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Stop asking these 7 interview questions (and what to ask instead)

Interviews and insightful interview questions can help you gauge a person’s cultural fit in your organization and whether their experience or expertise reflects what was listed in their resume or CV. However, only if you pose the correct inquiries.

When you ask the right questions during interviews, you gain valuable, relevant information about candidates that helps you make the best hiring decision, like what motivates them, what their values are, and how they work.

The responses to these questions can quickly weed out unsuitable candidates and identify the ones who meet the needs of the specific role and your organization.

Questionable questioning

We’ve all likely been asked a bizarre, irrelevant question in an interview for which we were completely unprepared. Likewise, it’s probable we’ve experienced mundane questions that feel more like filler than filtering.

For job seekers, interviews can be stressful and make it difficult for them to perform their best. For interviewers, it can be challenging to ensure they’re asking the right questions.

To gain the most insight from your sessions, we’ve listed the questions to abandon — and what to ask instead.

1) Could you walk me through your resume?

This question can be a glaring red flag to candidates that their interviewer didn’t bother to review their resume or is trying to catch them in a lie. Walking through a candidate’s resume and discussing every role they’ve previously filled (which can be a lot if you’re interviewing senior candidates) is a poor use of your interview time.

Instead: I’ve read over your resume, but I’d like to know more about you and how you came to be here today.

Every candidate who applies to your job advertisements is a unique individual with various strengths, weaknesses, and past experiences. You already know what their resume says, but getting to know the talent behind the paper is more important.

This question is a great way to open an interview and dig deeper into a candidate. You can then build it to ask what inspired them to choose their course of study, how they decided to move into their niche, if applicable, and more. Their response can give you a clearer picture of what motivates and inspires them.

2) What is your greatest weakness?

A quick Google search for “how to answer what is your greatest weakness?” yields over 64 million results, which reveals two things:

1. This question is asked far too often
2. Many people answer this question dishonestly

Asking candidates to share their greatest weakness is an overused question that can easily be misused during an interview. No candidate will admit to having time management issues or that they struggle to get along with others, which means this question will yield little in the way of useful information.

Instead: Can you tell me about a time when a project you were working on failed or didn’t go to plan and how you handled it?

Even the best laid plans go awry sometimes. Rather than asking your candidate to expose their greatest weakness, ask them to tell you about a time when a project went off the rails and how they reacted.

The answer to this question can reveal a lot about the candidate. If, for example, someone tries to tell you they’ve never had a project go awry, they likely either lack project management skills, haven’t been in a position to manage a project yet, or are simply simply. Most candidates, however, will be able to tell you stories from the trenches that clearly showcase their capabilities.

Look for strategic thinking examples, communications skills, and how your candidate explains the situation, remedies, and outcome. If a candidate can set the scene and walk you through their experience, it’s a good indication they can unify a team of people to work on new projects using those same skills.

3) How would you handle [hypothetical situation]?

Spoiler alert: Almost every candidate groans at a hypothetical situation question.

Double spoiler alert: These questions don’t evoke useful answers.

Hypothetical questions don’t require first-hand experience to provide a good answer, and it’s easy to guess at what the interviewer wants to hear. This means candidates can easily make something up on the fly that makes them look good.

If the hypothetical question is about personality clashes on a team, the interviewee might discuss team building opportunities or personality testing to help team members understand their personality types and how to work best as a group.

In short, hypothetical questioning will receive hypothetical answers.

Instead: Tell me about a time you felt proud about a project you worked on. Or, What have you done in your career to date that makes you most proud?

Ditch the hypothetical question and go straight to one that’ll uncover more about your candidate’s genuine experiences and provide a glimpse into what makes them tick.

Interviews should give candidates the opportunity to discuss their career highlights and the times when they shined the brightest.

Similar to the question about a time when a project went off the rails, asking candidates to recount positive experiences allows you to test their communications skills, hear about their strategic thinking and planning, and more, depending on how responsive they are.

4) Why are you changing jobs?

If you’re expecting a candidate to respond to this one honestly, you’ve got another thing coming!

More often than not, candidates change jobs for one of the following reasons:

• They want to make more money
• They don’t like the leadership or management at their current place of employment
• Their work-life balance isn’t satisfactory
• The culture at their current company is toxic
• There’s a lack of or disconnect between honesty/transparency/ethics at their current workplace

When you ask a candidate why they’re changing jobs, you’ll likely hear a well-rehearsed answer about how they feel ready for a change or that they like their current job a lot but want a new and exciting opportunity. What you won’t get is a true indication of how they view your job opportunity in terms of their overall career.

Instead: How do you see this role fitting into your career plans?

