After you chat with your candidates on messenger, you should always get them on the phone for an interview before signing a contract. Here are some tips on how to conduct a great initial interview to vet your candidates.
1. The introduction
Introduce yourself and your company.
2. Career plan
Break the ice and put your interviewee at ease with open-ended questions about what they want to do in their career. If you dive right into their resume as most people do, you’ll get programmed answers that tell you what they think you want to hear.
3. Best at / Don’t like
Ask them what they think they’re best at, professionally speaking, and what type of work they enjoy doing. Then ask the candidate what type of work they don’t like doing. People enjoy work that they're good at and tend to dislike things that they're not good at.
4. Job history
Candidates on Acadium are here for the experience, so they're not going to have much job history. You can ask candidates about the 1 or 2 jobs they might have had (if any) and what they learned at those jobs. Ask if there were any conflicts and ask how they think they performed.
5. Discuss your open position
Now is the time to discuss what type of work you're looking for from your apprentice. Ideally, you've written this down somewhere so you can read over it without forgetting any points, and then ask your candidate if this is something they would be interested in doing.
6. Discuss your feedback and guidance
Remember, your apprentice is working for free. What are you going to do for them? What can you teach them? When will you schedule a time to answer all their questions about work? Hint: a weekly half-hour phone call is a good place to start.
7. Scheduling
What hours is your apprentice going to work and when? What hours are you going to work to provide feedback and mentorship to your apprentice? What hours are you two going to work together?
8. Accepting your candidate
If you've found the candidate you're looking for, don't ask them to accept the contract while you're on the phone. Let them know that you've sent the offer in the contract, and ask them to sleep on it before accepting. If they're still excited about working with you tomorrow, then they can accept the contract. By doing this, you're signing on somebody who is more likely to stay committed through the 3-month contract.