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Some Of The Weirdest Questions Candidates Are Asked At Job Interviews

September 28th, 2017 | Posted by ATS in Careers | HR | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software - (Comments Off on Some Of The Weirdest Questions Candidates Are Asked At Job Interviews)

Sometimes you have to wonder if hiring managers throw oddball questions at candidates to come off as being quirky or they are simply going through great lengths to appear smarter than they really are. And, while some of these oddball questions might be part of a corporate playbook and, a way to test a candidate’s analytic and thinking skills some of them are just weird.

A list of aptly named, strange interview questions is compiled by Suzanne Lucas in her article 10 of the Strangest True Interview Questions.

  • “When a hot dog expands, in which direction does it split and why?” –SpaceX Propulsion Structural Analyst job candidate (New York, NY).
  • “Would you rather fight 1 horse-sized duck, or 100 duck-sized horses?” –Whole Foods Market Meat Cutter job candidate (Lexington-Fayette, KY).
  • “If you’re the CEO, what are the first three things you check about the business when you wake up?” – Dropbox Rotation Program job candidate (San Francisco, CA).
  • “What would the name of your debut album be?”–Urban Outfitters Sales Associate job candidate (New York, NY).
  • “How would you sell hot coco in Florida?”–J.W. Business Acquisitions Human Resources Recruiter job candidate (Atlanta, GA).
  • “If I gave you $40,000 to start a business, what would you start?”–Hubspot Account Manager job candidate (San Francisco, CA).
  • “What would you do if you found a penguin in the freezer?”–Trader Joe’s job candidate (Orange, CA).
  • “If you were a brand, what would be your motto?”–Boston Consulting Group Consultant job candidate (Washington, D.C.).
  • “How many basketballs would fit in this room?”–Delta Airlines Revenue Management Co-op job candidate (Cincinnati, OH).
  • “If you had $2,000, how would you double it in 24 hours?”–Uniqlo Management Trainee job candidate (Los Angeles, CA).

Maybe, some of these companies are trying to pick the best and brightest mind from their list of candidates and that’s one of the ways to select the true creative genius out of the pack. And as for the candidates, the best advice is to be prepared for anything.

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6 Tips To Ace Your Phone Interview

September 26th, 2017 | Posted by ATS in Careers | HR | Productivity | Recruitment - (Comments Off on 6 Tips To Ace Your Phone Interview)

Many of today’s companies are now using telephone interviews for the hiring process. It’s often used as a way to gauge a prospective candidate’s interest and also figure out if there is a fit before conducting a face-to-face interview. In some cases, the telephone interview will be one of several interviews a candidate will need to go through before they are hired by a company.

Telephone interviews are also used by companies as a way to screen applicants, and if you don’t make it past the telephone interview, chances are, you won’t be invited for another one. In her most recent article, The HR Digest Presenting tips for phone interview with a step-by-step guide Diane Booker offers some wonderful advice for would-be job seekers on the best approach to you use when doing a phone interview.

Here are those 6 tips to help you ace that interview

Step 1: a heads-up about the company
Irrespective of the nature of the job interview, it is necessary for the candidate to do his research. You must have enough knowledge about the company and what kind of services it offers. Read about the company in such a manner that you get an idea of the kind of duties you will be assigned according to your job profile.

Step 2: make notes
When we have a face-to-face interaction with a person, we pay more attention to the conversation and have our doubts clarified accordingly. While on a telephonic conversation, we might miss out on some factors. This is why it is important to jot down a list of questions you would like to ask the employer beforehand. Such a practice is to avoid any misconceptions and to make sure that all your doubts are clarified.

Step 3: stay hydrated
For a usual job interview, your attire, body language, and facial expressions help create an impact on the interviewer. But on a phone interview, you only have your voice and intonations to strike an impression. To make sure that you succeed at doing so, the most basic thing to do is stay hydrated. Have a glass of water before the expected time of the phone call. By doing so, your voice will sound clear and you will be able to articulate your thoughts well. Having water will also calm down your nerves.