Asking your candidate how they fit the role for which they’re interviewing into their future plans will help you determine two things:

1. How well informed the candidate is about the opportunity, your company, and the duties for which they’d be responsible
2. What your candidate is seeking in their career

If a candidate has familiarized themselves with the job opportunity and your company, they should have a good sense of how they’ll grow within the role. You can dig deeper by asking them to discuss their career goals and motivations — do they see themselves on a managerial path? — and what drives them.

Carefully listen to their answers. If a candidate is looking to jump into a new industry by joining your company, it’s possible they’ll treat this role as a quick stepping stone to their next big opportunity.

5) Where do you see yourself in X years?

A lot can happen in a relatively short time (e.g., all of 2020). Asking candidates where they see themselves in two, five, or 10 years’ time is like asking a child what they want for Christmas: It’s subject to change, and quickly.

Gone are the days when employees regularly joined companies as junior staff and remained for decades with the same employer. According to the United States Department of Labor, men hold an average of 12.6 jobs and women an average of 12.3 jobs between ages 18 and 54. So, asking your candidates to predict their futures will yield information that’s irrelevant to your organization (i.e., cookie-cutter responses like, “I hope to have grown my skills and experiences and be in a more senior role”).

Instead: What professional milestones do you hope to achieve while working at our company?

Asking candidates about the professional milestones they hope to achieve whilst working for your company is a great way to find out what they really want in their career while also helping you determine how much they really know about the role and what your company does.

6) Why should we hire you?

Asking a candidate why they should be hired is one of the most useless questions you can pose.

Instead: Based on your knowledge of this role, can you think of a past experience or experiences that you believe would help you be successful?

This is a great chance to let candidates expand upon their past experiences and demonstrate their knowledge of your company and the role.

Pay attention to key skills and knowledge they mention and how they relate those to the expected duties and responsibilities of the role. This will give you a good indication of how closely they’ve considered what the role entails and how they would perform in it.

7) What would your last boss or colleagues say about you?

This is another question that almost never receives an honest answer. A candidate can respond however they like to make themselves sound like a great choice, and it forces you to check their references to verify their answer, which prolongs the hiring process unnecessarily.

Instead: If you accept this position, how would you bring yourself up to speed on the job and any tasks or projects we’ve discussed?

A great way to gauge how your potential hire will shape up is to ask them directly. This question reveals how your candidate approaches new situations and projects. It also gives you an estimate of their strategic thinking and how they work as part of a team.

Some important things to look for in their response include:

• Meeting with other team members
• Establishing KPIs
• Setting a timeline
• Questions they have (if any) about the onboarding process

The most important interview question to ask

The most important question to ask in interviews is, “Do you have any questions for me?”

The questions candidates ask you about the role, the work culture, or the company itself can tell you a lot about how engaged and interested they are in the job opportunity. If your candidate has no questions, that’s a big red flag.

Remember, your candidate is interviewing you as well.

The case for an efficient application process

For many employers, getting clients into the recruitment pipeline requires significant attention and energy. But, what happens once candidates apply? Not surprisingly, most candidates drop off during the hiring process. In fact, according ERE Media, 80% of candidates drop off during the application process. That can be problematic for organizations, which often need those extra candidates.

Here, the problem often lies in the application process, employee assessments, and even finding out too late that candidates aren’t good fits for the role. Streamlining the application process, starting with the job description and salary indications, can greatly improve how candidates react to the process and the number of highly qualified candidates that make it through the process.

Common issues with job applications

Non-Qualified Candidates

Poor, outdated, or poorly set up hiring processes always start with job boards, job profiles, skill sets, and required competencies. If your organization doesn’t know exactly what it needs to fill the role (qualifications and competencies, not just education), it’s impossible to sort out candidates who aren’t a good fit. You’ll spend significant money and energy filtering candidates who are applying based on unclear parameters, like the job skills, competencies, or actual requirements not being set correctly. Similarly, offering a salary indication can prevent applicants who might be looking into a better paying or more senior position.

• Make sure that competency mapping is done and mapped to the job description
• Ask for skills and requirements that are necessary not just nice-to-have

High Candidate Drop-Off

Most organizations lose roughly 80% of candidates during the application process. That’s after the initial weeding of unqualified candidates has been performed. So, 80% of the candidates you want to consider for your role drop off, usually without ever even telling you. Why is that? Often, it means that the application process is too long or requires too much involvement. That’s important considering many applicants apply to 10+ jobs at once. If they’re looking for a new role, they’re applying to every position that’s interesting. Keeping early investment as light as possible is important.

• Use light screening and assessment to tailor your candidate pool, not several hours of assignments
• Use several clear and defined application stages, with each designed to further qualify the candidate. Heavy lifting of projects and assignments can wait until you’re on one of the last few candidates

While you can’t help that some candidates will be hired to other jobs during the application, others will not get along with your recruiters, and others will decide the company culture is not for them, you can work to ensure the actual application process is streamlined and easy to go through.

