Deck the Halls, it’s time to get those holiday promotions ready! All business owners know the holiday season can be the busiest time of year. And sometimes you need some extra help in the form of seasonal workers.

Rare is the person who enjoys the process of finding new employees. It requires job postings, interviews, offers, paperwork, training, and hosts of other steps. However, the interview is the most important step in all of this. It’s a chance to learn about a potential new employee. But it’s also a chance for the candidate to learn about your company. The candidate gets just as much from a job interview as you do. The hiring process is a two-way street with both sides contributing to the equation. It’s important to create a good experience to bring out the best in a candidate. They also want to get the best from you to evaluate if they want to work at your company.

What Good Employers Should Do

In order to be successful once hired, a candidate needs to accurately understand the company and what the job will entail. But it goes far beyond that. Unless a candidate is truly desperate, they won’t be impressed with an employer who leaves them waiting in the lobby for 45 minutes. They won’t appreciate a hiring manager who seems evasive about hours or benefits. The best candidates for the job will likely have multiple options. It’s important to give a good first impression, otherwise these candidates will go somewhere else.

Good companies make it a positive experience from application to first day on the job. They understand that job hunting can be a scary and anxiety-inducing experience. The interview itself can be particularly nerve-wracking. So it’s important to create an experience that lets them shine. This looks like a recruiter or manager giving a reasonable amount of heads up before an interview. It looks like a hiring manager asking professional and insightful questions and giving the candidate their full attention during the interview. It’s allowing the candidate to accurately portray themselves through their answers. And it’s about creating an atmosphere that accurately reflects what your company does and what it stands for.

A good company will showcase their company culture and be able to give high-level answers as to what the job entails and what the pay will be. Potential employees want to know just as much about the company as a hiring manager wants to know about them. And when interviewees ask about specific details or questions, they don’t want the typical “oh it’s a great company because _________”. They want to know what makes a company tick, what challenges it faces, and why a hiring manager wants to come to work every day. Avoiding specifics or dodging questions will come off as major red flags to a good candidate.

What to Expect from Job Seekers

Employers need to expect employees to ask questions, and have good answers for them. More and more candidates come prepared with different questions they’d like to know about the company or job and aren’t afraid to follow up on different points that have come up in the interview. It’s important to plan out enough time in the interview for the candidate to ask these questions, and for you to give satisfactory answers. This time gives the candidate a chance to feel out the company and make sure it’s a place they want to work.

When both parties, the interviewer and interviewees, have a positive experience, it’s a beautiful thing that leads to happy employees. And companies get the best work because they have happy employees.

Hard work and the right skill set can get a candidate pretty far. However, they also need to find situations where they can succeed, and that’s what they look for during the hiring process. Even if it’s just for a season, most candidates want to learn and grow from a job, not just earn their paycheck and go. Job seekers want positions that can help them succeed for their next steps in life. They’re seeking situations that can help them get there. Negative situations burn out employees. And it’s very difficult for an employer to overcome a negative reputation.

You Get Out What You Put In

You’ve likely heard the term you get out of life what you put into it. That goes for people, but it also goes for employers. You get out of employees and potential employees what you put into them. Good experiences that start in the hiring process will lead them to succeed. Negative experiences wear out good employees. Tearing them down ultimately lead to worse product and output. Give potential employees a good experience from the beginning and they’ll bring their A-game to the interview and beyond.

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Kristine is the Director of Marketing at Boostability. She brings a decade's worth of communications strategy work to the company. Kristine has a Masters Degree in Leadership and Communications from Gonzaga University and graduated from BYU with her undergrad in Broadcast Journalism. She's worked in television news, public relations, communications strategy, and marketing for over 10 years. In addition to being a part of the marketing team, Kristine enjoys traveling, sports, and all things nerdy.