1. Understand what you need.
It's true that the right experience, qualifications, and credentials are all important. But bear in mind that great employees don't just do a job, they solve problems. Identify your business's critical problems that this person could address, determine how you will measure success in the position, make a list of the common attributes of your top performers, and determine what qualities mesh with your culture.

Once you've done that, tailor the job description and the interview process to finding the perfect person to solve that critical business need. Instead of having software screen resumes, do it yourself; it takes a little extra time, but finding a great candidate who might have fallen through the cracks is well worth it.

2. Set measurements.
Determine what exactly you're looking for. That may include certifications, specific accomplishments, the right references, or even a test.

Make sure you frame your requirements within the context of your culture. For example, skills are important, but attitude is often more important, so determine how you will identify the person with the right personality, interpersonal skills, and interests.

3. Write the map.
Make sure that a crystal clear picture of what to expect: when to interview, where to interview, who will be involved in the interview - everything. No surprises, no tricks, no uncertainties, no loose ends. Then, communicate those expectations to your candidates.  Explain what you will do and when you plan to do it.

Few things are worse than being a candidate who has no idea what, when, or if something happens next. Don't make the candidate ask what happens next. Tell them. And above all, politely provide closure to every candidate - failing to do so is incredibly rude, and can hurt you as disgruntled candidates take to the internet to warn others off your process.

I was thinking about McDonald's and In-N-Out Burger today, in part because I skipped lunch, but also because it felt like a good way to answer a question I get a lot. "Can HireVue survive on its own?" My answer, HireVue delivers HR software the way that In-N-Out Burger makes hamburgers. We specialize in the digital interviewing platform. We provide an interviewing experience for candidates that they absolutely love (+45 NPS). We provide a user experience that hiring managers and recruiters believe greatly improves their process (74%). We provide options focused on what we do best, OpenVue (sourcing), OnDemand (screening) and Live Interviews (interviewing and validation). You can also get sides of On Boarding and Assessments. That's it. That's what we do. And we believe we do it better than anyone else. Our customers tell their friends, CEO's write letters about their business transformation, it is not just a process or a video interview, it's a HireVue.

The BIG ATS platforms? Well they are a bit more like McDonalds. They are a good way to manage talent. You can get a wide variety of options from background checks, to skill assessments, to process automation and complex workflows. It is good technology. But it is not a great way to interview. It is not an experience that candidates, recruiters, hiring managers and executives love. It's just a tool, just software. HireVue is something more. And that is why I believe that HireVue can not only survive on its own but continue to grow rapidly. Often in partnership with the BIG ATS providers but never compromising what makes us unique, what we do best and what makes a HireVue a HireVue.

You can connect with David Verhaag, Vice President, Customer Success, HireVue on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/davidverhaag or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/dverhaag.

1. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?

This question helps the interviewer evaluate how you handle yourself in unstructured situations. It gauges several things, including the impression you'd make when interacting with people on the job, how articulate and confident you are, and the trajectory of your career. It also helps the recruiter get a sense of what you think is important and what has caused you to perform well. Though this question is a difficult one to answer, take it as an opportunity to describe yourself positively and focus the interview on your strengths.

Here's how to answer it: Focus on what interests the interviewer, and highlight your most important accomplishments. Start with your most recent employment and explain why you are well qualified for the position. Then have a story ready that illustrates your best professional qualities, and how those qualities have helped you in achieving your goals.

2. What is your greatest weakness?

Fast Company recommends preparing an answer to this question well in advance. "An impressive and confident response shows that the candidate has prepared for the question, has done serious self-reflection, and can admit responsibility and accept constructive criticism. Sincerely give an honest answer (but not a long one), be confident in the fact that this weakness does not make you any less of a great candidate, and show that you are working on this weakness and tell the recruiter how."

3. Tell me about a situation where you did not get along with a superior.

Responding that you haven't encountered this situation, can send out a signal that you aren't seasoned enough or haven't been in situations that require you to develop a tough skin or deal with confrontation. Focus on a time when you have had a differing opinion with a superior, and explain how you presented your reasons and openly listened to other opinions as well.