High Costs

Most organizations spend several thousand dollars on each new recruit. For a mid-level position, that’s often well over $4,000. The Society for Human Resource Management quotes that as $4,129 days and an average of 42 days to fill a position. That’s a long time, considering the lack of a person in a role likely costs you significantly as well. But, it’s difficult to offset without designing more streamlined hiring processes. For example, many organizations are moving back towards opening up recruitment for mid-level positions to internal job boards. Hiring junior workers is faster and easier than hiring intermediate and senior workers.

At the same time, streamlining the hiring process by tailoring it down to what you actually need to know can shorten interview and application times. So, if you need to know a general assessment, general skills, whether the person gets along with a team, and then how they interact with company culture, you could design a simple and cost-effective application process of:

• Initial phone interview/screening
• In-person/video interview with team lead and recruitment manager
• Final selection pool / competency assessment/skills test
• Trial day working with the team
• Hire

That short process is significantly faster than the 4+ interview stages that many organizations use today. It also means you don’t ask people to complete work or do anything that requires oversight until they’ve already been screened and interviewed. That reduces the drop-off rate, because you can tell candidates doing the work that they are in the final pool.

Improving Application Processes

Eventually, simplifying your application process benefits recruiters, teams, and the candidates applying. In most cases, that means defining what you need to make a hire, what you have to do to get that data, and then mapping out the easiest way to get to that. In most cases, you need, at minimum:

• An assessment of skills/organizational fit
• A competency assessment
• A general understanding of how the person works
• A general understanding of how the person will fit into a team

Of course, the exact requirements here vary depending on what the role is, the seniority of the role, and how important it is. If you’re hiring for upper management, you need a longer and more in-depth hiring process. If you’re hiring for intermediate roles, you can normally stick to a lighter approach, designed to get basic information that is most relevant to making the hire.

Here, you can always start by working with teams to define what they need to know. For example, do you have personality frameworks mapped for building teams? Do teams want someone who can work in specific ways? Is working with a new tool or technology important or can that be trained in with little effort? Making those decisions requires an internal assessment, prioritizing what’s important, and then updating that information on a role-by-role basis. Once you have defined what’s really necessary for making a hire, you can build the full application process around it.

Most importantly, simply customizing the application process and making the candidate feel important as part of the process can help a great deal. That means building assessments around their needs, introducing them to potential future teams as part of the application, and ensuring that the candidate gets to experience your company – rather than the company just getting to experience them. After all, they are deciding whether they want to work for you as well.

In almost every case, a shorter application process saves time and money for the organization. While it does mean that teams have less time to decide if a hire suits their needs, it also means happier candidates and less money spent on the process.

Employee onboarding 101: Designing an optimal onboarding experience

Your employees’ experience with your company starts the moment you connect with them during recruitment. But once they sign a contract and get to work, your relationship with them becomes even more critical – you move into the employee onboarding phase.

What do their first days, weeks, and months look like? Do they have the tools and support they need to transition smoothly into their role and become an actively contributing member of your organization?

Or, will they experience the frustration of accounts that need to be set up, uncertainty about who to talk to, lacking the right tools, and other roadblocks?

Crafting a great employee experience takes time, effort, and attention to every stage of the employee journey. In this article, we’ll break down some best practices for designing a robust employee onboarding process to improve productivity, motivation, and retention.

Designing an enjoyable employee experience

Your employee’s journey begins before they’re accepted into the company. It starts when you first find them and determine how closely they fit the job description, with a crucial point being how they’re treated during the interview process.

You need to respect their time, ask the right questions, and let them know your decisions promptly. Also, provide proper documentation of all the processes they’ll handle. This includes how-to guides, training videos, recorded screenshares, and on-the-job training.

Design your onboarding process around the job, the team(s) that person will work with, and the tools they’ll use. In general, onboarding should include:

• Employee orientation
• Complete paperwork and other routine tasks
• Clear descriptions of when onboarding starts, how long it lasts, and the included stages
• Work culture and environment
• The knowledge and skills expected of the new hire to do their job
• The roles of HR, departmental teams, and managers in the onboarding process, including their responsibilities
• Established goals for the new hire and how you’ll measure them

In addition, you’ll have to personalize individual processes like employee training and introductions and facilitate work by introducing software, people, and processes:

• Evaluate how the new hire’s skills map to those needed for the role. If there are gaps, provide training.
• Provide introduction opportunities so your new hire meets their colleagues, managers, and stakeholders.
• Implement developmental programs immediately so new hires have access to training, self-improvement, and anything else they need to fit into your company’s culture and their role.
• Offer two-way feedback in which new hires can give criticism, write down items they don’t understand, and share questions or concerns.

Every onboarding experience has to be designed around the individual. You can automate and employ standardized onboarding checklists to some extent. However, take time to assess what does and doesn’t work for each individual.

