6 Ways Freelance Writers Can Brand Themselves to Better Profits

You hear it everywhere. You see it on Pinterest, on Facebook and on Twitter. Whats staring you in the face day after day? Branding. What the heck is it and why do freelance writers need it? If youre new to freelance writing and working from home, one thing youll need to start developing early on is your signature brand. Your brand is what will set yourself apart from all other writers in the same niche as you. It starts with who you are and what you want to portray to your online audience. Maybe you are adventuresome so you want to come off as a flexible person who likes to dive into new projects. Or, maybe you are analytical and like to see the big picture before you make a commitment. Your brand also carries across all platforms and remains consistent. And one of the biggest components to your brand is the visual component. This is what people will see and they will learn to associate that with you as a freelance writer. Lets quickly look at some visual representations of different brands from freelance writers before we talk about how to create profitable brands. Writing Revolt Jorden Roper has an awesome visual brand. She has fuchsia colored hair, isnt shy to curse, and has a knack for design and comics. Wanderful World Lizzie Davey is a travel freelance writer and she has an eye for design. To me her brand is built around strong colors and a strong framework. This is a new look for Lizzie, and I like it a lot! Brent Jones Online Brent Jones has got it down when it comes to being consistent with his brand tone. He definitely knows what look he wants to portray – strong and masculine. Okay, so now youve visually seen different brands from freelance writers. So why is this so important in making more money? Your brand conveys a more professional look. Freelance writing is a business and if your website or social media profile looks like its just a hobby, good luck getting paid to write. Your visual brand gives others the impression that you are committed to your business. Many new freelance writers give up before they really give this a try. When you create a solid brand, people quickly realize youre here to stay. Without a clear brand look, youre going to have a hard time commanding a higher rate. Its just that simple. Would you want to pay someone $200 for a blog post with the email address [emailprotected]? Probably not. Clients want to work with other professional freelance writers. Its that simple. If youre struggling   to land high-paying clients, one area you could work on is your brand. Here are six ways you can brand yourself to better paying freelance writing jobs. 1. Your Author Bio For many, your author bio is just a place to feature links to your website or portfolio and explain what you do. But, to stand out and inject some branding into it, create an author bio thats memorable. Lets look at a couple of author bios with a little bit of branding to them: Henneke Duistermaat is an irreverent copywriter and marketer. She’s on a mission to stamp out gobbledygook and to make boring business blogs sparkle. Get her free 16-Part Snackable Writing Course for Busy People and learn how to enchant your readers and win more business. KeriLynn Engel is a copywriter content marketing strategist. She loves working with B2B B2C businesses to plan and create high-quality content that attracts and converts their target audience. When not writing, you can find her reading speculative fiction, watching Star Trek, or playing Telemann flute fantasias at a local open mic. Cherese Cobb was raised in Knoxville, Tenn. A graduate of Maryville College, she has a B.A. in psychology and art. A bibliophile, she considers herself a professional student, as she has an insatiable curiosity. When shes not writing for newspapers, blogs, or magazines, she splits her time between family, poetry, and cat-worship, and uses coffee to survive all three. Each of these examples tells you a bit about who the writer really is. Are they geeky, funny, gentle or kind? There are many prospects that are seeking writers with that certain edge. If you can convey that in your author bio, you can land more clients. 2. Your Headshot Its been proven that showing your face can improve conversions by 95%. Thats how important it is to have a picture of yourself on your website, on social media, and if you want, in your email signature. You have to remember that prospects need to trust you. I mean, they are paying money for your words and thats a big thing for many people. Having a headshot breaks the ice, develops trust and eases prospects minds into giving you their hard earned cash. Wondering what makes a good headshot? Natural light Clean background Appropriate clothing Personable look You dont need a professional to take a photo of you; my husband took my headshot while we were at a park. The point is, instead of hiding behind an avatar or scenic photo for your freelance writing business, use a headshot of you. And dont be afraid to add some personality in your photo. It could be a hairstyle, makeup look, type of clothing you wear or where you decide to take your photo. This will help prospects feel more comfortable in hiring you for a content gig. 3. Your Website Design One of the best tools for your freelance writing business – and one I talk about heavily in my Writeto1k course – is hands down a website. You need to direct prospects somewhere, and a website dedicated to your services is perfect. There are many ways to attract clients with your professional site, but one way is with your brand. Recently I rebranded my services website, Innovative Ink. Since Im still somewhat new to freelance writing – Ive only been doing this since 2014 – Im still trying to find my signature look and I think Ive found it. From the color to the copy to the logo, Ive finally figured out something that converts regularly. Your website can demonstrate: