Do you ever consider the time and effort you take to recruit, screen, and hire your staff? Running an ad is just the beginning of a long process that includes screening applications and setting up interviews with those who make the initial cut. Then, of course, applicants show up one by one to meet with whoever is conducting the interview. There is typically a discussion about where the applicant worked before, what his skills are, and why he wants to work for your company. The interviewer will probably spend a fair amount of time explaining what the company expects from employees and going over policies — work hours, dress codes, benefits, vacation, and pay. By the time you hire someone, you've likely spent many hours talking to people you would not want to hire or who may not want to work for you anyway once they know what the job entails.

If you're lucky, you may be able to hire people who have been referred to you by employees, subs, or someone who knows your business. While you have a better chance of finding a good employee through referrals, the problem is that you can't always get a referral when you need one. So, like most contractors, you probably have to advertise open positions.

Consider Group Interviews

Before starting my construction company, I had a previous career as the human resources (HR) manager for a large mental health center. One of my duties was to recruit and hire new employees. This task might have overwhelmed me had I not stumbled across an article in a personnel journal about how to speed up the recruiting process by performing group interviews.

Most people hear the phrase "group interview" and picture one job applicant sitting down to talk with a number of people from the company that's hiring. But when I say group interview, I'm talking about inviting eight or 10 applicants to come in at the same time and meet with a couple of people from our company. I used this method to hire people when I was an HR manager and continue to practice it today.

A group interview saves time, eases scheduling, and allows you to see potential employees in a different light than usual. Because most applicants have never done an interview like this before, we tell them in advance that other applicants will be present.

At the interview meeting, we tell the gathered applicants the same things we would normally tell them one-on-one — what we expect from employees and what the company policies are concerning behavior, pay, and benefits. We also give applicants the opportunity to ask questions. This part of the interview usually lasts about 30 minutes. After the group phase, we meet with each applicant in private. I like to do this in the order they arrived. We've already gone over what the company is looking for, so the individual interviews take only five to 10 minutes. This is the time for applicants to sell themselves and handle any personal or confidential issues.

Deciding whom to hire. I usually have my office manager or lead carpenter sit in on the group part of the interview. Afterward, I'll sit down with the other staff person who was there and compare notes. In most cases we agree about which applicants to proceed with. At this point, we may have further questions and want to ask an applicant in for a second interview.

Once we have collected all the information we reasonably can (which includes checking references), we do a "gut" test. Does our intuition tell us that this person is going to work out? Many of the contractors I know give carpenters a two-week trial before deciding whether they want to keep them on.

Faster and Better

The main reason I like the group interview is that it saves a lot of time: I can screen five to 10 applicants in 60 to 90 minutes, whereas the traditional process would take at least three times that long. When we set the time for the meeting, we usually give people a week's notice and schedule it at the end of a workday, so that most candidates can be there. This saves us from having to make multiple calls to coordinate the schedules of the interviewer and applicants. If someone fails to show up, it doesn't blow our schedule, because there are still the other applicants to talk to.

Some applicants may hear what we have to say to the group and decide not to stick around for an individual conversation. That's great, because it saves me from having to talk to someone who has already decided he doesn't want the job.

You can also learn a lot about people by observing them in a group. I like to step back and see how job candidates interact and communicate with each other. If an applicant is antisocial, he probably would not be a good fit for my company, because the team members have to interact with one another and also with clients.

I find it much easier to compare applicants when I have them there at the same time. And since it's not much trouble to add one more person to the group, I can bring in applicants I'm not quite sure about and risk only another five or 10 minutes of my time.