Employee orientation vs. employee onboarding

Employee orientation and employee onboarding are often used interchangeably. However, they’re distinct processes:

• Orientation is a one-time event that’s part of the overall onboarding. It includes routine paperwork, general introductions to the company and culture, and basic start-up like giving an office tour, configuring computers, etc.
• Onboarding can last up to a year and is designed to help new hires successfully transition into their roles.

Usually, orientation is standardized across the organization while onboarding is customized to each individual.

Employee orientation

Employee orientation serves as an introduction for new hires. HR may take specific steps to meet and greet employees during lunch, over video conferences, or by touring new hires around the office. This also includes time to discuss general company information, such as:

• Explaining the company’s mission, values, and vision
• Completing paperwork
• Ensuring the employee understands or has access to a knowledge base of benefit plans and enrollment, and planning a follow-up meeting to verify correct enrollment
• Stating safety, health, security, and other policies
• Reviewing administrative procedures such as salary processes
• Providing the new hire with parking tags, building keys, and any other company-provided equipment such as laptops, cell phones, printers, etc.
• A guided tour of the workplace
• A schedule of required training (e.g., company conduct, ethical business practices)
• Introducing key contacts such as HR representatives, IT/support, and more

Before inviting a new hire to orientation, provide them with an agenda, tell them how to access training, and supply any items they need and the contact information of everyone conducting the orientation.

Employee onboarding

Employee onboarding is a longer operation that helps new hires integrate into the organization by explaining (and, if necessary, teaching) the skills and competencies they need to succeed in their roles. This can include introductions to specific work processes and tools, as well as training and one-on-one coaching in organizational procedures.

This process also introduces direct team members, managers, and stakeholders and lets HR and managers assess potential skills gaps to bring the new hire up to speed. This involves:

• Role-relevant information and documentation such as assignment data, processes, etc.
• An itinerary for the first week/month/quarter
• A checklist of goals and expected outcomes for the first period
• Access credentials for relevant software and tooling

Most importantly, successful onboarding should have clear outcomes for the short and long term. For example:

• The new hire has met their colleagues and knows where to ask questions, where to access resources, and how to seek help.
• The new hire understands team and company culture and can contribute to or challenge it respectfully.
• The new hire understands their role and work and has the necessary training to adopt any software, technology, or processes they’re unfamiliar with.
• The new hire has access to the resources needed to complete their work well and can requisition new resources, if needed.

Onboarding focuses on the new hire’s long-term success, which may require training and development depending on the person and their position.

Benefits of effective employee onboarding

Increased employee retention

Hiring is a tedious and expensive process. So, when you hire new employees, you want to select and retain the top talent.

Statistics from Click Boarding revealed employees who undergo a structured onboarding process are 58% more likely to stay with a company for longer than three years. Studies have also shown an effective onboarding process retains up to 90% of employees in the first six months.

Onboarding helps managers build long-term relationships with new hires, equip them for success, and retain them longer. In turn, keeping talented employees saves your company time and money.

Improved branding (and awareness)

A beneficial onboarding process will improve your company’s branding.

When your employees enjoy their new workplace and settle into their jobs smoothly, they’re more likely to share their experience with others outside the company. This plug will attract more talented individuals seeking employment at a desirable work environment.

You can play an active role in this by encouraging your employees to share their experiences during their initial days at work.

Greater employee satisfaction

Employees who clearly understand their jobs and skills can make meaningful contributions to your company.

With proper mentoring and guidance, they’ll be equipped to handle various challenges in their roles and related areas.

Employee satisfaction can also be reflected through positive word-of-mouth reviews. When employees are proud of the company they work at, they inadvertently promote your brand.

Higher employee productivity

Onboarding is your chance to foster feelings of value and motivation in your employees, which increases their desire to contribute to the company’s success. Share company values and core beliefs from the start to help new hires adopt and become invested in these goals. As a result, their quality of work will improve.

This is also an excellent opportunity for HR managers to learn more about employees, their existing skill sets, and any gaps that need to be filled.

6 Keys to effective onboarding

Your onboarding process can affect employees’ quality of work, motivation, and passion throughout their time with your organization. Good onboarding will aid productivity, employee retention, and ensure individuals fit their roles well, which will improve business metrics.

Investing in your onboarding process is crucial to the success of your employees and your business overall. Take the following six suggestions to begin developing an onboarding program that drives value for your organization.

1) Prepare onboarding before the new hire begins

Even large companies struggle to set up processes, accounts, and access rights before an individual arrives. As a result, many new hires spend their first few days or weeks waiting for IT to finish creating accounts, granting permissions, or preparing computers. Complete these processes before the individual arrives so their first impression is a positive one.

If you can’t manage a seamless transfer of assets, consider scheduling the first few days for the individual to sit in on training, observe other teams, or otherwise handle responsibilities that don’t require those resources.

