Interviewing For Cultural Fit and Example Questions

It’s not enough to simply hire someone who has the skills and experience to fill your open position.

Smart employers must also satisfy themselves that the potential recruit will fit into the culture of the business and sign up to its vision and values. Read on to learn more about cultural fit, and some pointers for employers and candidates to look out for in an interview.

We’ll finish up with 10 example cultural fit interview questions.  Read more here: https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/employer/advice/cultural-fit-interviewing

How to Conduct an Exit Interview

When one of your employees leaves, you’ve one last chance to get something useful from them. Not the keys to their office desk, but their honest thoughts about your business and the lessons that you can learn from why they are leaving. 

In this article, we’ll explore how you can conduct a productive exit interview - https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/employer/advice/exit-interviewing

How To Conduct a Second Interview (For Employers)

Here's a great article from Simon on how employers can get the best out of second interviews - https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/employer/advice/second-interviewing.aspx

Five Top Tips for Value Based Interviewing (VBI)

Using value-based recruitment to find the right staff for your team.

Many sectors in the UK have started incorporating value-based interviewing (VBI) into their recruitment processes to ensure that they recruit people who match their organisational values. 

Particularly in organisations where client, customer or patient care is critical to success, value based interviewing can be a great way to gain insight into the way people think or may make decisions.

Over the last few years, both public and commercial organisations, such as the NHS and Nissan, have invested in value based methods of recruitment to find the right staff.

With this in mind, Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment have collated some essential tips for getting the most out of value based interviewing: https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/employer/advice/value-based-interviewing.aspx

1. Use VBI in the right situation

Some roles or sectors may require employees with a stricter set of values than other organisations. For example, workers in the healthcare industry may be expected to have a clearer set of ethics than the more commercial organisations, but similarly, employees working in HR or data protection would be better suited with values of integrity and honesty.

Use value-based interviewing in these situations to find staff who will fit both role and organisation.

2. Consider the values right for your organisation

Before interviewing, it’s important to consider the values that you need from your staff for them to reach their potential and perform well in your company or organization. Make a list of the values of your top performers in similar or parallel roles and use these to inform what you’re looking for from your next employee. 
Break down this list of values into ‘must-haves’ and ‘nice-to-haves’, which will help inform the evaluation process and your final decision between candidates.

3. Write interview questions with these values in mind

After creating your list of ‘must-have’ values for the role, structure the interview questions by trying to assess whether a candidate has the ethics you’re looking for. For example, if you’re looking for an employee with the value of determination, you could ask the interviewee: “Tell us about a mistake you’ve made? What did you do about it and what was the end result?”
Have a different question in mind for each of your ‘must-have’ values to really get a sense of how a candidate would perform in your organisation.

4. Use follow-up questions to delve deeper

Clever candidates can be coy in saying exactly what they think an employer will want to hear. In the case of a healthcare organisation, candidates could talk in great detail for their passion for caring for people, without providing any real examples of how they deal with real-life situations. It’s your role as the interviewer to probe deeper with follow-up questions that explore a candidate’s real background and values.

5. Be careful what you ask

When designing questions, ensure that they don’t cross an ethical line. With recent discriminatory legislation coming into the workplace, it can be easy to trip-up on questions which may initially appear innocent. Questions around age, nationality, marital or family status may seem like question ‘openers’ or friendly discussion, but can often cross the line and more often than not it's not your place as an employer to ask these type of questions.

If in doubt on interview questions, consult online guides on ‘interview questions you are not allowed to ask’ or government recruitment discrimination legislation. 

Do you have to work out your notice period?

We are regularly asked whether you have to work out your notice period.  Here are some pointers and advice on working through your notice period to ensure that 'bridges are not burnt' - https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/candidates/advice/working-out-your-notice

How Many Candidates Should You Interview?

You’ve created the perfect job description and been inundated with CVs from hundreds of potential recruits. But how many of them should you interview? 

Too many and you’ll be wasting your and their time, too few and you might miss out on the perfect candidate. 

Here, we’ll explore the interview options to help find your ideal new starters - https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/employer/advice/how-many-candidates-to-interview

Brief article on how to conduct a panel interview

A panel interview consists of two or more people sitting together to ask a candidate questions.

Typically, your panel might consist of someone from human resources, the hiring manager and an employee from the hiring department. But what are the benefits, and how do you lead a panel interview? Here, we’ll explain why it’s a useful tool in your recruitment armoury.

Read more here: https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/employer/advice/how-to-conduct-a-panel-interview

How To Answer The 'Tell Me About Yourself' Interview Question

‘Tell me about yourself’ is a question posed by nearly every interviewer, yet research from Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment suggests that it is a question that a vast amount of people struggle with: on average over 33,000 people in the UK search online each month for answers or guidance on answering the question (Google Keyword Planner, 2018)

With this in mind, sales recruitment agency, Aaron Wallis, has collated a series of hints and tips for getting the most out of the common interview question and performing to your best ability.
Be prepared 

As ‘tell me about yourself’ is such a common interview question, there’s nothing silly about writing down your answer and saying it in front of the mirror, or practicing your answer with someone you know. Whilst it can be good to have a rehearsed answer, it's also worth bearing in mind that you don’t want to sound like you’re reciting it from memory. Be prepared to appear confident but natural.