4. Describe a situation where you were part of a failed project.

Own up to your mistakes-- the recruiter is not looking for perfection. Answering this question sheds light on your level of responsibility, your decision-making process, and your ability to recover from a mistake. Illustrate what you learned from the experience and that you can take responsibility for your mistakes-- show that you’d like to think that you have learned something valuable from every mistake you have made. And above all, have a brief story ready with a specific illustration. Conclude your story on a positive note, with a concrete statement about what you learned and how it benefited the company.

5. What do you do when you are not working?

Especially for senior positions, it's important for hiring managers to know about the candidate’s qualities that will impact his or her leadership style: is the person well-adjusted and happy, or is he or she a company zealot? Discuss hobbies or pursuits that interest you, but avoid dwelling on any political or religious activities.

6. Why did you leave your last position?

Be honest and straightforward, and don't dwell on any conflict that may have occurred. Fast Company suggest that you highlight positive developments that resulted from your departure, whether it was that you accepted a more challenging position or learned an important lesson that helped you to be happier in your next job.

If you're interviewing, your interviewers will expect you to know about the company. If you don't, how can you credibly claim that you'd be interested in working there? Furthermore, knowing about the company helps you come across as a serious, intelligent and diligent candidate. As Info World points out, knowing a lot about the company in advance "can get the interviewer to see you as an advocate for the company instead of simply an advocate for yourself to get a job with that company."

Furthermore, it's in your own best interest to research the company and where it is going. Any publicly traded company must provide its financial results for investors to review, so check out whether the company on the upswing or appears to have dark days ahead-- it'll help you better decide if they're worth pursuing.

There are a number of websites designed to provide insight into companies: what the company does, the work environment, salaries, and how past and present employees feel about the organization. Here are some questions that Info World suggests checking out before you even begin the application process.

• What type of culture does the company foster?
• How many employees does it have?
• What is the company history?
• What is its mission statement?
• Does the core vision/mission align with your personal views?
• What are their services and products?
• What is their online reputation?
• What does the company do?
• Who are its clients?
• Who are its main competitors?
• Are they a public company, family-owned company, start-up firm or venture-capital-funded business?
• What do analysts project in terms of growth for the market the company serves?
• Do they operate in an industry that's highly regulated with changes that could totally derail the business?
• Related Story: Improve the IT Job Interview Process with Targeted Selection

"Knowing the answer to the questions above will help you craft a better cover letter, tailor your resume, perform better in the interview and give you some questions to ask the employer," Info World says. If you're job hunting, and want to learn more about employers, make sure you check out these great sites:

1. GlassDoor
2. Indeed
3. LinkedIn
4. Vault
5. Monster.com
6. CareerLeak
7. Hallway

As the saying goes, "knowledge is power." Obtaining the best possible insight to a company, its hiring practices, salaries, and operating procedures is both a huge credibility booster and helps you be more confident - which will make it easier for you to land, and ace, an interview.

Apply today to join the Actionlink team!  They are currently searching for a "Wireless Sales Guru" in Fairfax, VA!  Excellent base pay plus commission and benefits! Visit our website HERE and complete an application and digital interview!

Passion, Respect, Humility, Collaboration, Excellence

Let’s face it we all know that we need to hire the best technical talent we can, but it takes a long time to source, screen, interview and decide if you are really looking for strong talent.  How do you do this while keeping your best interviewers (usually your best people) busy creating value and hitting deadlines? 

1. Get the word out. 

If you’ve done your job right and created a place where people want to work, then your employees are the best source of new talent.  Talented coders often associate with other talented coders and the best ones want to bring in other great ones so they can work with them.  Your employees can tweet, Facebook, email, or post to LinkedIn about your latest position.  With HireVue’s OpenVue technology, you can directly include a link to the position and the candidate can immediately click the link, register and take the interview.

2. Find best and ignore the rest.

HireVue’s CodeVue technology uses online programming tests to qualify and attract new talent.  There are two great ways to use this.  Create an online programming challenge and blast it out there.  Candidates can respond to the challenge where they login and solve the challenge you post.  The possibilities around this are endless.  You can create monthly talent contests and give prizes to the winners while building your employment brand and your talent pool.  You can choose to spend your recruiting efforts wooing the cream of the crop.