2) Mentor new hires

Mentoring is becoming a standard practice in onboarding. Assign a colleague or mentor to an individual who’s responsible for a new hire, will provide access to company culture and processes, and will share relevant information not found in the documentation.

Your mentors must understand their responsibilities and what they should impart so they can be helpful and ensure the new hire is given the information they need to succeed. Coaching also reveals important information about the new hire, including:

• The employee’s expectations for the job. Always address any questions or confusion a new hire may have about their job. Find out whether the job is what really interests them and see if you can build on that as they begin to work. 
• The employee’s expectations for professional growth. Some employees have specific professional development interests and ambitions. Recognizing and gathering relevant resources to support and build a plan for individual interests helps strengthen employee loyalty.
• Feedback on the employee’s performance. Consistent, constructive feedback can be extremely effective during onboarding because it sets expectations for everyone involved. It’ll give them a good basis of how to interact with the organization. 

Providing new hires with people to shadow, coaches, and mentors will give them the best tools for success.

3) Introduce new hires to (several) existing teams

Although most individuals will only work with a single team, it’s helpful to give them an overview of the organization.

Assign new people to a single team until they adjust to the company and their responsibilities. Then, consider giving them assignments on other teams over several days so the individual meets other colleagues. This ensures they can communicate with and access the most important resource in your organization: the people.

Rotating a new hire through several teams accomplishes several goals:

• The new hire gets the chance to experience the organization from multiple perspectives.
• It excites the new hire about how and where they’ll work.
• They better understand the organization and how their work fits into it and contributes to overarching goals.

One caveat: Wait to rotate a new hire through teams until they’ve had a chance to become comfortable in their role. They need time to settle in and figure things out before changing teams

4) Incorporate development

Ongoing development is crucial to continued growth, adaptability, and agility. So, make it part of the process from day one to ensure new hires stay equipped to excel at their jobs.

You can offer courses to bring individuals up to speed more quickly, introduce tooling they’re unfamiliar with, and provide other development opportunities to help individuals move into their new roles efficiently.

Training creates opportunities for advancement, provides a competitive edge in the jobs market, and improves employee efficiency. Employees are the cogs that make a company run smoothly, so they should be constantly improving. If you can implement helpful training from day one, it will become a normal and expected part of ongoing employment.

5) Make onboarding part of your business strategy

Your company strategy wields significant influence over your employees’ work experience. By making onboarding a key focus in your strategy, you can align the process with your business values and nurture a seamless experience for new hires.

Start by crafting a one-page strategic plan, then refine and share it with your workers. Keep this plan short to ensure your team reads and understands it. It’s also good practice to have a comprehensive strategy document that’s succinct enough for any shareholder to review and understand.

Tip: If your business relies on technical tools (e.g., SaaS or a web app), train all your team members to use it, even if they won’t directly interact with your software on a regular basis.

6) Establish follow-ups and touchpoints

It’s important to follow up onboarding processes at set periods, such as at three, six, and 12 months, to ensure the process was successful, there are no skill gaps, and the employee still fits the role and culture well. If not, you can introduce additional development, offer more mentoring, or consider moving an individual into a more suitable role.

Examples of effective touchpoints and follow-ups are:

• Schedule “bookend meetings” to check in with the new hire on the first day, week, month, and quarter. These should be 30 minutes at the start and end of each period to ensure everything is okay, concerns are being addressed, and the new hire has everything they need.
• Establish a list of regular tasks, goals (performance and stretch), and performance indicators the new hire can use as guidelines. Follow up on those to see if they’re effective and why or why not.
• Check in with growth opportunities, education, and to ensure the new hire has access to the resources, support, and equipment they need

Following up lets you gauge how new hires are adjusting to their roles, determine if they need additional support, and measure the efficiency of your onboarding process.

Onboarding tools

Good onboarding requires tools to manage new hires, share information, and track performance. In most cases, you can achieve this with your existing HR tooling and personnel management software. Some popular onboarding software solutions for this include:

• Workday
• BambooHR
• Namely
• Gusto
• ADP Workforce Now
• Freshteam
• Monday.com

The right solution for your organization will depend on your framework and your needs. For example, if you have existing personnel management software but need additional tools for performance management and development, adding tools like Profiles XT and competency frameworks might be a better option than starting over with new programs.

Knowledge base

An internal knowledge base is one of the most efficient onboarding tools you can invest in. It saves you time and effort in the long run, and once you have the basics written down, it’s only a matter of updating the details periodically. Most HR software platforms offer these in the form of self-service, which allows you to create easy-to-access portals inside the software your teams already use.

Quick training

A knowledge base lets you train new hires quickly. After their initial training, give them read-only access to your knowledge base and allow them to answer their own questions with this resource. If your managers find themselves repeating what they’ve said to new hires multiple times, introduce the knowledge base in their training session so employees can run through it.