Your credibility as a writer through your portfolio and testimonials Your expert knowledge via your copy and samples Your experience via your client list and guest posts And when you have a brand tied to that   – brand color, logo font, headshot, about page – prospects will get a better picture of who you are and what you can do for them. This translates into a better income for you! Win-win! 4. Your Writing One thing about freelance writing is the ability to write in your voice (unless youre ghostwriting for a client). You may not realize it, but each writer has a certain way of forming sentences, conveying thoughts and the examples used in their writing. For example, I often start my sentences with coordinating conjunctions – and, or, but. I also like to us en dashes rather than em dashes. Finally, I tend to stick to certain sites for references. Since Im in the digital marketing niche, citing examples from Hubspot, Melyssa Griffin, Neil Patel, Mariah Coz, or Kissmetrics is common for me. Even if youre a writer in the digital marketing niche, you may have other sites you refer to based on your preferences and knowledge of this niche. By improving your writing and research skills, over time you will adopt a style of writing that prospects like and seek to find in their writers. 5. Your Social Media Profiles Do you have a Twitter or Facebook account? One way to brand yourself is with your social media profiles. It doesnt have to have your logo or same look as your website, but it does have to have the same tone of your overall brand. Alicia Rades does this well with her Twitter banner. She uses the same color scheme and font on her website to create her social media banner. Since Alicia is a freelance writer and author, this banner says it all! For me, early on I decided to market my product rather than my service for my social media profiles. I may change this later, but for now Im just getting the word out about my course. 6. In Your Visuals Many of these tips have been with visuals. So, what do I mean here? If you have a blog for samples and growing your audience, a great way to infuse your brand is with your blog post images. If you noticed on my blog, Im actually starting to do this for ElnaCain. Before I found a beautiful image and treated each image as separate from my brand. But ever since I started branding Twins Mommy and working hard on a Pinterest strategy, I realized how beneficial branding your images can be. People will immediately recognize your post based on your image Youll develop authority in your niche simply because your branded images look better and are more cohesive Branded images stand out in the Pinterest smart feed While I love playing with script fonts and colors, I have other blogs where I can unleash my creativity. I chose one font, one look and one color for my feature images for this blog. One thing to remember is to always add your URL to your images as this is the number one way to start branding them! To get started with branding your images you can use free image editors like Canva or Picmonkey or invest in getting a Photoshop membership for around $9.99 per month. Learn More About Branding I didnt go into creating your brand or how to develop a vision board for your brand. These are things I learned from other awesome branding bloggers. If you are interested in creating a profitable brand, check out these ladies: Nesha Woolery The Branded Solopreneur Crown Fox She Builds Over to you – if youve developed a brand, tell me how you use it in your freelance writing business!

Challenges of Conducting Interviews

Challenges of Conducting Interviews Introduction Among the most important inputs of any firm is the human capital or labor force, who oversees the whole production process. Labor determines the productivity of a given firm and in some cases, the sales capacity where employees are involved in the marketing process. It is important therefore, to get the right choice of employees in the workforce of the firm and encourage them to perform to their best.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Challenges of Conducting Interviews specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More During job recruiting exercises, it is important that every step is taken carefully to ensure objectivity high standards are applied. However, in many instances human resource managers make various mistakes which may lead to loss of a valuable employee or inclusion into the workforce of the company an employee who is more of a liability than an asset. These mistakes mostly occur during interview process and needs to be identified and addressed accordingly. Human Resource Department Any organization has the human resource department, which is involved with the hiring process and the welfare of the employees while they are working for the organization. It is upon the human resource manager to ensure that the employees that are included in the workforce of the organization are the best qualified in the society (Daly 75). On top of that, employees who are not given the best working conditions tend to reduce their productivity rate hence the human resource managers should ensure that employees are satisfied with how they are treated. With the increase in competition, both locally and globally on the need for qualified employees and for customers, human resource managers must play a central role in ensuring that other than employing the best brains, retention of employees is given emphasis (Daly 98). Human resource managers need to be mentors and coaches of the employees to guide them toward s achieving highest productivity while at the same time they should be able to develop talents amongst the employees (Dale 47). Most importantly, human resource managers have to influence key decision making in an organization as well as being able to propel the organization culture among the employees so as to boost the firm’s output. Job