Structure your answer

The best answers to the question give a brief overview of you and your experience, without taking too much away from the later stages of the interview.

Begin by outlining your current or most recent role and describing the skills or attributes that you bring or brought to the position, ensuring these will be relevant to the job you’re going for. 
Finish up by saying while you’ve enjoyed your work, you’re excited for the fresh challenge this new opportunity brings, and why.

Consider what you want to get across

A common pitfall is mentioning too much about yourself that may either cause you to waste time during your interview or lose the natural flow of the conversation. Chances are that your interviewer has already studied your CV, so does not need to be told about every job you’ve ever had, or what your exam results were – even if they were straight As. 

Avoid the irrelevant or controversial

Similarly, although you might be a cycling fanatic or a keen cook, this can be totally irrelevant at the start of the opening stage of the interview. In the majority of job interviews, avoid talk of family, pets and politics.

Get ready for the following questions

If you’ve introduced yourself well, your interviewer is going to be impressed and keen to delve deeper. He or she will want to explore your experience, strengths and weaknesses further, but will do so under the impression you’re a good fit for the role. Make sure you can back up your initial answer with examples or anecdotes. So, if you said: “In my current role I have increased sales by broadening our customer base,” just make sure you’re ready to answer follow-up questions later in the interview like: “How much did you increase sales by?”, or “How many extra customers did you bring on board, and how did you find them?”

Robert Scott, Managing Director of Aaron Wallis said: “Often the simple questions can be the ones which are the most unnerving if you haven’t considered what you might say. Generally, it can be a good idea to plan out the interview in your head from the very start to the very finish. It’s never a bad thing to be overprepared!”

For a more detailed guide on answering the ‘tell me about yourself interview’ question,
please visit: https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/candidates/advice/answering-tell-me-about-yourself

References

1 Data from Google’s Keyword Planner, looking at average monthly searches for queries relating to ‘answering the tell me about yourself question’ from June 2017 - May 2018 in the United Kingdom

How Did The World's Top 100 CEOs Get To The Top?

What Makes a Top CEO?

The Education & Career Steps of The World’s Best CEOs

•  42% of the world’s top 100 CEOs are between the age of 56 and 60.
•  98% of the most influential 100 CEOs have a degree, with 36% of them earning a degree in a business-related subject
• Only 4 of the world’s biggest companies have a female CEO, 96 are male
• 28% of CEOs have a career background in operations, 25% in finance

What type of person is more likely to make it to the top of a multinational business? New research from Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment suggests that people who people who have a career background in operations or finance are the most likely leaders.

A study into the most influential 100 CEOs in the world has investigated whether there is any trend between your first career steps and how far you progress. The research suggests that it is near impossible to make it to the top of one of the largest businesses without a degree, 98% of the top 100 CEOs are graduates. Of the 98 graduates, the most popular degree type was business (36%) followed by engineering, accounting for 23% of the graduate CEOs.

The breakdown of the top 5 degree types for CEO graduates can be seen below:

Degree Type	Count of CEOs
Business	33
Engineering	21
Economics	10
Accounting & Finance	9
Computer Science	4

The research also looks into the age and gender of the largest companies’ CEOs. 96% of these CEOs are male, with only 4 of the largest businesses in the World having a female CEO.

The average ‘Top CEO’ age is 59, with by far the most prominent age group being between 56-60, accounting for 42% of the CEOs reviewed. The top 5 age groups can be seen below, out of 96 CEOs with publicly available information of their age:

Age Range	Count of CEOs
56-60	40
61-65	23
51-55	15
66-70	8
41-45	3

Finally, the study reviews the career backgrounds of the most powerful CEOs, grouping their career backgrounds into concise categories. 54% of the ‘Top CEOs’ have a career background in either finance or operations.

The top 5 career backgrounds can be seen below:

Professional Background	Proportion of CEOs
Operations	28%
Finance	26%
R & D	14%
Data Analysis	11%
Sales	8%

For the full results of the study, please visit: https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/news/top-ceos-in-the-world.aspx

Rob Scott, Managing Director at Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment said:
“In 2018 we are seeing that it is near impossible to lead a big business without being a graduate and that earning an MBA can be a real advantage to progressing your career. Starting out in an operations or finance related field can give you the mindset and strategic thinking which is necessary to make it to the top.

It’s also unsurprising how many CEOs in our study have worked in a sales role at some point in their career, teaching you the communication skills to manage staff and negotiate large business deals.”

ENDS

About the research

The study was conducted by Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment, researching the CEOs of the world’s largest businesses based upon Forbes data.

Research on the CEOs came from a range of sources, mixing Wikipedia data with reports from publications and outlets to collate the first career moves and education of the world’s most powerful CEOs.

