Is It Really The Job Of Your Dreams? How To Conduct A Reference Check On A Potential Employer

iStockphoto.com (vladwel)

Prior to extending a job offer, an employer will usually do due diligence on you – background checks, drug tests, and reference checks, among other things – so that they know who they're hiring.

Likewise, you should do due diligence on a potential employer before accepting any position. And with the substantial volume of information readily accessible both online and through your network, there's really no excuse for accepting a job at a nightmare employer without having done your homework first.

Here's five resources you can use to conduct a reference check on a potential employer.

Resource: Glassdoor
What Is It: It's a job board, but it's also a forum where job applicants and employees can post and rate their interview and work experiences with an employer.
Pros: Transparency. There's a huge number of reviews (and growing), particularly about larger companies. Taken in aggregate, you'll get a general picture of the work environment.
Cons: People who have had bad experiences are more likely to post their reviews than people who have had positive or neutral experiences, so the results may skew negatively. The reviews are anonymous, so they're also unverifiable. Large companies can have different sub-cultures across the organization, so the feedback may not be wholly representative. Smaller companies may have few or no reviews.

Resource: "Best Employer" Lists
What Is It: National publications, such as Forbes, as well as regional or local magazines or websites, publish annual employer rankings based upon a variety of criteria, such as the benefits, work environment, diversity, employee engagement, and several other quality of life factors.
Pros: Companies who make the list care deeply about doing so because it helps their employer brand, which in turn supports recruitment and retention. And it's not easy to get on these lists – the selection process typically includes extensive questionnaires, metrics analyses, employee engagement surveys, and audits.
Cons: Companies self-nominate, meaning the pool of potential "Best Employers" consists of firms who are committed to doing the work to get on them; in fact, several employers have departments dedicated to making these lists. Conversely, there are many great employers who don't apply and will therefore not appear on any such list.

Resource: Staffing Firm Recruiter
What Is It: These individuals, also known as headhunters, are hired by companies to find talent for their difficult-to-fill job openings.
Pros: Experienced recruiters know which are great employers and which are revolving doors for talent. Either they've worked on making placements for them, or they know someone who has. And the candidates they speak with provide the inside skinny about their current employers. Bad companies are the ones that tend to be their most fertile for recruiting talent out.
Cons: A recruiter's perspective is going to be tinted by their relationship with that employer. In other words, if the recruiter is works consistently with a company to place talent there, they may be less forthcoming about the negative aspects of working there since the company is paying their tab.

Resource: The News
What Is It: You can search for news about employers on online aggregators, such as Google News or Bing News, or by checking the websites of newspapers, magazines, and television stations.
Pros: If there's information out there to be had, you'll find it.
Cons: Companies don't usually get news coverage unless there's something newsworthy. You'll also need to evaluate the impact of the information; companies usually make the news for really, really good things or for really, really bad things.

Resource: Current or Former Employee of the Company
What Is It: A person who works or has worked there.
Pros: Nobody knows a company better than an employee. He or she will know the politics, pitfalls, and rewards. Ask around, if you don't know anyone personally, chances are someone can help you make a connection to a person who did.
Cons: You'll need to calibrate your opinion based upon the employee's personal experience. If they were fired, they might have an axe to grind.

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Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

7 Steps Employers Can Take To Improve The Candidate Experience

I don't think the interview is going well. (iStockphoto.com | Nomadsoul1)

Job hunting is unquestionably difficult. Applicants can compete with tens of thousands of other job seekers, and they're placed under intense scrutiny. There are several points during the interview and salary negotiation process for things to go off the rails.

The process isn't any easier from the employer's side either, I'm sorry to say. As recruiters,  hiring managers, and interviewers inherit elevated expectations and responsibilities, the candidate experience often receives less attention than it should.

Here's the thing – job seekers remember bad interviews experiences. This isn't to say that employers should go easy during an interview to coddle the candidate's feelings; interviewers need to challenge the applicant's ability to answer difficult questions in order to evaluate their technical prowess and emotional intelligence.

Unfortunately, there's drama when employers fail to effectively manage the process, which leads to animosity, confusion, and a lousy reputation as an employer. Some employers do an amazing job of managing the customer experience. Others, not so much.

Here are 7 steps employers can take to improve the candidate experience.