Interview This is a process in which the prospective employee is evaluated by the prospective employer or a mandated party on behalf of the prospective employer to ascertain whether the employee is qualified for the position. In many cases, it comes after the employee has applied for the position in question, and the interview panel or person therefore has some clue about the identity of the interviewee (Billsberry 58). Interview is the main tool of choosing the best employee and requires immense resource investment from the employer. Interviews can range from one session to several sessions depending on the importance of the position being interviewed for to the organization and the kind of a person being sort for (Jenkins 110). Contrary to the notion that interview always helps in identifying the best qualified candidate, there have been many situations where this has not been the case hence bringing in a point of unreliability.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More This is due to various inadequacies of the interviewing party on carrying out their job leading to loss of absolute due diligence (Yeung 103). It is rather difficult to identify the talents of an individual or how to maximally tap the potential of a person during interview given that the environment itself is tense and it is difficult to know a person’s true picture. In order to evaluate the interviewee interview, question need to test on mental ability, personal character, experience, interests and ability to be ingenious (Lussier 241 ). Challenges Faced During Interviews Many of us think that interview is challenging to the interviewee because this is the person who is going to be the subject during the whole process, but on the contrary even the interviewers are faced with the dilemma of determining the right way of conducting the interview (Lussier 233). The interviewer is faced with the task of employing the best talent from the whole lot of people who will attend the interview and should therefore strategize a way of evaluating who is best qualified candidate. They are expected to be as objective as possible and at the same time to be fair to all people and conduct the exercise in a manner that put the interests of the organizations first (Billsberry 60). The Right Question Dilemma Determining the type of questions that should be asked during the interview process is the first nightmare that faces the human resource managers since they have to ensure that only the right questions are asked. The kind of quest ions needs to be as simple as possible, while they also need to bring out the required response which will enable the interviewer to evaluate the candidate accordingly (Dale 165). The human resource managers also find themselves asking questions that dwell too much on the private life of the candidates which sometimes makes the candidate feel embarrassed. Too brief questions also tend to obscure useful information that could have been depicted later on and most human resource managers are faced with the dilemma of determining the right length of questions to be asked (Yeung 55). In conjunction with that, the human resource managers mostly do not know how to get information of how the employee will perform under pressure without stressing the candidate during the interview process (Jenkins 189). Often, human resource managers in a move not to look too stringent to candidates do not know how to ask some questions which seem to be tough therefore compromising the recruiting process. Il legal Questions The most challenging part of preparing for an interview by the human resource manager is perhaps avoiding of asking illegal questions. The reputation of the organization lies at stake if the interviewers are unable to structure questions in a manner that would not seem illegal (Dale 157). Wording of a question can make a genuine question turn illegal hence the language used should be given emphasis to ensure it does not distort the meaning of the questions.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Challenges of Conducting Interviews specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Some types of questions are also illegal by their nature or by the nature of the answers they require the candidate to provide (Brisciana 28). To some extent, what is important to be known to the organization when asked in a certain way is illegal for example age. Being gender insensitive or biased, concentrating too much on the privacy of individu al and asking questions which seem to be cultural based is also illegal. Stereotyping Due to so circumstances preceding the interview process sometimes the human resource managers can make prejudged assumptions about an individual concerning the ability or even experience about the job (Yeung 93). If an employee is coming from an organization which is considered successful, there is a tendency of assuming that the candidate must be experienced and hence qualified for the job. Sometimes, the answers received to first questions tend to instigate stereotyping in the minds of the human resource managers to prejudge the candidate as either a failure or successful person. Stereotyping also manifests itself when the human resource managers end up using one interviewee as a cornerstone to evaluate another one who comes after. There is also a possibility of some human resource managers having negative attitude towards a certain group of people due to their gender, academic status and cultura l background among other factors (Jenkins 193). It then becomes a challenge for the same person to be fair to any candidate who happens to fall in the group they stereotype hence not being able to actually recruit the best talent. It should be noted that, stereotyping compromises the ability of an interviewer to objective during the interview process which in turn jeopardizes the possibility of getting the best candidate. Prior experience with a certain person or group of people mostly leads to stereotyping (Daly 56). However, stereotyping is not a personal problem as it has been shown by recent researchers but rather a common thing among human beings. Since it is difficult to understand peculiarities associated with different people grouping and categorizing is inevitable and this leads to stereotyping. Recommendations The first thing that should be avoided during interview process is to avoid questions that give the candidate a hint of what is being sort for. These questions will not only make the candidate aware of the answer that is best suited to earn him/her the job, but will not earn the interviewer an honest answer.