Unanswered Qusestions

Dear HR Manager / Headhunter,

You always had many questions to ask candidate during a personal interview. But unless you made meticulous notes on the candidate’s text resume printout beforehand, you tend to forget (to ask), quite a few.

And, unfortunately, the text resume itself cannot answer your questions!

Whereas, a “Profiles”, not only raises relevant questions, our graphical / relational presentations, even answers most.

Listed below, are these questions that “Profiles” asks – and answers too!

Career History

• What is his total experience? Does this match with the experience required for our position/vacancy?

• During this “total experience”, how many jobs has he changed ?

• Does he seem to be a “job-jumper” ?

• Does he seem to have stuck to the same organization for a long time? What could be the reason?

• Does he seem to have stuck at the same “Designation – Level “ for a long time ? Was he “un-promotable” ?

• He seems to have got very frequent promotions /salary-raise. Does he come through as a “Fast Track” candidate?

• Given his “Average/Longest/Minimum” tenure with the companies where he worked, how long can we expect him to stay with us ?

• He is in his current job for less than a year. Why is he keen to quit within such a short period?

• Is he platueing? i.e. rose very rapidly in early years but now seems to have slowed down.

• In terms of the size/turnover/reputation of the companies where he has worked, does he seem to have steadily “progressed”? Are there any reversals? i.e. leaving a large/organized company to join a small/family owned company.

• Has he spent his entire career in one city or is he mobile?

• Does his “Total Years of Experience” tally with his current age ? If not, does he seem to have “inflated” his experience ? Or, he should have got 20 years of experience by now, but graph shows only 12 years ! Has he failed to “list” some “unfavorable” tenures? e.g.: where his services were terminated or where the service was “temporary/contractual” ?

• Did any of the companies that he worked for, belong to his father/relative? If so, what was his designation/salary during such tenure? Was that commensurate with his qualifications/experience?

• During his career, were there any periods of “self-employment” ? If so, has he listed those in his “Career History” section? What factors made him “start/give-up” such self employment?

Salary

• He seems to have picked-up a huge salary-jump, everytime he changed jobs. What kind of salary-increase would he expect us to offer to motivate him to change ? Can we afford ? Would that upset a lot of our existing employees and demotivate them ? Would we be upsetting the apple-cart ?

• Has his salary kept pace with his rise up the career ladder ? Is his salary lagging behind/ way ahead of a majority of his co-professionals ? How does it compare with similar professionals in our organization ?

• What seems to be his “trade-off” between

a) Salary

b) Designation Level ?

Would he be prepared to accept

. Same salary ( his current salary ), if offered a higher/better designation ?

. Same designation ( his current designation ), if offered a higher salary ?

Academic Inputs

• At what age did he pass

. SSC

. HSC

. Bachelor’s Degree

. Master’s Degree

Do these seem reasonable ?

• What no. of years did he take to pass

. Bachelor’s Degree

. Master’s Degree

Does he seem to have taken longer than stipulated period? Could he have failed once – or more?

• Were any of these qualifications obtained through “Correspondence – Course” ? or through “Part-time study” in evenings ? If so, for how long ?

• What about the educational institutions/universities that he attended? Are these recognized/reputed/accredited institutions?

• Why did he not pursue higher studies in the same institution/university ? Why did he have to go to another state/country ?

• Is there an “overlap” between

. Completion of his education, and

. Start of his first job ?

If yes, how did he manage that ?

• If there is a substantial “gap” between

. Completion of his education and

. Start of his first job

Then, what did he do during that period ?

• He seems to have obtained more than one degree/diploma during the same year. How did he manage that ?

Dear HR Manager,

Are there any questions that profiles fail to answer? If so, please send me an email. Who knows, we may manage to develop a better/different profiles that manage to answer your question!

- Rahul