You can also use CodeVue in conjunction with a HireVue digital interview.  Here you send out a link to candidates with questions that let you gather video responses to gauge personality, communication style and cultural fit as well as coding questions to gauge technical capability.  Worried about plagiarism and cheating on the tests?  Just include a video question after the challenge and have the candidate explain their solution.  Combining coding tests and video questions is powerful and reliable.

3. Make the right decisions. 

CodeVue will automatically score the coding challenges.  You can use the score as a filter of where to spend your time reviewing the video answers.  Focus in on the best quickly.  Once you rate the videos, you can forward your favorites to hiring managers and technical team members.  By eliminating the weak candidates early on, your top technical people are spending time with validated top talent – the people they want to talk to.  From here you can gather up all the feedback and use HireVue’s 2-dimensional comparison tools to identify the best candidates.

4. Get better at interviewing.

HireVue will improve the quality of hire for sure, but if you do make a mistake, it’s easy to go back and see what went wrong.  You can go back and review the original interview and see what was missed.  Should you have asked a different question?  Should you have paid more attention to certain answers where important information was revealed that no one noticed?  Were certain interview comments ignored or did one of your reviewers push hard for the wrong candidate?  You can see it all in HireVue and adjust the process, interview content and how your team is trained to interview.  This has really never been possible before.

Don’t stand in your own way of finding the tech talent you need; take advantage of these tips to set your organization apart, and find a perfect match.

You can follow Loren Larsen on Twitter @lorenlarsen and connect with him on LinkedIn here.

Develop Skills, Not Resume Bullet Points

I feel like we strive so hard to get exposure to different companies and responsibilities for the sole purpose of adding a new point on our resume…believe me I’ve been guilty. However, with standalone paper resumes losing value in the hiring process, I am worried about our response when an interviewer looks at these bold titles on our meticulously crafted paper resume and asks follow-up questions like:

“I see that you were an (insert long and exaggerated title - INTERN) at (insert large influential company). What did you do there to benefit the company’s progression? What ideas or plans did you offer to support their strategic plan? How can your experience and developed skills benefit us here at X company? I’m worried because I think our wide-eyed expression and profuse sweating will clearly indicate how productive that internship was.

When I first started at HireVue as a lead generation intern in early 2012, I fell into the same trap.  I was given a task that didn’t require much high level thinking but still was necessary for our growth as a small company.  I was so complacent with coming in, sending some emails for a few hours, and leaving. Was I doing my job? Yes, but was I being proactive with a focus on growing and progressing? Was I daily thinking about how I personally could contribute and impact?  Regrettably, no, but I would learn from that. 

Look for Any Way to Expand Your Role

A short time later, I took an internship at a large entertainment corporation in California and felt myself once again slipping into the routine of doing one mundane task each day.  I arrived at a crossroads and asked myself, “am I ok with my role or am I capable of more?” I started inviting myself to meetings and asking more questions.  Instead of watching someone make the analytics report, I asked to make them. Instead of staying away from executives, I made efforts to interact and learn from them.  By the end of that summer, as I listened to the stories of the intern’s experiences, I stood out because I had worked to extract the most out of those few months. Be careful about ever saying, “But that’s not my job!”
Being somewhat of a tennis aficionado, the words of legendary player and now commentator John McEnroe come to mind about the 11 time grand slam champion Rafael Nadal. After mentioning that although Nadal isn’t necessarily the most fundamental or talented player on the tour, what makes him great is that “Nadal works like he needs a job”.  No matter what our position or role we have in a company, our responsibility to ourselves and the organization we represent is to look for any way to contribute and “work like we need a job”.

Worry about Progression, Not Permission

It seems that from the day we began to talk, we get into this habit of asking for permission.  We know that if we don’t, our neglect will lead to some type of consequence. In early years, this is an essential habit to learn and practice. However, in the business world, asking for permission can turn into an excuse and put us on a dangerous path to complacency.