Easily updated

When you need to put together a quick training email or explanation, a knowledge base is a convenient source to tap. It’s stored and accessible for ready use, and if you keep your knowledge base online, it’s easy to update by simply accessing the back end of the system. For example, if you keep everything in a private WordPress website, update and add new pages or posts as you see fit.

Accessible referencing

Your new hires won’t always be able to ask managers questions. However, by giving them access to a knowledge base, they can retrain themselves without taking up their colleagues’ or managers’ time. If employees feel their questions are too simple or obvious to ask, a knowledge base would also encourage them to find their own answers.

Tips for building a knowledge base

Before you commit to building a knowledge base, answer a few questions to gain a sense of direction:

• Is it a company-wide tool, or will you have specialized sections? Which department will it be for? Be sure to include relevant information only, otherwise your employees may skip over important items.
• Are teams able to suggest changes to their knowledge bases to update information as processes or software change?
• What medium will you use? Some companies invest in video knowledge bases, while web-based knowledge bases allow users to filter through the content with search terms and chapters.
• Who will be responsible for reviewing and updating the knowledge base? It’s important to keep it up to date to avoid sharing outdated information, so review the content regularly.
• Will it be internal, or open to others? Your clients may benefit from access (full or limited) to your knowledge base. If you open part of it to others, customers would be able to search through it to answer questions without needing to contact your support staff. On the other hand, if you keep your knowledge base (or at least part of it) internal, you’ll be able to include more sensitive information, such as business processes.

How AR and VR can help you onboard and train employees

Training and onboarding employees can be time-consuming and complex, but it’s a vital process for your company’s overall success. While HR specialists do their best to optimize these processes, they can’t predict how an employee will act in certain situations or how well they understand the company’s processes.

To fill this gap, more companies are implementing AR and VR technologies for training and onboarding. Although they’re usually associated with gaming, they’re also incredibly beneficial for businesses.

A look inside the company’s culture and processes

Ideally, every employee should have the chance to see the office, headquarters, and become familiar with internal processes. However, this won’t always be possible before making a hire, and if your employee is remote or on another continent, it won’t happen at all.

These circumstances make VR a great option during onboarding. One of the most popular uses of this technology is a virtual tour around the company’s office. This allows employees to see the company’s office, internal processes, and even meet personnel.

Not only does a VR tour enhance the employee-company connection, it also helps new hires feel engaged without ever stepping foot in the office.

More robust training and risk management

It’s the quality, not the quantity of training that makes an excellent employee. To enrich training and ensure employees know how to act in critical situations, companies use AR or VR technologies to recreate situations that teach employees to act and respond properly. It can even be used to train even soft skills.

One good example of this is Walmart: The company decided to use VR to prepare their employees for the holiday season with its long lines and huge crowds. This approach worked brilliantly as employees (especially the new ones) learned what to expect and were prepared to manage all sorts of customer issues professionally.

Interactive candidate assessment

Today, companies pay special attention to soft skills, but ordinary interviews and standard HR assessments are only one method to reveal a candidate’s personality. For example, when someone is aware they’re being interviewed, they tend to behave differently from their normal behavior.

Some companies use AR to overcome this problem and assess candidates in an unconventional way. Jaguar, for example, designed a fun mobile game with AR technology. The candidates would play the game while the company assessed their persistence, logical thinking, and problem-solving skills.

Caveats

Even though AR and VR technologies can add a lot to your onboarding and training processes, there are a few things to remember that’ll help you get the most out of these tools:

1. Define your goals. To benefit from AR and VR, you have to understand why you need it first. Analyze your processes, identify problem areas, and estimate whether the implementation of AR/VR will bring tangible benefits.
2. Don’t rush to use complex VR videos or massive AR apps. Start small and see how well the employees and candidates accept this innovation, then refine it according to their feedback. 

How to deliver training as part of onboarding

Whether introducing new work methods, new skills, or working on development, choosing the right training methods is important if you want to ensure proper adoption and absorption.

You will often deliver the same information to a group of individuals, whether in a group or one-on-one. Both options have their pros and cons, and the best option for the material you’re delivering will depend on the job role(s) and the skill(s) being taught.

Team training

Team or group training is one of the most common ways to push information to a large number of people, as most can conveniently learn together with a single teacher or coach.

Pros of team training

• Groups learn tasks and complete them together. Some studies show social factors influence learning, resulting in greater retention when learning skills.
• Groups learn together, reducing time investment and costs.
• Teams can give each other input and feedback, enriching learning.

Cons of team training

• Entire teams will be pulled off work at once.
• Social camaraderie can get in the way of learning topics by reinforcing resistance.
• Individuals who require special attention or different learning methods may not receive them.