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Questions that put too much pressure on the candidate will frustrate the interviewee and generate a bad employer employee relationship incase the same person is employed in the organization (Dale 45). On the same note, it is not practically possible to create the same kind of difficult situations that the employee will face in the real work environment during the interview process. Therefore, friendly but trick questions which test the ability of the employee to solve complex situations are very helpful. Interviewers are also advised to ask challenging questions without discrimination to everyone who attends the interview so as to be able to determine who is best qualified. Research has shown that even those interviewees who seem to be nervous from the onset can turn out to be the best employees when given a challenging situation to tackle (Brisciana 53). Questions that will make the candidates give answers that have much of â€Å"maybes† are not fit because they may not be a ssessing the candidates adequately. Furthermore, Questions that ask the candidate too much about the current employer or worse which want to show what a bad employer the candidate is currently working for compromise the reputation of the organization. These questions also waste the rime that could have been used to do other parts of the interview. Therefore, questions must be tailored at bringing out the potential, ability, qualifications and talent of the employee in a friendly but strictly professional environment. Appertaining illegal questions, Gender sensitivity is very vital during the interview exercise therefore, questions which tend to sexually discriminating should be avoided. For example, asking a female candidate whether she will be able to work with male employees is illegal as it discriminates women (Billsberry 73). Questions that may require the candidate to name his / her nationality or ethnic background should be avoided as they go against the employment law that re quires one to be employed on the basis of qualifications and not ethnicity. On the other hand, though it is important to have enough background information about the candidate, privacy should be respected and therefore questions that require answers that have to do with financial status, family background and age should be avoided. Though age is important, outright asking the candidate to state the age is illegal, this information can be found from official documents that the candidate will present. Due to the wide spread effect of stereotyping, group interviewing is paramount as only the average is done and is quite difficult for many people to look at the same people negatively (Lussier 289). Answers to the first questions should not distract the interviewer’s attention on how subsequent questions are answered since most people will be able to answer first questions superbly but fail to meet the threshold for the later questions. It also helps to evaluate each individual pe rsonally and not as per another person because if the person used as a guide was not qualified then slightly improved case will look like a genius when in reality both of them do not meet the desired minimum. The set of questions to be asked should be prepared before the interview process is commenced and should be done with someone who is not aware of who the interviewees are or will be. Every interviewee should be asked the same set of questions including the tough and challenging questions without discrimination this will amaze on what they reveal concerning the interviewees (Yeung 78). An interviewer who is aware of the stereotype he/she has towards a certain category of people should avoid taking the section that will require him/her interview on the same section. Conclusion Other factors of production are assembled and controlled by the employees present in the organization. The more the qualified and experienced labor force is present in the firm, the higher the rate of produ ctivity hence the need to maintain experienced workforce while at the same time ensuring that the best talented are recruited. Recruiting the wrong people may impact negatively on the organizational culture, productivity and returns hence the great care should be accorded the recruitment process. Billsberry, Jon. Experiencing Recruitment and Selection. Hoboken, NJ: John Willey and Sons, 2008. Print. Brisciana, Michael. Safe and Effective Faculty Recruitment, Retention, and Dismissal Practices: A ISM Handbook for Private-Independent Schools. Wilmington: Independent School Manageme, 2008. Print. Dale, Margaret. Managers Guide to Recruitment and Selection. London: Kogan Page Publishers, 2004. Print. Daly, John. Human Resource Management in the Public Sector: Policies and Practices. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2011. Print. Jenkins, Richard. Racism and Recruitment: Managers, Organizations and Equal Opportunity in the Labour Market. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Print. Lussier, Robert N. Management Fundamentals: Concept Applications and Skills Development. Manson: South-Western, 2011. Print. Yeung, Rob. Successful Interviewing and Recruitment. London: Kogan Page Publishers, 2008. Print.

