talking to tell you the how and the when "they did it". Behavioral research suggests that the most effective people are those who understand themselves, their strengths and weaknesses. To be able to predict a person's future behavior you have to study and analyze their past behavior. The interview process that I've designed is built with different steps and question types. Each step is part of a bigger picture and the results would not be the same if you eliminate steps or change the process. Some examples of how we select the type of questions are:

• Question type - questions that help you build rapport, opening questions to break the ice and management style situational.
• Purpose - questions that are designed to build trust, open-ended situational questions designed to analyze attitude, aptitude and skills.
• Probing - follow-up questions to previous answers, to get deeper into the past behavior of the candidate.

For example, rather than asking an applicant, "Can you work under pressure?" or "Do you enjoy a fast paced environment?" (who in their right mind would say no?), you will get a more detailed response and a better idea of how they actually handle pressure if you asked; "Tell me about a time when you had to work under pressure?" and you follow up with, "How did that make you feel?" "How did you handle it?" Open ended questions often begin with "How do you..." "Tell me about..." or "What did you do...."

A primary objective of the interview process is to get the applicant to talk at length about themselves and their experience, thereby equipping the interviewer with information to analyze. Begin your interview by having the candidate give you a summary of their previous work experience. Then move on to the questions specific to the position and/or the work environment. Make sure you take notes on applicant's goals, motivation and personal characteristics.

Listening requires concentration and self-discipline, this is one of the reasons why I use and recommend scripted interview forms divided into steps. As you create your interview scripts do remember that planning in advance what you are going to ask will allow you to dedicate the greater part of your time to listening and evaluating the candidate's responses.

Some additional details to remember when you are interviewing candidates:

• Treat your candidates the same way you want them to treat your guests!
• Do not "lead the witness" - do not ask a question like "What color is Napoleon's white horse?"
• Let the candidate convince you that they are the best candidate for that position.
• The candidate should be the one talking 80-90% of the time during the interview.
• Be patient. Do not rush your candidate for an answer. Ask one question at a time, and always pause at the end until the applicant responds. How long they take in formulating their answer is a good indication of their "quick thinking ability."
• Interview notes always help you with the decision process. They will help you remember which candidate was your best candidate. Notes should reflect total objectivity.
• Take notes on the candidate's positive and negative comments. Candidates might be distracted if they see you taking notes only when they are discussing the reasons for leaving a previous job and/or the gaps in employment history.
• Never take any notes regarding the physical attributes of the candidate.

As you think of the questions you want to ask, the answers you are searching for and the type of employees you want to have, do keep in mind that there are legal guidelines that you are required to follow during the Recruitment and Selection process. An excellent source of FREE information is the Employment Laws Assistance for Workers and Small Businesses division of the US Department of Labor, go to www.dol.gov/elaws. Additionally "The National Employer", Volume 1 written by Littler Mendelson is an excellent source of the most important employment laws.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this article. We will cover the Overview of a Recruitment Process in addition to examples of specific questions that will help you determine motivation level, response to stress, ability to be managed, ability to be a team player and questions specific to the positions in the Spa Industry.

Written by Zahira J Coll, all rights reserved, the content of this article, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author.

What employees really want...

It is very hard to find qualified, talented, serious candidates nowadays. We are experiencing a lower level of customer service excellence in all industries. Some employers are trying to fix this by fine tuning their recruitment process and by providing higher hourly wages and/or benefits hoping that these added perks will bring in higher quality candidates and more long term employees. These measures will help a little bit but we are not looking at the root of the problem. To be able to find and retain the top candidates, the performers, the stars, we need to learn about what they want. What is it that these candidates look for when they select an employer? The interview process is not only about the candidate impressing us, or "selling" their abilities to us, it is very much a two way street, the candidates are also evaluating if the employer is "right" for them if it would provide them with what is important to them and with the work environment they desire.

Our work force has changed dramatically and we need to accept this, to take off the blinders and analyze  the reality of what constitutes the work force of today. What are their characteristics and personalities? What makes them tick, what do they look for in an employer?

Let's start with the work force of today; we have 10% veterans, 44% baby boomers, 34% genxers, 12% nexters. By 2008 the US economy will offer nearly 161 million jobs to 155 million workers. The Hudson Institute predicts that the supply of skilled labor in the US will not catch up to the demand until 2050. Let's hope they are wrong in that prediction. In surveys conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, they find that the top five "very important" aspects of job satisfaction are benefits (health insurance not vacation time), compensation, work/life balance (meaning flexibility in work schedules), job security and feeling safe in the work environment. Further analysis, categorized by employee gender, uncovered work/life balance as the most important aspect for female employees, while for males it placed fourth. Feeling safe in the work environment also has more value for females. Interestingly work/life balance placed at the top of the want list for employees 35 years of age and younger!

Take our newer generations (X & Y) as an example. These age groups want a "boss they can trust". They are looking for role models, for mentors. They want to work for someone they can respect and/or learn from. These generations quit their boss, they rarely quit the job or the company. The majority of the genxers are technologically savvy, they like informality, learn quickly, embrace diversity, want that work/life balance and are a bit more cynical. The main differences between the genxers and the nexters, is that our Y group (aka nexters) need more supervision, are more optimistic and work is just a relatively small component of their lives, they are more concerned with the environment and the effect we are making in earth than any of the previous generations. Our Baby Boomers continue to be the measuring stick by which most employers measure performance and what they expect of an employee or even a candidate during the interview process.  Well you are not going to get the same answers from X & Y during the interviews as you would get from our Baby Boomers. Our boomers constitute 76million Americans and they represent the original "Me" generation; the most spoiled, self-indulgent generation in US history. They continue, for the most part, to be the employees that give you maximum effort, they accept authority figures in the workplace, they are results driven and tend to be long term employees, they invented the word workaholic.

In our industry, we find that positions such as Massage Therapists have a lower % of baby boomers than Estheticians or Nail Techs. We also find that 61% of technical school graduates (including Beauty schools) are more interested in being an employee, having a consistent hourly wage than having their own private practice and/or working for someone that pays commission and do not offer any benefits or job security.

We also have to take into consideration cultural differences as they too have an impact on the characteristics of each generational group. Even between the East and the West coast we find some extreme differences in reference to what employees want.

As we figure out what we want to offer our employees and/or future candidates let's also analyze what is available in our geographical area? What generational work force groups are we attracting and why? Fine tune your offerings, your pay system, your work environment in a way that those that have the characteristics you need/want are the ones coming to you for employment. Design an interview and recruitment process that allows you to predict your candidates behavior and attitudes before you make your hiring decision. (More on Behavioral prediction interviewing system in a future post.)

Become the employer of choice in your area and that will help you attract those high performers that seem so elusive right now.

Written by Zahira J Coll, all rights reserved, the content of this article, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author.