Individual training

Individual training typically involves using a mentor or coach to teach a specific skill or behavior to an individual, coach them, or work on development one-on-one.

Pros of individual training

• Individuals can easily receive personalized attention, curricula, and coaching to ensure they’ll do their best.
• The coach or mentor can tackle the individual’s specific barriers and obstacles.
• Curricula can be tailored to meet the individual’s current knowledge, learning speed, and adaptability.

Cons of individual training

• Training one employee at a time can be time-consuming and expensive.
• Individual training doesn’t facilitate the same group/social retention of skills.
• Individuals who learn alone may not work as well in teams compared to those who learn in teams.

Choose a training option based on the purpose of the training, the information being taught, and how it’ll be implemented in the role(s). You may find team training provides a helpful baseline for most skills, and you can then follow up with individual coaching.

How to evaluate your employee onboarding program

Employee onboarding and ongoing development is especially important for organizations that use internal programs to foster desired behaviors and culture, offer perks and benefits, and encourage innovation. Whether you’re in the process of adopting a new employee training program or want to ensure your existing one meets standards, you need to put metrics in place to measure its efficacy.

This requires setting standards, typically in the form of either realistic goals and expectations or based on developer promises, and measuring their impact and results across your organization.

Establish needs and goals

First, identify the goal of the program, what the total estimated benefits are, and what you need most from it. This allows you to track ROI based on which items add value and which are simply “nice to have.”

Say you’re implementing a training program to introduce emotional intelligence with a main goal of improving workplace communication. If you don’t observe any improvement, the training is considered unsuccessful, even if other metrics increase.

Identify main goals by establishing the business need or result you expect or want to see from the program.

Identify key metrics

Key performance indicators (KPIs) measure the efficacy of your training and so should track directly to the results you hope to achieve from your program. They have to account for variables in work and the workplace (e.g., new hires who haven’t taken the training), especially when measuring success at an individual level.

Some KPIs might include employee retention, how often those hires meet their department goals and objectives, and the results of employee annual reviews.

To determine what KPIs you should measure, answer the following questions:

• What are the desired outcomes of the program?
• What behaviors should the training nurture?
• How do those behaviors manifest in work?
• How do those behaviors manifest in productivity?

If you rely on measurable data such as work performance or how work is completed to set KPIs, you can accurately gauge the value and effectiveness of your training.

Measure KPIs

Organizations often rely on a range of tools to measure training program KPIs, including surveys, polls, competitions or games, and data mining based on work completed. This may involve directly interviewing managers and team leads, asking individuals questions, and evaluating performance on the work floor. Other companies use specific evaluation models like the Kirkpatrick Model, which evaluates individual reaction, learning, behavior, and results based on targeted goals.

Training programs are increasing in popularity, with an estimated 14% year-over-year growth in the United States alone. However, you need to be able to measure results so you can track their efficacy, refine programs to offer more focused training, and follow up when a program fails to meet its expected goals.

Recruitment checklist: Ensure seamless interviews and onboarding for all parties

Recruitment can be convoluted, with different hiring managers, agencies, and team members involved. Sometimes your interview and onboarding process are spot on, resulting in a long-serving, high-performing employee; other times, it’s a disaster that yields expensive recruitment costs with no returns.

The checklist below will arm you with the necessary steps to structure your processes and guarantee a seamless interview and successful onboarding process for all hires.

Your recruitment processes should give new hires a clear idea of what’s expected of them and the kind of organization they’re joining. To provide clarity for candidates:

• Write comprehensive job descriptions that deliver a clear impression of the job and its responsibilities
• Be transparent about company policies like salary, scheduling, remote work, vacation, etc.
• Tell candidates about your hiring process, how long it takes, and when you’ll follow up
• Be transparent about reference checks, background checks, and potential assessments

Also, be sure to follow up early and often with candidates at each stage of the process, including letting people know when they aren’t moving on to the next phase.

Advantages of a structured hiring process

A structured interview and onboarding process has significant benefits for your company, the hiring manager and, most importantly, your new employee:

• It ensures consistency, meaning everyone is treated the same.
• It reduces errors, preventing oversights and overcoming forgetfulness.
• It creates a positive experience, making new employees more likely to stay.

Interview checklist

Although the event itself usually takes only an hour, its prep involves a significant amount of work behind the scenes. A successful interview process should be comprehensive, with detailed procedures established for before, during, and after the event.