Challenges of Conducting Interviews

Challenges of Conducting Interviews Introduction Among the most important inputs of any firm is the human capital or labor force, who oversees the whole production process. Labor determines the productivity of a given firm and in some cases, the sales capacity where employees are involved in the marketing process. It is important therefore, to get the right choice of employees in the workforce of the firm and encourage them to perform to their best.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Challenges of Conducting Interviews specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More During job recruiting exercises, it is important that every step is taken carefully to ensure objectivity high standards are applied. However, in many instances human resource managers make various mistakes which may lead to loss of a valuable employee or inclusion into the workforce of the company an employee who is more of a liability than an asset. These mistakes mostly occur during interview process and needs to be identified and addressed accordingly. Human Resource Department Any organization has the human resource department, which is involved with the hiring process and the welfare of the employees while they are working for the organization. It is upon the human resource manager to ensure that the employees that are included in the workforce of the organization are the best qualified in the society (Daly 75). On top of that, employees who are not given the best working conditions tend to reduce their productivity rate hence the human resource managers should ensure that employees are satisfied with how they are treated. With the increase in competition, both locally and globally on the need for qualified employees and for customers, human resource managers must play a central role in ensuring that other than employing the best brains, retention of employees is given emphasis (Daly 98). Human resource managers need to be mentors and coaches of the employees to guide them toward s achieving highest productivity while at the same time they should be able to develop talents amongst the employees (Dale 47). Most importantly, human resource managers have to influence key decision making in an organization as well as being able to propel the organization culture among the employees so as to boost the firm’s output. Job Interview This is a process in which the prospective employee is evaluated by the prospective employer or a mandated party on behalf of the prospective employer to ascertain whether the employee is qualified for the position. In many cases, it comes after the employee has applied for the position in question, and the interview panel or person therefore has some clue about the identity of the interviewee (Billsberry 58). Interview is the main tool of choosing the best employee and requires immense resource investment from the employer. Interviews can range from one session to several sessions depending on the importance of the position being interviewed for to the organization and the kind of a person being sort for (Jenkins 110). Contrary to the notion that interview always helps in identifying the best qualified candidate, there have been many situations where this has not been the case hence bringing in a point of unreliability.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More This is due to various inadequacies of the interviewing party on carrying out their job leading to loss of absolute due diligence (Yeung 103). It is rather difficult to identify the talents of an individual or how to maximally tap the potential of a person during interview given that the environment itself is tense and it is difficult to know a person’s true picture. In order to evaluate the interviewee interview, question need to test on mental ability, personal character, experience, interests and ability to be ingenious (Lussier 241 ). Challenges Faced During Interviews Many of us think that interview is challenging to the interviewee because this is the person who is going to be the subject during the whole process, but on the contrary even the interviewers are faced with the dilemma of determining the right way of conducting the interview (Lussier 233). The interviewer is faced with the task of employing the best talent from the whole lot of people who will attend the interview and should therefore strategize a way of evaluating who is best qualified candidate. They are expected to be as objective as possible and at the same time to be fair to all people and conduct the exercise in a manner that put the interests of the organizations first (Billsberry 60). The Right Question Dilemma Determining the type of questions that should be asked during the interview process is the first nightmare that faces the human resource managers since they have to ensure that only the right questions are asked. The kind of quest ions needs to be as simple as possible, while they also need to bring out the required response which will enable the interviewer to evaluate the candidate accordingly (Dale 165). The human resource managers also find themselves asking questions that dwell too much on the private life of the candidates which sometimes makes the candidate feel embarrassed. Too brief questions also tend to obscure useful information that could have been depicted later on and most human resource managers are faced with the dilemma of determining the right length of questions to be asked (Yeung 55). In conjunction with that, the human resource managers mostly do not know how to get information of how the employee will perform under pressure without stressing the candidate during the interview process (Jenkins 189). Often, human resource managers in a move not to look too stringent to candidates do not know how to ask some questions which seem to be tough therefore compromising the recruiting process. Il legal Questions The most challenging part of preparing for an interview by the human resource manager is perhaps avoiding of asking illegal questions. The reputation of the organization lies at stake if the interviewers are unable to structure questions in a manner that would not seem illegal (Dale 157). Wording of a question can make a genuine question turn illegal hence the language used should be given emphasis to ensure it does not distort the meaning of the questions.