Written by Carl Freelove, Marketing Manager, Big fish Recruitment

Happy New Year from Big fish Recruitment and welcome to our first client newsletter of 2008.

With 2007 already a distant memory, the beginning of the New Year is a perfect time to turn the page and begin planning those all important recruitment strategies for 2008.

However, if you’re looking to attract and develop top talent this year, have you taken the time to think about your interviewing techniques and how important it is for your business?

In today’s vibrant job market, where decent marketing, creative and PR professionals are in particularly short supply, good candidates often find that they attract multiple job offers.

It’s therefore vital that you use your candidate interviews to really showcase the employment opportunities on offer, highlight future career paths and benefits and give candidates a feel of the company culture.

Follow these tips if you want to use interviews to attract the best:

1. Consider using 'competency-based' (also sometimes called 'behavioural' or 'situational') interviewing techniques to improve the accuracy of the interviewing process and help identify the right candidates for the job. Competency-based behavioral interviewing allows you to make predictions about a candidate’s future success based on actual past behaviours, instead of responses to hypothetical questions.
2. Use personality testing to see whether a candidate’s character suits the position. Personality testing typically measures psychological characteristics, including personality, motivation, career interests and intellectual abilities.
3. Consider using ability/aptitude tests to assess a person's present capability and specific job-related abilities (e.g. numerical tests, setting the candidate a marketing or creative brief to work on etc)
4. Attitude assessment. Ask candidates what they like about the job they are being interviewed for and why they’re applying to a particular firm. Look for clues to their personality, character and professionalism.
5. Consider what is unique about your company or opportunity. Are you accredited by Investors in People? Have you won any industry awards lately?

There's nothing more frustrating than having a job offer refused by your ideal candidate so make sure you dedicate part of the interview to selling the career opportunity and telling the candidate about the benefits. Be an ambassador for your company - talk it up!