Questions For Recruiters: Getting Prepared For Those Post Interview Questions

By Francine Fluetsch on March 12, 2015

When you are holding an interview, you are used to having to come up with questions to ask students that might be your potential new employees.

But are you ready to answer their questions?

image via www.advfund.com

Some might be too shy to ask at the end of the interview when you deal your line of, “so, do you have any questions for me?” But others might be itching with questions about the job itself and the work environment.

Below you’ll find a list of a few common questions, so you’ll be able to already have some answers in the back of your mind.

“What’s the policy on getting days off?”:

This question will definitely come your way if you don’t provide the employees with a fixed schedule. If it is bound to change every week, students aren’t able to plan around events as much, which may result in having to ask for a day off.

Letting them know how many days off they are allowed in a certain time period, if they themselves need to get shifts covered or if the company will do that for them, and how sick days work, is essential for the working college student to know.

If you also have a strict policy about being late (will the late days add up somehow?) and no-shows, make sure to let them know as well.

image via Norm Wright on flickr.com

Many might be out of town for holidays and such, especially if they live far from their families. Will this effect their getting hired since many jobs will have blackout days around the holiday season? A student will need to know ahead of time if they won’t be able to get their holidays off, since it might make them not want the job.

“What specific tasks would I perform on a normal day?”:

Students will want to know how they will be spending roughly eight hours of their day, and getting into the details of it will help them prepare for the job. If you tell them that the majority of their time will be spent talking and assisting customers, they know that they should brush up on their social skills and mentally prepare themselves to deal with the good (and the bad) that comes with working with customers.

Are they going to be doing a lot with computers? They might need to get used to the programs you use, so knowing how involved they will be in any given activities will help their performance.

“What are extra tasks that will be part of the job?”:

Do they have to drive to the bank to deposit money? Do they have to do heavy lifting when shipment comes in? Will they be expected to stay after hours on given days if it gets really busy? Will they be required to attend employee meetings, if any?

Though these tasks may not occur as often, it is important that the students know all aspects of what to expect when working for your company.

“How much training will I need?”:

Depending on the place, training can go from a couple of days to a couple months, and since training usually consists of different hours than actually working, this is a question that you will most likely receive if it wasn’t already addressed.

Will the employee need to memorize certain things? Will they have to take online quizzes? (We had to do this at the boutique I worked for). Also, a big question that will go with this is whether or not they are going to get paid for the training. In most cases, the answer is yes, but if not, you’ll definitely want to make sure that they know.

“Are you flexible with a school schedule?”:

Students are on quarter and semester schedules, so once they get their new set of classes, they might not be able to work the same hours that they were doing previously. Will this bother you or will it be okay?

Flexibility with school also means that if finals are coming up, they may want to work a lot less, or hardly work that week so they can focus on their grades. They might be a bit nervous to ask this from you, since they don’t want to be a problematic candidate for the job, but knowing that this is an issue that will worry students will help you be able to decide beforehand if this is a problem or not.

The thing is, even if students try to make their schedule the same, a lot can go wrong since picking classes is a lot harder now than it seems, so scheduling conflicts can and will happen if you decide to hire a student.

“How does the company measure performance?”:

At my retail job, though we didn’t get commission, we still had to keep our sales up, and our main measure of performance was trying to get customer’s emails, which we all hated because we all know how annoying it is to get asked for yet another spam email.

Does your company set goals that the employees have to meet, or are they more like friendly reminders of how the employees should be doing? Are rewards given for great performance? How much does the customer’s opinion weigh into the performance level of the employee?

Give the students something to strive for and you will definitely see wonderful results. If making the company’s month goal results in getting a bonus, your employees will work that much harder, so knowing how you measure performance is essential to them, and to you.

These are just a few questions to think about from the student’s perspective. Happy recruiting!

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