How Working Interviews Work for Your Organization
You've interviewed, screened, checked references, then hired a candidate. Once they start, you quickly realize it's not a good fit, costing you valuable time and money. We've all been there, but wouldn't it be nice to avoid bad hires altogether? That's where working interviews come in.
Working interviews let you try a professional before committing to a permanent offer. Hire someone for a few hours or a few days to determine if they're the right fit for your organization.
Introducing a new hiring strategy can be intimidating. So, we'll outline how working interviews can benefit you and how to integrate them.
Why Try Working Interviews?
Working interviews have many benefits (which you can read about here), but their main purpose is to test a professional before hiring them. This results in fewer bad hires, which can be costly for organizations. The average cost of a bad hire is $17,000. Between poor quality of tasks, negative attitudes, not getting along with colleagues, lying about skills, and attendance problems, there's a lot that can go wrong that you can't tell from a traditional interview. Luckily, these are all the key things you can test in a working interview.
How to Use Working Interviews in Your Organization
The great thing about working interviews is that you can include them in daily operations. Instead of taking an hour for a phone or video call, you can have the interviewee alongside your team. The professional interacts with everyone while performing key tasks you need done. Then, you carry on with your responsibilities without interruption.
To use working interviews in your organization, follow these eight steps:
Create a job description
As you would with any other open job, start by making a job description with the requirements of your ideal candidate.
Plan what to measure
Use your job description and requirements to determine what to measure professionals on. Then, structure working interviews the same for all professionals to eliminate bias. You could even create a few criteria to test and give each professional a rating out of ten. For example, if you want to assess a specific skill, like customer service, have all interviewees interact with customers. Or, if you're testing team collaboration, get everyone to participate in projects with colleagues.
Post jobs
Once you have a plan, you can post your jobs. We recommend scheduling at least three candidates to increase your chances of finding a perfect match. Then, if one person isn't a good fit, you have a couple more professionals in the pipeline. Whether you schedule everyone at the same time or stagger them one at a time is up to you.
You can easily post working interviews with AmbiMi. Use our mobile app to schedule professionals for working interviews. Then, we'll match you with pre-qualified candidates that meet your needs.
Prepare for their arrival
Once your professionals are scheduled, get ready for their shifts. Prepare their tasks beforehand, so there are no hiccups on the day itself. If the professional will work closely with other teammates, give them a heads-up about what you're testing to get their feedback.
Set clear expectations
When the professional arrives, give them clear expectations about what they'll be doing and what you're looking for. You want to build trust, so be transparent about the next steps, compensation, and benefits should they move forward.
Ask for their feedback
At the end of the shift, ask for feedback about how the day went. This will give you ideas of how to improve in the future and give you insight if they like the job and team.
Ask your team for feedback
After the professional leaves, talk to teammates to see how they fit your company's culture. Reach out to multiple colleagues to get a few different views.
Don't take too long to make a decision
If you're unsure about a professional after a shift, you can schedule them to come back or explore your other options. Don't wait too long on professionals you like! Chances are other organizations are also interested. A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself if you'd be upset if the professional took another option.
Now you're all set – start posting working interviews with AmbiMi today!