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Interviewing

Beat ‘talent paradox’ to hire the employees you need

03/29/2012
Hiring should be easy these days! Unemployment remains high and struggling companies have had to let great people go. Supply should exceed demand. So why is it so hard to hire the employees you need? It’s the “talent paradox”—despite lots of candidates, employers still see significant shortages in critical talent areas. Here’s a blueprint for beating it.

Interviewing: The 10 most common manager mistakes

02/27/2012
Conducting job interviews requires managers to strike a tricky balance between politeness and assertive evaluation. One wrong word or action can drive an applicant away—or even trigger a lawsuit. Warn managers to avoid these top 10 mistakes when interviewing job candidates.

What’s our duty to accommodate a religious need we just learned about?

02/22/2012
Q. An employee we hired a couple weeks ago just told us that he is Muslim and can’t work on Fridays. During the interview, he was asked whether anything would prohibit his working a proposed schedule that specifically included Fridays. He said no, in writing. Can we let this guy go?

Would you hesitate to hire someone who has been unemployed for a year?

01/31/2012
As the economy struggles to rebound, the stigma of long-term unemployment has lost some of its sting.

May we ask applicants about their religion?

01/25/2012
Q. When, if ever, can our company legally ask an applicant about his or her religious affiliation?

Talent-based interviewing: The 5 best questions

11/11/2011
Talent-based interviewing asks questions about real-life situations that are phrased in a unique way to elicit a candidate’s first (natural) response. This is a better assessment of future performance than simply checking whether the candidate has previously worked in a similar role (experience).

Can we refuse to consider rehiring a job applicant who we previously terminated?

11/09/2011
Q. We are a larger company. I noticed that an applicant for a position within one of our branches was previously employed and let go by another division. Would it be discriminatory to decline interviewing a candidate for this reason?

TCC headed for court after prof alleges anti-gay bias

10/31/2011
With help from lawyers at Lambda Legal, which works to protect the legal rights of gay employees, a former temporary professor is suing Tarrant County College, alleging that officials blocked her bid for a full-time professorship because she is a lesbian.

Interview questions: What’s legal, what’s not?

09/26/2011

Conducting job interviews is one of the most legally dangerous tasks performed by managers. One misguided question could cause an applicant to think he or she was re­­­­jected due to one of the federally pr­o­­tected categories. Take this hiring quiz to see if you know which questions are legal and which are not:  

The 5 worst interview questions … and what to ask instead

09/06/2011

The interview remains a hiring manager’s most effective tool for evaluating job candidates. Unfortunately, managers too often rely on a list of standard interview questions for which most applicants have canned responses. Here are five common questions to avoid, plus suggestions for more productive queries that will help you hire the best.