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Challenges of Conducting Interviews specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Some types of questions are also illegal by their nature or by the nature of the answers they require the candidate to provide (Brisciana 28). To some extent, what is important to be known to the organization when asked in a certain way is illegal for example age. Being gender insensitive or biased, concentrating too much on the privacy of individu al and asking questions which seem to be cultural based is also illegal. Stereotyping Due to so circumstances preceding the interview process sometimes the human resource managers can make prejudged assumptions about an individual concerning the ability or even experience about the job (Yeung 93). If an employee is coming from an organization which is considered successful, there is a tendency of assuming that the candidate must be experienced and hence qualified for the job. Sometimes, the answers received to first questions tend to instigate stereotyping in the minds of the human resource managers to prejudge the candidate as either a failure or successful person. Stereotyping also manifests itself when the human resource managers end up using one interviewee as a cornerstone to evaluate another one who comes after. There is also a possibility of some human resource managers having negative attitude towards a certain group of people due to their gender, academic status and cultura l background among other factors (Jenkins 193). It then becomes a challenge for the same person to be fair to any candidate who happens to fall in the group they stereotype hence not being able to actually recruit the best talent. It should be noted that, stereotyping compromises the ability of an interviewer to objective during the interview process which in turn jeopardizes the possibility of getting the best candidate. Prior experience with a certain person or group of people mostly leads to stereotyping (Daly 56). However, stereotyping is not a personal problem as it has been shown by recent researchers but rather a common thing among human beings. Since it is difficult to understand peculiarities associated with different people grouping and categorizing is inevitable and this leads to stereotyping. Recommendations The first thing that should be avoided during interview process is to avoid questions that give the candidate a hint of what is being sort for. These questions will not only make the candidate aware of the answer that is best suited to earn him/her the job, but will not earn the interviewer an honest answer.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Questions that put too much pressure on the candidate will frustrate the interviewee and generate a bad employer employee relationship incase the same person is employed in the organization (Dale 45). On the same note, it is not practically possible to create the same kind of difficult situations that the employee will face in the real work environment during the interview process. Therefore, friendly but trick questions which test the ability of the employee to solve complex situations are very helpful. Interviewers are also advised to ask challenging questions without discrimination to everyone who attends the interview so as to be able to determine who is best qualified. Research has shown that even those interviewees who seem to be nervous from the onset can turn out to be the best employees when given a challenging situation to tackle (Brisciana 53). Questions that will make the candidates give answers that have much of â€Å"maybes† are not fit because they may not be a ssessing the candidates adequately. Furthermore, Questions that ask the candidate too much about the current employer or worse which want to show what a bad employer the candidate is currently working for compromise the reputation of the organization. These questions also waste the rime that could have been used to do other parts of the interview. Therefore, questions must be tailored at bringing out the potential, ability, qualifications and talent of the employee in a friendly but strictly professional environment. Appertaining illegal questions, Gender sensitivity is very vital during the interview exercise therefore, questions which tend to sexually discriminating should be avoided. For example, asking a female candidate whether she will be able to work with male employees is illegal as it discriminates women (Billsberry 73). Questions that may require the candidate to name his / her nationality or ethnic background should be avoided as they go against the employment law that re quires one to be employed on the basis of qualifications and not ethnicity. On the other hand, though it is important to have enough background information about the candidate, privacy should be respected and therefore questions that require answers that have to do with financial status, family background and age should be avoided. Though age is important, outright asking the candidate to state the age is illegal, this information can be found from official documents that the candidate will present. Due to the wide spread effect of stereotyping, group interviewing is paramount as only the average is done and is quite difficult for many people to look at the same people negatively (Lussier 289). Answers to the first questions should not distract the interviewer’s attention on how subsequent questions are answered since most people will be able to answer first questions superbly but fail to meet the threshold for the later questions. It also helps to evaluate each individual pe rsonally and not as per another person because if the person used as a guide was not qualified then slightly improved case will look like a genius when in reality both of them do not meet the desired minimum. The set of questions to be asked should be prepared before the interview process is commenced and should be done with someone who is not aware of who the interviewees are or will be. Every interviewee should be asked the same set of questions including the tough and challenging questions without discrimination this will amaze on what they reveal concerning the interviewees (Yeung 78). An interviewer who is aware of the stereotype he/she has towards a certain category of people should avoid taking the section that will require him/her interview on the same section. Conclusion Other factors of production are assembled and controlled by the employees present in the organization. The more the qualified and experienced labor force is present in the firm, the higher the rate of produ ctivity hence the need to maintain experienced workforce while at the same time ensuring that the best talented are recruited. Recruiting the wrong people may impact negatively on the organizational culture, productivity and returns hence the great care should be accorded the recruitment process. Billsberry, Jon. Experiencing Recruitment and Selection. Hoboken, NJ: John Willey and Sons, 2008. Print. Brisciana, Michael. Safe and Effective Faculty Recruitment, Retention, and Dismissal Practices: A ISM Handbook for Private-Independent Schools. Wilmington: Independent School Manageme, 2008. Print. Dale, Margaret. Managers Guide to Recruitment and Selection. London: Kogan Page Publishers, 2004. Print. Daly, John. Human Resource Management in the Public Sector: Policies and Practices. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2011. Print. Jenkins, Richard. Racism and Recruitment: Managers, Organizations and Equal Opportunity in the Labour Market. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Print. Lussier, Robert N. Management Fundamentals: Concept Applications and Skills Development. Manson: South-Western, 2011. Print. Yeung, Rob. Successful Interviewing and Recruitment. London: Kogan Page Publishers, 2008. Print.