6 Tips To Ace Your Phone Interview

Step 4: keep your documents in front of you
The HR of the company you have applied to might have already asked for your documents and CV through email. These documents will also be presented to your interviewer. Based on this, he will ask you questions. To help you answer these questions smoothly, keep a copy of all these documents in front of your throughout the interview.

Step 5: pick a spot for your phone interview
To make sure that the interviewer’s questions are audible during the interview, pick a quiet spot. This spot must be such that it’s devoid of external disturbances and has excellent cell phone reception. Preferably, this place can be a part of your home which you are well accustomed to. Make sure that none of the musical devices in the house are on and close the doors and windows to avoid further disturbances.

Step 6: smile, even if it’s not visible
A number of psychological studies have proven that a smile can have a positive effect on the person you are interacting with. But is it applicable to a telephonic conversation as well? Absolutely. If you smile while talking, the person at the other end of the phone call can recognize the smile in your voice. This will work in your favor. And also make sure you are calm. Be confident and you will nail the phone interview with some simple tips!

Telephone interviews can be tricky since all you have to rely on is the voice of the person on the other end. And, because of that, you cannot afford to make mistakes, if you do make one, it might be forgiven but too many of them can will lead to failure of a second interview and ultimately the job.

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What Modern Workforce Management Means For Your Business

September 20th, 2017 | Posted by ATS in ATS TimeWork OnDemand | Business Intelligence | Employee Scheduling | Labour Costs | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | Time and Attendance Canada | Time and Attendance Toronto - (Comments Off on What Modern Workforce Management Means For Your Business)

Since business runs on talent, growing companies need effective workforce management solutions that work, and work well. Manual calculation of employee hours and spreadsheets can result in costly over or under-staffing and unpaid overtime hours, which in turn, can lead to low staff morale. As a business grows, it demands more effective business automation tools—without adding unnecessary maintenance, deployment time, and cost. Organizations need solutions that speeds up HR processes and systems so they are strong enough to meet workforce needs today, but innovative enough to adapt in the future.

What Modern Workforce Management Means For Your Business

If you have already made workforce adjustments to proactively prepare for the upcoming labour changes by lawmakers across the North American, you might be fine. But, what if you haven’t and you are still scrambling to deploy a time and attendance that can adapt to upcoming employment standards act and other workforce regulations?

Here’s what you can expect from an ATS TimeWork OnDemand Solution

  • Simplify scheduling tasks with ATS Workforce Planning tool — to create and manage schedules anywhere, from any web-enabled device
  • Improve staff accountability – easily assign and track job costing projects
  • Enable employees to request time-off, check vacation balances and banked time, from anytime, anywhere  — clock-in/out, and view messages left by management on any mobile device
  • Reduce labour costs through utilization of ATS Forecasting & Budgeting module so you can gain better control over your business by knowing, at any time if you are running over or under budget
  • Ensure compliance with regulatory requirements through automated alerts— to managers, when overtime or other thresholds are at risk

ATS TimeWork OnDemand gives growing businesses the critical information they need to optimize their workforce. ATS TimeWork OnDemand delivers science infused workforce management— that results in real-time business intelligence designed to— inform decisions and provide a high return on investment.

To learn more, go to our website and download a demonstration, or call 866.294.2467.

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How Can A Time And Attendance Solution Help Your Company With Employment Laws?

September 13th, 2017 | Posted by ATS in Employee Time and Attendance | Overtime | Predictive Scheduling | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | Time and Attendance Canada | Time and Attendance Toronto - (Comments Off on How Can A Time And Attendance Solution Help Your Company With Employment Laws?)

The rise of the minimum wage, new employment laws and predictive scheduling are just a few of the most recent workplace compliance that many of today’s organizations are struggling to manage. An effective time and attendance solution can be significant a time saver, while also allowing operational managers to access data in

real-time—thus, providing them with a complete picture of employee overtime and hours worked at their fingertips. Here is a quick synopsis of what you can expect from an ATS Time and Attendance solution.

How Can A Time And Attendance Solution Help Your Company With Employment Laws?

