Recruiting, Interviewing and Selecting Employees

This seminar covers everything you need to build a highly effective employee selection process. Making the wrong hiring decision represents a significant loss of time and money invested in recruitment, onboarding, training, and benefits. This fundamentals-focused program gives you the knowledge and skills to make consistently better hiring decisions and contribute measurably to your organization's bottom line.

Who Should Attend:

Professionals with two years or less of hiring experience, including newly hired HR professionals, HR practitioners without formal training in selection, non-HR specialists who recruit, interview, or hire as part of their roles, and experienced HR practitioners seeking to reinforce or update their skills.

How You Will Benefit:

• Strengthen your overall approach to employee selection from start to finish
• Attract stronger talent through innovative and diversified recruitment sources
• Use phone screening and other filtering methods effectively to identify the best candidates early
• Practice and refine your interviewing techniques, including how to open, conduct, and close a candidate meeting
• Ask the right questions to gather the information that truly matters for making a sound hiring decision
• Navigate EEO and affirmative action considerations to avoid common interview pitfalls

What You Will Cover:

• Recruitment challenges and the current hiring landscape
• Foundational recruitment principles
• Interview preparation and planning
• Legal factors and compliance considerations
• Interview questioning techniques, including behavioral and competency-based approaches
• Types of employment interviews and when to use each
• Key components of a structured interview
• Documentation best practices
• References and background check processes
• Final selection and decision-making frameworks

Course Outline:

Learning Objectives

• Explain the impact of recruitment-related challenges on the hiring process
• Identify what to explore and what to avoid during interviews to find the best fit
• Distinguish between the effectiveness of different question types and when to use them
• Identify the components that lead to well-informed hiring decisions
• Assess the impact of employment law at each stage of the hiring process

The Hiring Process

• Assess your current interviewing skills relative to the elements of an effective interview
• Describe the benefits of skilled, structured interviewing
• Identify the costs of a poorly designed hiring process
• Break down the components of a comprehensive, effective hiring process

Recruitment Challenges

• Describe the key factors affecting talent recruitment today
• Explore both applicant and employer perspectives on the hiring relationship
• Develop a practical and legally compliant recruitment plan

Recruitment Sources

• Identify organizational and role-specific competencies needed for hiring success
• Weigh the benefits and risks of various recruitment channels
• Design approaches for attracting qualified applicants

Interview Components

• Identify what candidates need to know going into the interview
• Clarify what "best fit" looks like for the role
• Set the stage for a productive, legally compliant interview

Interview Questioning Techniques

• Compare the effectiveness of different question types and the situations in which each works best
• Explore the competency-based interviewing approach relative to other methods
• Address legal considerations related to the questions you ask

Formula for Success

• Understand the role of active listening in effective interviewing
• Read and interpret body language cues
• Distinguish between applicant interest and demonstrated skill
• Select the most productive interview format for each situation

Documentation

• Explain how documentation supports the hiring process and protects the organization
• Distinguish effective documentation from ineffective documentation

Social Media and the Hiring Process

• Define how social media is used during hiring and assess associated risks
• Explain what a social media policy should include
• Identify legal concerns related to social media and candidate research

The Final Selection

• Weigh the advantages and limitations of traditional selection approaches
• Address legal considerations in making the final hiring decision
• Develop clear, defensible guidelines for final selection