Challenges of Conducting Interviews

Challenges of Conducting Interviews Introduction Among the most important inputs of any firm is the human capital or labor force, who oversees the whole production process. Labor determines the productivity of a given firm and in some cases, the sales capacity where employees are involved in the marketing process. It is important therefore, to get the right choice of employees in the workforce of the firm and encourage them to perform to their best.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Challenges of Conducting Interviews specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More During job recruiting exercises, it is important that every step is taken carefully to ensure objectivity high standards are applied. However, in many instances human resource managers make various mistakes which may lead to loss of a valuable employee or inclusion into the workforce of the company an employee who is more of a liability than an asset. These mistakes mostly occur during interview process and needs to be identified and addressed accordingly. Human Resource Department Any organization has the human resource department, which is involved with the hiring process and the welfare of the employees while they are working for the organization. It is upon the human resource manager to ensure that the employees that are included in the workforce of the organization are the best qualified in the society (Daly 75). On top of that, employees who are not given the best working conditions tend to reduce their productivity rate hence the human resource managers should ensure that employees are satisfied with how they are treated. With the increase in competition, both locally and globally on the need for qualified employees and for customers, human resource managers must play a central role in ensuring that other than employing the best brains, retention of employees is given emphasis (Daly 98). Human resource managers need to be mentors and coaches of the employees to guide them toward s achieving highest productivity while at the same time they should be able to develop talents amongst the employees (Dale 47). Most importantly, human resource managers have to influence key decision making in an organization as well as being able to propel the organization culture among the employees so as to boost the firm’s output. Job Interview This is a process in which the prospective employee is evaluated by the prospective employer or a mandated party on behalf of the prospective employer to ascertain whether the employee is qualified for the position. In many cases, it comes after the employee has applied for the position in question, and the interview panel or person therefore has some clue about the identity of the interviewee (Billsberry 58). Interview is the main tool of choosing the best employee and requires immense resource investment from the employer. Interviews can range from one session to several sessions depending on the importance of the position being interviewed for to the organization and the kind of a person being sort for (Jenkins 110). Contrary to the notion that interview always helps in identifying the best qualified candidate, there have been many situations where this has not been the case hence bringing in a point of unreliability.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More This is due to various inadequacies of the interviewing party on carrying out their job leading to loss of absolute due diligence (Yeung 103). It is rather difficult to identify the talents of an individual or how to maximally tap the potential of a person during interview given that the environment itself is tense and it is difficult to know a person’s true picture. In order to evaluate the interviewee interview, question need to test on mental ability, personal character, experience, interests and ability to be ingenious (Lussier 241 ). Challenges Faced During Interviews Many of us think that interview is challenging to the interviewee because this is the person who is going to be the subject during the whole process, but on the contrary even the interviewers are faced with the dilemma of determining the right way of conducting the interview (Lussier 233). The interviewer is faced with the task of employing the best talent from the whole lot of people who will attend the interview and should therefore strategize a way of evaluating who is best qualified candidate. They are expected to be as objective as possible and at the same time to be fair to all people and conduct the exercise in a manner that put the interests of the organizations first (Billsberry 60). The Right Question Dilemma Determining the type of questions that should be asked during the interview process is the first nightmare that faces the human resource managers since they have to ensure that only the right questions are asked. The kind of quest ions needs to be as simple as possible, while they also need to bring out the required response which will enable the interviewer to evaluate the candidate accordingly (Dale 165). The human resource managers also find themselves asking questions that dwell too much on the private life of the candidates which sometimes makes the candidate feel embarrassed. Too brief questions also tend to obscure useful information that could have been depicted later on and most human resource managers are faced with the dilemma of determining the right length of questions to be asked (Yeung 55). In conjunction with that, the human resource managers mostly do not know how to get information of how the employee will perform under pressure without stressing the candidate during the interview process (Jenkins 189). Often, human resource managers in a move not to look too stringent to candidates do not know how to ask some questions which seem to be tough therefore compromising the recruiting process. Il legal Questions The most challenging part of preparing for an interview by the human resource manager is perhaps avoiding of asking illegal questions. The reputation of the organization lies at stake if the interviewers are unable to structure questions in a manner that would not seem illegal (Dale 157). Wording of a question can make a genuine question turn illegal hence the language used should be given emphasis to ensure it does not distort the meaning of the questions.