In returning back to HireVue in November for yet another internship, I was ready. For the next 7 months, I volunteered for so many projects (many requiring hours of online tutorials) that I found myself running out of time every day to complete them.  I created, managed, coordinated, supported, and worked with the finance, engineering, administration, and sales departments on multiple endeavors… all while struggling, failing, and most importantly… LEARNING and CONTRIBUTING.  I didn’t ask anyone for permission to do many of those things; I just looked for needs or problems and searched for solutions. 

After this transition to a full-time position here at HireVue, I can confidently say that as we develop skill sets, work like we need a job, and worry less about permission and more about progression, we can advance our internships and careers exponentially faster.   Never be satisfied with the status quo – strive to be great and never look back.

You can follow Mike Henneman on Twitter @mikehenneman and LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/mikehenneman

In April, the unemployment rate for college grads was 3.9 percent, compared to 7.5 percent of the work force as a whole. In fact, the lowest jobless rate (5.1) for college grads in this business cycle was comparable to the jobless rate the entire work force experiences when the economy is good.

Even young college graduates are finding job-- In 2011, the unemployment rate for people in their 20s with at least a bachelor’s degree was 5.7 percent. However, for individuals in their 20's who only had high school diploma or a G.E.D., the unemployment rate was nearly three times as high, at 16.2 percent.

The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution in Washington has estimated that the benefits of a four-year college degree were equivalent to an investment that returns 15.2 percent a year, even after factoring in the earnings students forgo while in school.

Through history, college has consistently paid off in the job market, which is why college degrees are much more common today than they were in the past. In April, about 32 percent population over 25 (not including inmates of penal and mental facilities, residents of homes for the disabled, or individuals on active military duty) had a college degree, up from 22 percent twenty years ago.

As the New York Times points out, "Given the changing norms for what degree of educational training is expected of working Americans, employers might assume those who do not have a four-year degree are less ambitious or less capable, regardless of their actual ability."

If you're graduating with your degree this spring, don't spend time and energy worrying. Your chances of finding employment are far better than the would have been had you not attended college; make your job search a priority, and check out more blog entries for tips and tricks on how to move through the hiring process smoothly.

Recent research shows that most American adults switch careers five to seven times throughout their working lives. Remember, your first job out of the gate is a single step on a lifelong career(s) path. However, you will be perceived as a risk if you don't stay in a job long enough to earn your worth. While you can also be a wealth of new ideas for an organization that needs your skills and experiences, consider your movement between organizations wisely and understand the career world is small; never burn a bridge and maintain professional connections especially when you move away from a job.

Focus not only on what you want, but on what solutions you can provide. You must have a clear picture of your strengths and competencies so recruiters and employers can help you fit into a role in their organization. Instead of fixating on job titles, focus on finding and illustrating examples of concrete skills that you do well. Additionally, wherever you go, be ready to discuss how you bring value to an organization. You are responsible to market yourself in this ultra-competitive market, so show what you do well in an articulate conversation and demonstrate your emotional intelligence and your strengths.

Let your friends, family, and other well-wishers know what you do well so they know how to connect you with their circles of influence. Ask them to check their professional and personal networks to see if they can make a personal referral at places you want to work, and be sure to share your strengths story so your network has an easy to remember conversation to share with others that illustrates what makes you unique and employable.

For job seekers who don't have relevant experience, it's important to be flexible and start in a different area of the company from where you want to be. It's more beneficial to network instead of going back to school, so be flexible and willing to learn on the job. Likewise, when you do network with people you don't know, distinguish yourself by picking up the phone. Leave an articulate voice mail if necessary and use a script until it becomes second nature. The goal is to eventually meet in-person but a phone call is the best way to set yourself apart from the myriad of others in the job hunt.

Above all, walk tall and learn to speak with humble confidence about what you do well. Showcase your resilience and be ready to discuss how you have overcome challenges, including how you are dealing with a tough job market. Proving you are resilient may land you an opportunity. And celebrate the success you've earned - and be ready to work towards greater successes with incredible rewards down the road.