Recruitment And Selection Plan Template: Fill & Download for Free

I interned at Amazon Development Centre (Hyderabad) for 5 months at the start of 2017 while I was in my 8th Semester. In my 7th Semester, I had been trying hard to secure an internship in some startup or corporate. Amazon was in my wish-list because I had friends who had interned there during the summers and had awesome things to say about the experience. During December 2016, I was contacted by a recruiter for an intern position after a senior had referred me for an Intern position. After a couple of rounds of interview, I got selected for a position in Amazon’s Hyderabad campus. I was really happy because Hyderabad was a city I was familiar with and I had a few friends interning there. After doing a little bit research about my team, I got to know I would be working with the Amazon Home Services team. Back then I never knew Amazon was into such a business line for selling services to customers and I thought it to be pretty interesting.Fast-forward to the start of the internship, Amazon had arranged for our travel and had given us a 15 day stay at a 5-star hotel. I had a lot of friends who were also interns and were staying in the same place, hence this was one hell of a fun ride. Every day we would wake up early, enjoy the sumptuous breakfast buffet. This is where I met a lot of other co-interns who also were interning with Amazon Home Services (AHS). And I also met others interning from all sorts of teams like Amazon Payments, Amazon Transportation, Amazon Fulfilment, etc.On day 1, there was a briefing for all the interns about the Amazon Culture in general. Amazon takes a lot of pride in their culture and hence these sessions spanned for the entire day. People were invited to share their experiences and it was wonderful to see how people grew from being Interns to Principal Engineers at Amazon. We were given a small diary which is pretty symbolic and has the infamous quote “It’s Still Day 1” which is Amazon’s philosophy to always continue having the same enthusiasm throughout the journey as if it’s the first day. There were also the mention of the famous Amazon Leadership Principles which continues to be the keys for succeeding at Amazon.We were then given instructions to collect our laptops and other accessories. Most interns got a new MacBook. I then went to the designated area to meet my team and manager. At this point my senior manager mentioned that the team had gone on a weekend trip to Goa and decided to extend their stay. In my mind, I was thinking that what an awesome group of people they must be to have such trips. At the same time feeling unlucky about missing the trip by a small margin. Nevertheless, the MacBook kept me busy for the rest of the evening.The next day I met all of my team members and was introduced to my manager and mentor. My manager (who I still work with) was just about 6 years elder to me and had been an intern at Amazon. In fact it was fun to know that most of my team members had been ex-Interns at Amazon before starting out as full timers. Overall, it was a pretty young team with the eldest member being about 8 years older than me.Since I was to intern for about 5 months, my manager and mentor had worked out a plan for a bunch of tasks that I will do based on my progress. My first task was a commit that got deployed to Amazon’s Retail Website. At the time I felt a bit shocked that the team trusted me with coding something that was to be deployed onto the production website as my first task.However I was quick to realise that over here there was no real difference between an intern and a full-timer. There was no difference between a new member and a tenured member. As an individual you are responsible for certain things and people expect you to be in terms with it.Amongst all the perks, Amazon was generous enough to provide interns with the same amount of facilities as a full time employee for boosting productivity. With just a button click you can get the hardware you need. And there are multiple self service vending machines for other peripherals like mouse/keyboard/headphones. I experimented with multiple sets of monitors to see what suits me. The two monitors arrangement continues to be my favourite till date and I still use this arrangement.Overall I was happy with my first task and felt good about completing the same. I also got introduced to the strict code reviews and testing procedures that are kept in place to ensure faulty code does not leak into production. Days passed by and I kept reading more and more internal documentation and go about doing my tasks. As I got closer to my team-mates, we would go out for ad-hoc fun sessions like Go-Karting, Dinners, X-Box matches, Poker sessions and streaming cricket matches. This really helped to break the ice with some of the senior members of the team who intimidated me because of their sheer knowledge and experience.Coming back to my internship, Amazon Home Services had 5 interns including me. All of us belonged to different colleges and were part of different sister teams. We would regularly meet to discuss how it’s going for each other and often poke fun around not being able to understand a lot of internal documentation and processes. We went on a trip to watch an IPL match with the entire organisation. Below is a picture of that day with the fellow interns Ashutosh, Nirmal, Manya Setia and Arushi Garg who continue to be good friends of mine.Overall the first 3 months of my internship was pretty easy-going and was the ramp up phase where we just got used to all the processes for deploying code into production. I also got a lot of free time to work on a couple of side projects that I was pursuing from college. By the end of 3 months, I was already given my main project which required me to independently do some designing, all the implementation and rolling out to production. As the end of my internship approached, my work hours increased. I still cherish this phase because at times the entire office would be empty and only the interns would be there working on their tasks. I would plug in my head phones and just loved this phase because of the sheer amount of code I was writing and deploying to production. Back then deploying code to production gave me an adrenaline rush. Below is a picture of me in the last week of my internship writing those unit tests for covering each branch. One of the interns sneaked in to capture this picture and I am lucky to still have it. We still have a good laugh about these times.In the last couple of weeks my manager and mentor also explained to me the conversion process from Intern to full time. The process was pretty simple. It required each intern to document in a template all the tasks they have worked on and the milestones they have met. Post an initial evaluation and feedback from peers, the manager discusses with a Bar Raiser on the conversion decision. And post that a hiring decision is made. Sometimes a few candidates are required to do additional 1 or 2 round of interviews. I completed all my documentation and completed the exit formalities. Usually all interns are told about their hiring outcome by the last date, however in my case it was delayed and I was told to wait a while due to some last minute crunch.My teammates organised a wonderful farewell. Over the past 5 months there was a personal connect that each of us had developed. Since the Amazon Home Services organisation was a 45 member team back then, the feeling was that of a start-up within the massive Amazon Corporate. The farewell tradition comprised of a speech by the outgoing interns and questions asked by our peers to embarrass the shit out of us. I met a bunch of super smart folks with whom I connected with not just from work perspective but also from a personal point. I was not sure if I would convert and join back as a full timer. Hence, with a pinch of uncertainty I ended my internship.I ended the internship on a Friday. On Saturday I returned back to my home-town. On Monday morning when I woke up (first working day post I left), I had an email from the recruiter conveying that they were extending a full time offer to me. I was really happy and more than that I had a lot of respect for the team, the recruiter and the company for getting back to me with the result so swiftly. I breathed a sigh of relief and that marked the end of my Amazon Internship.

