A brief summary of the organization, its business strategy, and its culture.

Staffing Paper:

 

Preparing for the Interview Questions

• A brief summary of the organization, its business strategy, and its culture. (Company background, history, financials, People , organization structure etc)
• How would you describe your company’s business strategy? What are the sources of your success?
  • Company Business Strategy– reflects how the company competes in the marketplace and gives it a competitive advantage
    • Examples:
      • Cost-Leadership strategy – be the lowest producer for a specific level of product or service
        • Operational Excellence – maximizing the efficiency of the manufacturing or product development process to minimize costs (Low Cost)
      • Differentiation strategy – developing a product or service that has unique characteristics valued by customers and for which the firm may be able to charge a premium price (innovation)
      • Specialization Strategy – focusing on a narrow market segment or niche and pursing either a differentiation or cost leadership strategy within that market segment (customer intimacy – customization)
      • Growth strategy – a strategy to expand the company either organically or via acquisitions
    • Company life cycle –
      • Introduction life cycle – when a company is forming and relatively new
      • Growth life cycle – new companies begin to expand and set themselves apart from competitors to gain customers and market share
      • Mature life cycle – the company’s prodcuts or services have fully evolved, and their market share has been established
    • How has your company aligned your business, human resources, and staffing strategies?
    • What is your company’s Talent Philosophy?
      • System of beliefs about how a firm’s employees should be treated. How an organization thinks about its employees.
        • What is your firm’s human resource strategy? How the HR function links to the company’s business strategy. What is the firm’s Staffing Strategy?
          • Examples of Talent Philosophy:
            • Wants employees to contribute to the frim over long-term careers
          • Examples of HR strategy:
            • Acquires, develops, and retains talent able to contribute to the firm over time
          • Example of Staffing strategy:
            • Hiring: recruits and hires talent able to perform now and in future jobs
            • Deploying: uses succession planning, career planning, and career development to take advantage of employees’ potential over time
            • Retaining: retains top performers and high potential employees

 

• What is your company’s staffing strategy? (What are the priorities, policies and behaviors used to manage the flow of talent into, through, and out of an organization over time.)

 

• How do you use staffing to pursue your business strategies and maintain your competitive advantage?

 

• Some questions and thoughts:
  • Do we want people to contribute to the company’s over long term careers, or do we want to focus on filling vacancies in the short term?
  • Do we value the ideas and contributions of people with diverse ideas and perspectives?
  • Do we use employees as assets to be managed or employees as investors who choose where to allocate their time and efforts?
  • What are the ethical principles when it comes to our employees?

 

• What are your company’s key staffing issues, challenges? What are some possible talent related threats that could affect your company’s competitive advantage?

 

• What are your firm’s key strategic staffing decisions? – Key issues?
  • Nine Strategic Staffing Decisions:
    • Do you have a core or flexible workforce?
    • Do you prefer to hire internally or externally?
    • Do you hire for or train and develop needed skills?
    • Do you want to replace or retain your talent?
    • What levels of which skills do you need where?
    • Do you staff proactively or reactively?
    • Which jobs do you focus on?
    • Is staffing treated as a cost or investment?
    • Is the staffing function centralized or decentralized?

 

• What key metrics does the HR function track?
  • (examples: average time to hire, average cost per hire, quality of hire, job application completion rate, hiring yield, job offer acceptance rate etc)
  • What labor force trends might influence your firms staffing planning?

 

Key Interview Questions:

• Develop A brief summary of the organization, its business strategy, and its culture.

(Company background, history, financials, People, organization structure ( HR chart) etc)

• How would you describe your company’s business strategy? What are the sources of your business success?
• How has your company aligned your business, human resources, and staffing strategies?
  • What is your firm’s human resource strategy? How the HR function links to the company’s business strategy.
  • What is the firm’s Staffing Strategy?
• What are your key staffing strengths? And Opportunities?
• What are your company’s key staffing issues, challenges?
  • Examples: reducing turnover, leadership development, attracting and retaining top performers etc,
• What is some possible talent related threats that could affect your company’s competitive advantage?
• What are your firm’s key strategic staffing decisions? – Key issues?
  • Nine Strategic Staffing Decisions:
    • Do you have a core or flexible workforce? Why?
    • Do you prefer to hire internally or externally? Why?
    • Do you hire for or train and develop needed skills? Why?
    • Do you want to replace or retain your talent? Why?
    • What levels of which skills do you need where? Why?
    • Do you staff proactively or reactively? Why?
    • Which jobs do you focus on? Why?
    • Is staffing treated as a cost or investment? Why?
    • Is the staffing function centralized or decentralized? Why?
  • What key metrics does the HR function track in your company?
  • What are the key trends you see that will impact Staffing in the future? And how do you see your organization managing through them?