Aaron Wallis Conducts Study Into Fastest Growing Brands 2017

The Fastest Growing Brands of 2017

(Out of the 100 most valuable brands in the World)

·       The women’s fashion retailer PrettyLittleThing topped our study, doubling their ‘search interest’ between 2016 and 2017. Gucci and Louis Vitton also appeared in the top 5 climbing brands out of the 100 we reviewed.

·       A number of Chinese brands scored very highly in our study including Tencent, Maotai, Baidu and Hauwei, who all grew their search interest by over 10% year-on-year.

·       There is a trend of eCommerce brands growing in search interest, with big names like Amazon and Zara also appearing in our top 20 brands by search interest increases.

Which brands have grown the most in presence in 2017? New research from Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment suggests that PrettyLittleThing, Tencent (WeChat) and Gucci have grown the most in brand interest this year.

The study uses weekly indexes from Google Trends to measure ‘search interest’ - where search-engine data is aggregated around a topic, or in this case a business, to reflect changes in searches and discussion. Weekly data from January 2016 to November 2017 was collected and averaged – comparing the average search interest score of 2017 with the same time period of 2016.

We have segmented our results into B2C and B2B brands as follows:

10 Fastest Climbing Global Consumer Brands

Brand	Relative Search Interest - 2016	Relative Search Interest - 2017	Year-On-Year Difference
PrettyLittleThing	25.0%	58.6%	33.6%
Gucci	34.6%	61.7%	27.2%
Louis Vuitton	64.1%	82.8%	18.8%
Maotai	43.9%	60.6%	16.6%
Netflix	71.8%	86.0%	14.2%
China Mobile	72.1%	84.7%	12.5%
Xfinity	63.4%	74.9%	11.5%
Ping-An Insurance	59.6%	70.9%	11.3%
KFC	77.6%	88.9%	11.3%
Huawei	67.7%	78.5%	10.8%

10 Fastest Growing B2B Brands

Brand	Relative Search Interest - 2016	Relative Search Interest - 2017	Year-On-Year Difference
Tencent	28.1%	61.4%	33.3%
Baidu	75.9%	89.7%	13.8%
SalesForce	74.8%	83.2%	8.3%
DHL Express	64.5%	70.7%	6.2%
Accenture	78.3%	84.4%	6.1%
FedEx	63.7%	69.1%	5.5%
Costco	63.7%	68.7%	5.0%
Rolls Royce	57.2%	62.1%	4.9%
United Parcel Service	58.2%	62.4%	4.2%
China Construction Bank	80.5%	84.0%	3.4%

For the full results of the study, please visit: https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/fastest-growing-brands.aspx

ENDS

About the research

The study was conducted by Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment, collecting weekly search interest data from Google Trends. 100 of the most valuable brands in the World were reviewed using Global search volume data.

Average search interest data was compared from two time series:
01/01/2016 – 19/11/2016
01/01/2017 – 19/11/2017

Our Study Into The 100 Richest Billionaires

Billionaires’ First Steps:
The Richest People’s First Jobs & Education

·       75 of the World’s richest 100 people have earned a degree. Of these 75, 22 studied a degree in engineering.

·       53 of the World’s top 100 billionaires started working in a non-family owned business. 19% of these billionaires started working in a salesperson role and 17% started working as a stock trader. 

·       17% of the World’s top 100 billionaires started their careers by setting up their own business.

What type of person is more likely to become a billionaire? New research from Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment suggests that people who start their career in a salesperson role are more likely to hit it rich.

A study into the richest 100 people in the World has investigated whether there is any trend between your first career steps and how rich you become. The research suggests that engineering and business graduates are most likely to become billionaires, and if you want to become one of the world’s richest you should start your career in a sales or stock trader role. Furthermore, you are far more likely to make the top 100 list if you are a graduate – 75% of the top 100 have earned a degree.

The research into first career steps looks at the billionaires who started working in an organisation that was not their own, or family owned. These billionaires were then grouped into type of first job, which gave the following job roles as the top 5 results:

Job Role	Count of Job Category (Total = 53)
Salesperson	10
Stock Trader	9
Software Developer	5
Engineer	5
Analyst (Varied)	4

The study also looks at the top degree subject by type, which gave the following degree categories as the top 5 results:

Degree Type	Count of Degree Studied (Total = 75)
Engineering	22
Business	16
Finance & Economics	11
Law	6
Computer Science	4

For the full results of the study, please visit: https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/what-makes-a-billionaire.aspx

Rob Scott, Managing Director at Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment said: “Today we are seeing that nearly all of the top people in business are graduates and that a degree can be a great first-step into preparing you for your career ahead. It’s also unsurprising how many of the top 100 billionaires started working as salespeople, which can give you the communication and negotiation skills which are vital to succeed.”

About the research

The study was conducted by Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment, researching the top 100 richest people in the world based on Forbes data.
Research on the billionaires came from a range of sources, mixing Wikipedia data with reports from publications and outlets to collate the first career moves and education of the world’s richest people.