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Challenges of Conducting Interviews specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Some types of questions are also illegal by their nature or by the nature of the answers they require the candidate to provide (Brisciana 28). To some extent, what is important to be known to the organization when asked in a certain way is illegal for example age. Being gender insensitive or biased, concentrating too much on the privacy of individu al and asking questions which seem to be cultural based is also illegal. Stereotyping Due to so circumstances preceding the interview process sometimes the human resource managers can make prejudged assumptions about an individual concerning the ability or even experience about the job (Yeung 93). If an employee is coming from an organization which is considered successful, there is a tendency of assuming that the candidate must be experienced and hence qualified for the job. Sometimes, the answers received to first questions tend to instigate stereotyping in the minds of the human resource managers to prejudge the candidate as either a failure or successful person. Stereotyping also manifests itself when the human resource managers end up using one interviewee as a cornerstone to evaluate another one who comes after. There is also a possibility of some human resource managers having negative attitude towards a certain group of people due to their gender, academic status and cultura l background among other factors (Jenkins 193). It then becomes a challenge for the same person to be fair to any candidate who happens to fall in the group they stereotype hence not being able to actually recruit the best talent. It should be noted that, stereotyping compromises the ability of an interviewer to objective during the interview process which in turn jeopardizes the possibility of getting the best candidate. Prior experience with a certain person or group of people mostly leads to stereotyping (Daly 56). However, stereotyping is not a personal problem as it has been shown by recent researchers but rather a common thing among human beings. Since it is difficult to understand peculiarities associated with different people grouping and categorizing is inevitable and this leads to stereotyping. Recommendations The first thing that should be avoided during interview process is to avoid questions that give the candidate a hint of what is being sort for. These questions will not only make the candidate aware of the answer that is best suited to earn him/her the job, but will not earn the interviewer an honest answer.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Questions that put too much pressure on the candidate will frustrate the interviewee and generate a bad employer employee relationship incase the same person is employed in the organization (Dale 45). On the same note, it is not practically possible to create the same kind of difficult situations that the employee will face in the real work environment during the interview process. Therefore, friendly but trick questions which test the ability of the employee to solve complex situations are very helpful. Interviewers are also advised to ask challenging questions without discrimination to everyone who attends the interview so as to be able to determine who is best qualified. Research has shown that even those interviewees who seem to be nervous from the onset can turn out to be the best employees when given a challenging situation to tackle (Brisciana 53). Questions that will make the candidates give answers that have much of â€Å"maybes† are not fit because they may not be a ssessing the candidates adequately. Furthermore, Questions that ask the candidate too much about the current employer or worse which want to show what a bad employer the candidate is currently working for compromise the reputation of the organization. These questions also waste the rime that could have been used to do other parts of the interview. Therefore, questions must be tailored at bringing out the potential, ability, qualifications and talent of the employee in a friendly but strictly professional environment. Appertaining illegal questions, Gender sensitivity is very vital during the interview exercise therefore, questions which tend to sexually discriminating should be avoided. For example, asking a female candidate whether she will be able to work with male employees is illegal as it discriminates women (Billsberry 73). Questions that may require the candidate to name his / her nationality or ethnic background should be avoided as they go against the employment law that re quires one to be employed on the basis of qualifications and not ethnicity. On the other hand, though it is important to have enough background information about the candidate, privacy should be respected and therefore questions that require answers that have to do with financial status, family background and age should be avoided. Though age is important, outright asking the candidate to state the age is illegal, this information can be found from official documents that the candidate will present. Due to the wide spread effect of stereotyping, group interviewing is paramount as only the average is done and is quite difficult for many people to look at the same people negatively (Lussier 289). Answers to the first questions should not distract the interviewer’s attention on how subsequent questions are answered since most people will be able to answer first questions superbly but fail to meet the threshold for the later questions. It also helps to evaluate each individual pe rsonally and not as per another person because if the person used as a guide was not qualified then slightly improved case will look like a genius when in reality both of them do not meet the desired minimum. The set of questions to be asked should be prepared before the interview process is commenced and should be done with someone who is not aware of who the interviewees are or will be. Every interviewee should be asked the same set of questions including the tough and challenging questions without discrimination this will amaze on what they reveal concerning the interviewees (Yeung 78). An interviewer who is aware of the stereotype he/she has towards a certain category of people should avoid taking the section that will require him/her interview on the same section. Conclusion Other factors of production are assembled and controlled by the employees present in the organization. The more the qualified and experienced labor force is present in the firm, the higher the rate of produ ctivity hence the need to maintain experienced workforce while at the same time ensuring that the best talented are recruited. Recruiting the wrong people may impact negatively on the organizational culture, productivity and returns hence the great care should be accorded the recruitment process. Billsberry, Jon. Experiencing Recruitment and Selection. Hoboken, NJ: John Willey and Sons, 2008. Print. Brisciana, Michael. Safe and Effective Faculty Recruitment, Retention, and Dismissal Practices: A ISM Handbook for Private-Independent Schools. Wilmington: Independent School Manageme, 2008. Print. Dale, Margaret. Managers Guide to Recruitment and Selection. London: Kogan Page Publishers, 2004. Print. Daly, John. Human Resource Management in the Public Sector: Policies and Practices. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2011. Print. Jenkins, Richard. Racism and Recruitment: Managers, Organizations and Equal Opportunity in the Labour Market. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Print. Lussier, Robert N. Management Fundamentals: Concept Applications and Skills Development. Manson: South-Western, 2011. Print. Yeung, Rob. Successful Interviewing and Recruitment. London: Kogan Page Publishers, 2008. Print.