1. View applicants as potential customers. Because they are. Each company has a brand for their products or services it works hard to protect. Just as job seekers need to mind their manners, so should anyone touching the employment process. A nasty candidate experience can poison the well for a company's employment brand, but it doesn't stop there. Why would a consumer want to spend their money with a company which treated them rudely? And dissatisfied customers tend to relay negative experiences. Don't believe me? Take a look at Glassdoor. Niceness counts.
    

2. Focus on the candidate's basic needs. Give them a bottle of water. Offer a bathroom break. Have snack bars or fruit available. Interviews can take a long time, being sensitive to these types of things support their comfort and well-being.
    

3. Invest time in applicant tracking and follow-up. This is a massive challenge for employers. Recruiters balance communications with vast numbers of job applicants, interviewees, hiring managers, and other stakeholders in the hiring process. This unwieldiness breeds the most frustrating aspect of the process – a lack of applicant feedback. Applicants often hear nothing after submitting a resume. They often hear nothing after interviewing. They often hear nothing after someone else is selected for the job. It's not malicious; it's usually due to a lack of staff and systems to support the process.
    

4. Be more transparent about salary ranges. Companies are understandably sensitive about sharing specific salary data. Publishing everyone's salary can cause a lot of discord, and can reduce a company's negotiation leverage. There's no need to be specific, most employers enter the process with a predetermined range to recruit against, ultimately negotiating a specific figure within that range. Let's be more sensitive to everyone's time – many people wouldn't bother to apply to jobs below their salary range, but instead find themselves engaged in a protracted process where the salary range isn't articulated until late in the game. A bit more transparency could potentially improve the quality of the applicant pool by enabling those whose expectations exceed the range to self-exclude.
    

5. Publish benefits information. Like salary data, many employers wait to share their benefits until late in the process. Perks can vary wildly between employers with major differences in health insurance cost, tuition reimbursement, vacation time, holidays, and other perks. Disclosing benefits information early can be great selling tool for employers, and better help applicants understand what receiving an offer would truly mean in terms of dollars, cents, and quality of life.
    

6. Teach everyone involved in the process how to interview. Making an effective hiring decision is a learned skill, but many employers give their interviewers little foundation to work with other than a job description. Here's a dirty little secret – most interviewers are "winging it," and are trying their best to make an effective decision based upon a gut feeling using inadequate data points. Any employee who interviews on behalf of a company should be required to demonstrate mastery of behavioral, competency-based interviewing, as well as a clear understanding of what kind of questions and considerations are legal or illegal.
    

7. Prioritize the interview over other work. Having a candidate wait unnecessarily past their appointed interview time can be rude. Having a candidate wait because you wanted to respond to an email, take a call, or stop by somebody's desk? It's time to reexamine your priorities. Then there's forgetting about the interview and leaving the candidate in a conference room with nothing to do... That's borderline sociopathic behavior. Don't be a sociopath. Respect the candidate's time as much as you respect your own. Even more so.

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Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

6 Fantastic – And Credible – Reasons To Tell Employers You're Looking For a New Job

iStockphoto.com | ( AndreyPopov )

Potential employers will ask you why you're looking for a job. They want to know why you're taking the time to meet with them to ensure that your goals align with their goals.

Telling an employer you're interviewing because your job stinks, or because your boss is a jerk, is a poor strategy. Not only are answers such as these crass, they will make a potential employer believe you're disgruntled and they won't want to introduce toxicity into their environment.

The key to answering this question is finding a solutions-oriented answer. Here are some reasons to tell that prospective employer you're playing the job market. Answers which generally focus on personal growth tend to resonate with hiring managers, and a bit of soul searching should guide your response. Here are some suggestions:

1. I've heard great things about your company from my friend who works here, and I'd love to be part of that.
    

2. My current organization is small, and I've reached a ceiling. I'm ready for a new challenge.
    

3. While I love my job, the commute is too far and I need something a little bit closer to home.
    

4. I've graduated with my Master's degree in a different discipline, and I'm looking for something in that new direction.
    

5. My current role is a temporary assignment, so I'm seeking something more permanent.
    

6. My dream has been to work on driving the success of products such as your company's. When I saw this position open up, I knew I had to apply.

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Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.