Q: “I am hiring help right now. I need your advice on what to you ask on interviews? I am thinking about doing some role playing as a group interview? What do you think? I want someone who can think outside of the box. I want to pick the right to hires. Can you share some experience with me? Thanks just struggling with trusting people.”
A: Thank you for your questions. As to your question about what to ask during an interview, I’ve covered this in a detailed etool called “Interview Starter Questions.” Everyone you need to know about what to ask applicants during an interview is covered in that document. It’s part of a series on interview preparation. As a Vault member, you should check that out. I’m sure it will help you.
Before you check out the interviewing etools, let’s take a closer look at your question concerning role playing for an interviewing technique. Well planned role playing can be very effective for seasoned and even newer employees’ training and re-training, but not for brand new applicants.
Those who apply for new work are usually apprehensive and want acceptance by an employer, namely a job offer. Role playing or group interviewing fails to achieve your most important goal, which is to discover the “real person” sitting in front of you. Most folks don’t show their best values and qualities when faced with stress. You objective is to get them to be at ease and bring down their defenses so you have a good confidence about how they’ve handled past work responsibilities, if they were successful at what they were doing, and if they made a measurable contribution to their job.
“Thinking outside of the box” is good if it helps propel sales folks to be creative in handling objections to sales pitches. What I want to find out about the applicant when I interview is how they handled their past job responsibilities, how they related to their bosses and their peers, and then ( and most important), how did they handle a customer complaint issue. Not how they WOULD handle it, but how they DID handle it. Past behavior on the job is usually a good predictor of future behavior. This, of course, assumes they have been in the retail service field and had to deal with customers who can be a challenge at times.
Where to Look for Candidates…
I would look within your own customer database and send out recruiting emails and social media posts to your customers to see who is interested in a fulfilling job in an “indulgence self-esteem enhancing” industry. The advantages of that approach are many over running ads on Craigslist or so many other job boards. Here are some other benefits to this approach:
- You know the recipients of your recruiting efforts like to tan. A real first requirement.
- They must like or did like your tanning salon.
- They most likely live within a short radius of your salon, so showing up on time for a shift is likely.
- A customer you have dealt with gives you a leg up on what their personality is like. Are they approachable? Likable? Are they effectively able to convey their point of view? Handle their payment responsibilities?
- Lastly, you can always do some internet research on them to see how they handle their personal public relations.
For Additional Interviewing Information
As I said above, there are two more interviewing etools located in the Vault. Are you ready to get series about finding the ideal employees for your salon? If so, check out these etools:
Thank You for Your Question!
It was a pleasure providing you with the information you need to help you find the best candidate. I hope all this helps you sort out this issue. If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to ask this tanning salon business consultant.