Before the interview

Before holding the interview, you need to complete a few preparations beforehand, including:

• Draft the job description, outlining responsibilities, qualifications, and expectations.
• Include a qualifier in the job description (e.g. instructions to include a special word in the application).
• Involve the team that’ll receive the new hire in the recruitment process.
• Consult with the team that has an opening to learn their wants and needs.
• Ask the department head what the ideal candidate looks like.
• Determine the specific qualities you’re looking for in an ideal candidate, refreshing the job description if appropriate.
• Arrange a date, time, and location with the candidate and the interview panel.
• Book a meeting room and refreshments.
• Prepare the interview technique and questions you’ll ask and a scorecard to record responses.
• Review the candidate’s CV and application.
• Have people from the team take turns interviewing different applicants.
• Utilize assessments to match candidate skills and personalities to the team.
• Ask the candidate about any concerns they may have about taking the job.
• Ask the team about any concerns they have about the top three candidates.

During the interview

During the interview, it’s important to stick to an organized structure that involves:

• Welcoming the candidate and explaining the interview process
• Giving the candidate enough time to respond to your questions
• Asking the candidate for their questions
• Taking notes throughout the entire session
• Explaining the next steps

It’s important to put the candidate at ease and to ensure the interview stays on track and on time.

After the interview

Following the interview, you should meet with the rest of the panel promptly to discuss the candidate and decide whether they’re to be rejected, invited to a second-stage interview, or offered the position. It’s good practice to deliver feedback to all candidates, regardless of their success. Once you’ve selected a candidate:

• Call them to let them know they got the job.
• Send an email introducing the company and team more thoroughly.
• Have their future team introduce themselves and share one thing about them.
• Send any forms that need to be completed beforehand so their first day starts on the right foot (and with less paperwork).
• Assign a mentor to guide them through their first few days.
• Check in with the new hire regularly to discuss any concerns, offer praise, and gauge their adjustment.
• Check in with the team regularly to see how the new hire is contributing to the team.

Onboarding checklist

After you’ve selected your ideal candidate, you then need to onboard them. With 90% of employees deciding whether to stay with a company within the first six months, the onboarding process is extremely important. We recommend the following steps to provide an optimal experience for your new hires.

Before the start date

Prior to their first day, stay in regular contact with your new hire and complete any prep work to ensure they can start work without hassle. Some best practices are:

• Send a welcome letter that includes their contract and any paperwork that needs to be completed.
• Conduct pre-employment checks, like contacting references.
• Send the employee their induction plan, along with information on where to go on the first day and who to ask for help.
• Arrange for all tools, equipment, logins, and permissions to be ordered and granted.

One to two weeks before the new hire’s first day:

• Prepare their employee paperwork. Consider including the following policies and forms for new employees to fill out and sign:

• An Employment Agreement
• NDA (when relevant)
• An employee handbook or a link to the knowledge base
• IRS form W-4
• IRS form I-9

• Set up online accounts:
  • Company email
  • HRIS software
  • Password manager (LastPass, etc.)
  • Work management software (e.g., Asana, Jira, Trello)
• Set up technology:
  • Laptop/Desktop
  • Monitors
  • Phones
  • Peripherals
  • Headsets
• Confirm phone numbers and add contact data to relevant databases.
• Order parking garage tokens, access cards, etc.
• Schedule introductory meetings with teams and key colleagues.
• Encourage teams to reach out to their new colleague before the start date.
• Schedule an HR onboarding meeting.
• Plan a first assignment with the people the new hire will work with directly.
• Schedule any required training.
• Send your new hire any maps, meeting details, or schedules they need for their first day.

On the start date

A structured approach to the new employee’s first day will ensure everything goes as smoothly as possible. Provide your new employee with:

• Someone at the office to greet and show them around, offer a tour, etc.
• An assigned mentor, coach, or buddy who’ll have lunch with them for at least the first week
• A schedule for the first few days in office
• A welcome meeting with the team, manager, and direct collaborators
• Time to sit down and review paperwork
• A formal onboarding meeting with benefits, holidays, policies, etc.
• Downtime to set up technology and accounts

The first few months

Your onboarding process continues well after the new hire’s first day. During their first few months at your company, it’s imperative you:

• Have a structured induction plan that eases the new employee into their role and responsibilities, introduces them to other departments, includes necessary training, and gives them an overview of how the whole company works
• Schedule regular catch-up sessions to see how they’re adjusting and to gather feedback on your induction process
• Set goals and expectations for the first period
• Create a roadmap of key projects over the first quarter
• Request feedback and respond to requests by providing help or input
• Ensure training and development opportunities are available as skills gaps arise

You’ll obviously have to adapt this checklist to your specific roles and personnel. Leadership roles also tend to need more coaching and mentoring than entry level positions. However, a general checklist is a great starting point that you can customize based on the individual.

Wrapping up – Invest in employee onboarding to set your team up for success

Onboarding is your first formal touchpoint with an employee. It gives them the foundation to perform their role, acquaints them with who they’ll work with, and allows you to implement a strategy that introduces tools, behaviors, information, and organizational knowledge for the new hire to succeed. Be thorough in your onboarding process, and your employees will feel equipped to transition into their new role and begin contributing to your company’s goals.