Robust and Purpose-Built
At the core of ATS Time and Attendance is a database engine that designed to handle the business requirements of every industry. With ATS time and attendance solution, employee can perform different job tasks, review overtime and shifts from by accessing the employee self-service or through one of the ATS data collectors. The Workforce Analytics dashboard is a treasure trove of data that — when mined carefully — reveals important information on forecasting and actual versus hours scheduled. It’s the difference between making decisions on gut feeling and making them based on facts.

Improved Productivity
 scheduling and personal time-off requests are an important part of retaining a productive workforce. The companies that offer employees flexible work hours and also accommodate time-off requests for personal and professional needs are generally desired companies to work for.

Workforce Compliance
Does your company or industry have to deal with collective bargaining agreements, have different locations across several jurisdictions with separate labour laws? For example, unionized employees may have a maximum number of hours that they are allowed work per week or month. In other cases, corporate policy may dictate that employees cannot work more than a maximum number of hours per pay period. Whatever exceptions that are unique to your organization, ATS time and attendance solution can be configured to meet those requirements and ensure that you are in compliance. The system will accurately calculate premium hours, statutory holidays and job tracking and manage overtime.

If you are looking for ways to improve productivity in the face of rising labour costs, tight margins and competition, tracking employee time and attendance by paper, will drive costs up, not the other way around.

To learn more about ATS Time and Attendance, go to our website. You can also register for one of our bi-monthly webinars or download a demonstration. To reach ATS by phone, call 866.294.2467.

 

 

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The Work Is Important And The Compensation Should Reflect That As Well

September 6th, 2017 | Posted by ATS in Careers | HR | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software - (Comments Off on The Work Is Important And The Compensation Should Reflect That As Well)

Just scan the Internet and you will find a plethora of sites giving advice on how potential employees should approach the conversation of compensation during an interview. Many of these published articles suggest using a tepid approach, while others go insofar to suggest that the topic should addressed by the candidate only after the employer brings it up. In other words, discuss everything else, but when it comes to subject of compensation, simply dance around it. No human being is going to work for free or for less than they worth, and if they do, it won’t be for very long, regardless the size of the company or its perceived stature.

The Work Is Important And The Compensation Should Reflect That As Well

Why then is it that some companies, are interested in discussing a  candidate’s qualifications for the job that they are trying to fill, yet remain reluctant to discuss the compensation at the onset or deemed it as being rude if the candidate brings it up? At ATS, one of the first things our recruiters address is the compensation. And why not, the candidate has obviously read the job description otherwise, they would not (at least we hope) have applied for the position. Our recruiters say this approach to dealing with compensation, puts the candidates at ease and they can go about discussing the other areas of the job as it relates to the candidate suitability.

A wonderful and recent post by titled; We Want Meaningful Work and a Meaningful Paycheck by Ted Sackett, for TLNT.com sums up employee compensation debate this way;

“I’m going to stop fighting. For years I’ve been fighting morons who claim that millennials would rather do “meaningful work” than making money. That is actually one big lie, I believe perpetuated by employers who don’t want to pay market wages! (Conspiracy Theory Alert!!!) Actually, it showed up on a bunch of studies that were poorly worded and confusing.

The reality is money matters until it doesn’t.

Millennials and almost any other human on the planet would love to do work that is “meaningful” and something they enjoy doing. That isn’t rocket science. But, if you’re not at least making a fair market wage, money is the most important thing for the majority of people.

The studies that said millennials would prefer meaningful work over money, didn’t make it clear about the money. It was put to them as if it was a decision about “more” money or “meaningful” work, what would they choose. The perception being that you are already making “good” money, so now what do you want? More money, or meaningful work, or something else. In that case, the majority of people choose other things because we don’t want to come across as greedy.”

The fair compensation debate has been boiling beneath the surface for quite some time and has morphed into proposed wage hikes across several jurisdictions. And, this has left the pro and those against wage hikes, tied up in knots.

Bottom line:

Everyone wants to be in a job that values their skills and where they also feel a sense of belonging. We are, after all, social creatures. However, it is just as important, that candidates feel they are being fairly compensated. Otherwise, all you will be left with is a revolving, high turnover door.

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