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The importance of candidates motivation

The importance of candidate motivation

Motivation is key in the work environment; as a general rule, a motivated worker performs much better. He also tends to be more committed to the organization and to foster the corporate culture.

Have you ever realized that a good recruiter can make or break a company’s efforts to attract new and committed employees? It is in your hands to hire people who have a high level of motivation even before they join the company.

Therefore, when interviewing a prospective employee, the recruiter should obtain answers to the following two questions:

  • What are the reasons that lead the candidate to change jobs?

  • What do you value most in a job?

This information can be extracted in several ways. The most immediate is to ask directly. Failing that, a question can be asked that, in addition to answering the previous two questions, gives us a fairly complete picture of the applicant’s work history: why have you had X number of jobs in Y years?

Keep in mind that there is nothing inherently positive or negative about changing jobs. Only the reasons behind these changes should be relevant in determining whether to hire.

On the other hand, there are many ways to deduce the degree of motivation of a job applicant. Each recruiter has his own tricks to achieve this. Even so, we want to share a method that has caught our attention because it is very complete.

Improve employee motivation

This method is taken from a popular blog called Ask the headhunter. In it, Nick Corcodilos, blog author and headhunter, presents a very clever approach. His approach is to consider the candidate interview as the candidate’s first day on the job. This proposal is summarized in a single question of great added value but which, nevertheless, few interviewers dare to ask: what is your plan for doing this job?

In order for the interviewee to be able to give us a quality answer, it is highly advisable to warn us about this task well in advance (perhaps start the interview by indicating that one of the objectives of the meeting would be to give an answer to this question). It is also important to make it clear to him exactly what is expected of him. The ultimate goal is for the person to provide us with a series of steps – suitably argued – that he or she would take to solve the company’s problems. Even if the data on which his proposals are based are inaccurate, the candidate should defend them intelligently.

So, if the candidate demonstrates a remarkable understanding of the organizational culture and competitors and shows some pre-interview research, you already have multiple compelling reasons to hire him or her.

Because the research task to be performed is laborious, with this question it is possible to immediately distinguish those people with a high level of motivation from those who do not. In addition, the proposals offered by the applicants are valuable information to evaluate their knowledge and possible fit with the company.

And you: Do you have a method to measure the motivation of a candidate before hiring him/her?

By the way, if you liked this article, you will surely find it interesting to read our post Combating burnout, in which we explain the symptoms and solutions to combat burnout.

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