• How do you open a new relationship with a prospect and create an opportunity?
• What have you sold in the last 12 months in monetary terms?
• How many new deals have you done in the past year?
• Can you tell me about a sale that you lost and what you learnt from it?
• How many new clients do you see each month?
• Can you take me through how you would handle an initial enquiry / lead?
• What training or personal development have you undergone in the last 6 months? Any courses / seminars? Have you read any sales books? Any online training? Any industry training?

In the current job market it is vital that you give a good impression of your company to candidates at the interview stage.

So plan ahead and think about how the candidate will progress during the first 12 months of the job:

Relaxing the candidate at interview

A great interview starts with relating to the individual and building rapport. Even experienced senior candidates can feel nervous at the beginning of an interview. So give the interviewee a chance to warm up with a few personal questions that anyone should have a good answer to; this will relax the candidate, humanise your interaction and maybe provide some interesting stories!

Linked In Tip

Part of the interview process is selling your company to your candidate; when you tell the company story you have to focus on the past, but you also need to talk about the future and what that means to the person being interviewed.  

Here are some examples:

The software employment market is extremely buoyant again as the size of the UK economy is expected to surpass its pre 2008 recession peak by this summer and the demand for candidates is outstripping the supply. There are many, many good opportunities out there for talented and experienced software people and companies do not want to lose their staff.

In a nutshell, this means that as a client who is recruiting, you have to make very good job offers that are highly competitive. Demand for candidates is growing every week and many of them will have multiple job offers, and will also be counter offered by their current employer when they resign.

So if you are trying to recruit someone to do a very similar role to the one they do already, then the money, prospects and benefits need to be considerably better.

Employers can balance this by offering: 

• Training and certifications
• New skills to learn
• A wider variety of projects
• Different types of clients in different niches
• Flexible home working
• Additional responsibility
• Opportunities for career development

Clients also need to move fast and can no longer expect to be offered 4+ CV’s for one role; you should be prepared to meet people within days rather than weeks and THEN make decisions as quickly as you can if you think you have found the right person for the job.

 If you don’t already have one, then set up a company Facebook page.

Candidates will search on Facebook for your company profile before they come for an interview, so having something to look at is a good idea. The same is true for LinkedIn, Google + and Pinterest.

I know it seems like a complete waste of time and the most unproductive thing in the world for you to do, so get a teenager or student to set it all up for you. Almost any person under 25 will be brilliant at setting up these sites, so that the core work is done. Lauren, my student daughter did my Google + and Pinterest page in a day:

https://www.facebook.com/AMBISRESOURCING?fref=ts

http://www.pinterest.com/ambisresourcing/

Key elements that should be on your pages:

• Contact details
• Company story
• Some pictures
• News articles
• Information about what your company does

If you want to be sure that the job offer you make to a candidate will be accepted, here are some very valid tips: 

1. Let the candidate leave the building before you offer them a job - when candidates leave an interview they spend the next 30 minutes thinking about how much they want the job and they come up with all the reasons the job would be good for them, because people desire what they do not have. Conversely, if they are offered the job during the interview, they spend 30 minutes thinking about all the reasons they don’t want the job.
2. Ask them in for a second interview - candidates want to feel that they are being taken seriously and a second interview goes a long way.
3. Tailor your offer letter - a couple of relevant lines about the candidate and the interview can really make a difference and is much better than a generic standard letter.
4. Offer them a good salary - the school of thought that says “We need them to commit to a salary drop to prove their commitment” is not going to attract the right candidates.
5. Explain the value of the package in your letter - candidates are going to monetise every benefit to calculate a total package, so make sure the offer letter is clear about what your benefits are.
6. Produce the offer letter quickly – even a day or two of delay can cost you the hire of your choice; there is nothing worse than waiting a week for an offer letter, it makes the company look very inefficient.
7. Don’t be pushy for an early start date - If you would like someone to start quickly say that in the letter, but threatening them if they don’t start early is not showing very much empathy. Would you like it if a member of your staff was pushing not to work their notice?

Lackluster, generic job descriptions too often fail to communicate some pretty cool opportunities that you may have. Remember that different types of software people have very different priorities and aspects of work / compensation that are important to them, so each job spec and remuneration package needs to reflect that. Some examples:

1) Software Developers (who know they are in high demand) are nearly all attracted by interesting work and new technology, followed closely by an increase in basic salary – lifestyle and flexibility come way, way down their list

2) Sales Executives and Pre-Sales Consultants will be motivated by a positive environment where everyone is in it together, and they will want a well structured commission plan that will incentivize and motivate them, and home working flexibility

3) Implementation Consultants are drawn to decent projects, a good pipeline, opportunities to cross train to new software and get more certifications, as well as flexibility in terms of home working and work/life balance due to the travelling involved

4) Applications Support Consultants want a friendly team where colleagues work together and knowledge share and opportunities to get certified

Recruiters need all the resources and pertinent details about the day to day aspects of the job, and salaries and benefits in order to identify and attract the best talent – that doesn’t mean they need a perfect written job spec; you can communicate it just as well and even better by talking about the role.

Generic or mediocre job descriptions and salary packages will not lure the top talent away from their current position to your job opening.

Worst mistakes when writing a job spec:

• Writing a list of skills about the person leaving, and not what is relevant to the new hire
• Only writing essential skills, because desirable skills are where the opportunity lies
• Getting too clever. If part of your audience are recruitment consultants, the text needs to be in short sentences and easy to understand
• Focusing on what you need to hire and not on what might attract good candidates and what the role offers the candidate’s career
• Low balling the salary on the spec when you know you will pay more for the right person
• Having a form to fill out - this reduces candidate applications by up to 50%
• Having too many different roles in one job spec
• Putting stuff about personality like “good team player”

It is worth taking a look at your successful hires in the past and thinking about their backgrounds; this might make your job spec more interesting and relevant. Remember – you need to go for the people you need and can get, rather than the ones you wish you could have.

Employers want to hire bright, well spoken, ambitious, client facing staff with Computer Science degrees.

Unfortunately universities, schools and colleges are producing grunting introverts, addicted to smart phones with degrees in Mongolian Dance Rhythms or the like.

The UK Economy is growing and more jobs are being created and this will continue for the foreseeable future.

At the same time the proportion of young people with IT related qualifications goes down.

I talk to employers who wonder why they struggle to attract good staff.

All these facts mean that the next 10 years are going to be the toughest ever to hire good staff, so employers need be flexible, offer training, develop people and look for the good in potential recruits. To survive, employers need to offer a nurturing environment where young people can develop into the software professionals that they need to grow their companies.

My Dad tells me: "It wasn’t like this in my day" and he is right - it wasn't like this. The wakeup call is that recruiting good people is going to be even more difficult 10 years from now.