What are some best practices for conducting video interviews?

Keep Them Brief: Video interviews should be shorter than in-person interviews. The best interviews lasted between 20 and 30 minutes.

Set Expectations: A video interview may be a new experience for some of your prospects. Start the interview with a brief summary on how the interaction will be structured.

Ask Permission to Take Some Notes: Losing eye contact during a video meeting makes the interaction feel a little cold. Letting prospects know you'll be looking away to jot down some notes (and it's OK for them to do the same) makes it feel less awkward.

Follow a Predefined Structure: Your 30 minutes will go by fast, so it is important to break the interview into segments. Our segments were setting expectations (2 minutes), open-ended questions (8 minutes), standard questions (8 minutes), answering the prospects questions (5 minutes), closing the interview (5 minutes).

Offer Options for Moving Forward: If you believe a prospect has good potential, offer several options for moving forward in the recruiting process. People like choices, and it's important to get a commitment to take the next step before disengaging.

What video conferencing service do you recommend for online interviews?

If your company does not already have an online video meeting solution, I’d recommend setting up a free Zoom account for conducting interviews in the weeks ahead.

Zoom offers unlimited one-on-one meetings (perfect for an interview).

Zoom also allows you to establish a personal meeting ID. Your unique meeting URL helps your recruiting prospects to quickly connect to your online meeting.

Finally, Zoom permits prospects to connect via phone or computer audio. Even if technical problems keep the video from working, you can still have a conversation with your prospect (similar to a phone interview).

How long should I wait before reaching back out to a recruiting prospect I lost to a competitor?

According to researchers, 43% of new hires leave a job because it wasn’t what they were expecting.

Those you previously interviewed are worth contacting 3-6 months after they are hired by a competitor.

Most agents will not reach back out to you, but they will reveal their dissatisfaction if you can get them talking.

It's also worth noting how vulnerable your own new hires are during the first few months on your team.

If your promises are not being kept, they'll be disappointed and look for other options.

Expectations are powerful-especially when they're not being met.

How do you tell if an recruiting prospect has enough entrepreneurial spirit to make a good agent?

Podcaster Summer Suleiman recently shared some ideas on how to recognize this trait in the prospects you're evaluating. Here are some of my notes on the topic:

They're persistent. Launching a business is a marathon, not a sprint. It requires stamina, and while some ideas work, more often they don't. Look for the pattern of try, fail, and try again.

They're adaptive. Successful entrepreneurs are willing to quickly try a different approach when something isn't working.

They're confident. Every successful entrepreneur who built a great enterprise started with a crazy idea. This attitude (believing in a possibility) is the foundation for those who are successful.

They're trustworthy. The success of an entrepreneur often hinges on building trust. Those who are investing in a new business bet on individuals who are trustworthy and first-time clients do the same.

If a person possesses these traits, it will typically show up in their background and work history.

During your interviews, ask open-ended questions designed to uncover what may be obvious-both to you and the person you’re interviewing.

How much recruitment marketing/advertising does it take to get one new agent hire?

Jobvite recently published their annual recruiting benchmark report and some of their findings relates to this topic.

The report synopsizes the employment behaviors of more than 50 million jobseekers.

For a paid job ad, it takes about 18 clicks (someone reading your ad) to get one application.

If you have a career site, website visitors will typically need to visit/interact with 6 pages before completing an application.

You'll need to capture about 8 applications in order to schedule one interview and it will take about 4 interviews to get one hire.

The overall top-to-bottom conversion (any contact on the "top" to a hire on the "bottom") is 0.56% (178 contacts to 1 hire).

The average time to hire is 38 days.

How do I address specific feature questions from recruiting prospects during an interview?

When recruiting, many hiring managers offer quick fixes intended to relieve symptoms.

Prospect: My current broker doesn't provide leads…

Hiring Manager: We can provide you leads… (under his breath–for a fee and they won't be very good quality)

This approach doesn't address the underlying problem.

Why is the prospect lacking leads? Have they built a database? Are they doing activities to generate leads on their own? Why are people not referring business to this person?

The most effective recruiters go after the underlying causes of the pain.They act more like health/wellness coaches and less like doctors.

How do I retain the agents on my team?

Try conducting some retention interviews.

What's a retention interview? It's a face-to-face meeting with an existing agent discussing the reasons they’re staying with the organization.

According to recruiting expert Penny Fletcher, they're becoming more common in today's workforce because it's a practice that benefits both the company and those working on the team.

Here are a few ways these benefits play out.

Feeling Heard and Valued. Agents want to be noticed and recognized for their ideas. This is a safe way for them to express their thoughts.

Patterns Emerge. After a few of these interviews, some patterns (both positive and negative) may become apparent. If multiple agents are saying the same thing, it's worth listening.

Source of Testimonials. Since recruiting is competitive, it's helpful to have a reserve of testimonials from real agents who love working on your team. Stay interviews are a natural way to capture these testimonials.

Interestingly, pay issues rarely surface during these interviews.

You'll typically here things like a need for more recognition, more opportunities for leads from the company, and more hands-on support.

These are the things you need to hear and improve if you expect your agents to stick with you over the long run.