“Why should you read my answer?”Because I’m not going to give you a quirky story like other writers here have done. If you want to be entertained by a “sell-me-this-pen” type answer, this post is not for you.Chances are you’re reading this answer because you’re job searching right now, and looking for material to help you ace the interview.So here is some practical guidance of how you would want to answer this fairly tough interview question.What is the motive behind this question?The hiring manager, who is asking every candidate this question, has three motives:Motive #1 how well you know yourselfMotive #2 how well you know what their needs/problems areMotive #3 how interested you are to work for this company.“Why should I hire you?” is one of the key interview questions that will get them these answers.The full question is actually “Why should I hire you over everyone else?”The manager is not just assessing how well you know yourself, but how well you know what sets you apart from everyone else.How not to answer the questionDon’t be a “cocky rooster” or a “whiny sheep” (credit to theinterviewguys for this)A cocky rooster is someone who will cross the line from confidence to bragging, and claim they are the best person for the job, and they’ll give it “110%” and compliment the hiring manager on recognizing true talent.And a whiny sheep is someone who crosses the line from humility to desperation, stating that they would do anything for the manager and the company and work endless hours if they have to.The safe approachYou can talk about your skills and your strengths.If you’ve done the right thing and customized your resumé to the job description, you’ve probably scanned for key skills and strengths they are looking for.“The reason you should hire me is because you’ve mentioned you require someone with problem solving skills and can work in a team environment. I excel in these areas as I have always been called upon when my manager is in a tough spot, and I’m good at rallying the team to meet our goals.”It’s good, but not great.The problem with the safe approach is that other candidates may answer the question with the same safe approach as you.That doesn’t help you stand out.The best approachThe best approach is (and always will be) to get personal.The more personalized your responses are, the more chances you stand out at the interview.Because while other candidates may share the same skills and qualifications as you, they do not share two things:Your personal experiencesYour personal motivation for working for this organizationOption #1 Something about you and the companySumit Chaudary’s answer below gave a great example of this.It was an interview with Microsoft, and rather than stating how great Microsoft is as a company and what a prestige it would be to work for them, he went into story-telling mode. (a foundational marketing tactic)He talked about a special bond he had with a specific product that Microsoft created (Age of Empires). And he was vulnerable and open enough to talk about how that product personally saved him from depression.No other candidate would share the same story as he did.So if you have a special bond with the products or service by the company that you are interviewing with, use it.This option will totally nail motive #3 - How interested are you with working for this company.I remembered a client I was coaching who was having a tough time converting interviews to offers.He told me how a recent interview with a retail clothing company did not convert and he was so disappointed.I asked him a simple coaching question - “Why did you want to work for that company?”He replied with such enthusiasm about intricate details of clothing designs that this company followed that he admired, and it would have been a perfect fit for him as he had past experience selling similar brands that had the same qualities.When I asked him if he expressed this exact enthusiastic description at the interview, he admitted he didn’t. And realize what a great opportunity he missed.If you are fortunate to be able to share a special connection with the company’s products or services, this would be the preferred option.If not, you still have some other choices.Option #2 Something about the jobThis will help with Motive #2 - How well do you know our needs.Every job, including the one you are interviewing for, exists to solve a problem. If there wasn’t a problem to solve, the job would not exist.The job description does not give you an indication of what the real problem is.Sure, you can imagine at a high level what the position is about. For example, if it’s a project manager role, the problem they are trying to solve is to get projects finish on time and on budget.But there is always always a deeper underlying problem.Maybe projects are always delayed as stakeholders are not fully engaged. Perhaps there is a corporate communications problem. Perhaps there are always budget overruns.These deeper problems cannot be aired publicly in job descriptions.It is only during the interview you will be exposed to these deeper problems, if you listen attentively, and ask the right questions such as “What is the biggest challenge your department is facing today?”Having an internal contact would also help uncover these problems, if you have a friend or acquaintance who referred you to this job.Once you have this info, use it!“You mentioned that one of the biggest challenges you are facing right now is creating a project plan template. And how all project managers are creating their own versions, and this leads to challenges with revisiting details of archived projects and reviewing existing plans to search for specific information.My skills in documentation would your biggest asset with hiring me. In my previous role, my management recognized my attention to detail and the care I took in creating a detailed project plan template. I went the extra mile to gather opinions with all the project managers that would be recipients of this plan.Involving them resulted in not only creating a project plan template that worked, but a high adoption rate as well.”Notice how you picked up on two skills (documentation and attention to detail) that were asked form the job description. And you personalized the answer with a deeper problem the hiring manager had, along with a personal story of how you solved that problem in the past.Option #3 Something you read in the newsThis will work to server motive #2 and #3.If you’ve read something in the news, it demonstrates that you are following the company and are therefore really interested in working there.You can also use the news to potentially highlight a problem you could solve.For example, when I was helping one of my clients with this step, he was looking for a role working for a construction company.A new article revealed that this company was involved with an expansion project of one of the major highways of Toronto.Bam!Right there we had some golden information he could use both in his cover letter and his interview.“I’ve been following your company for a while, and when I read about how you will be involved in an expansion project for Highway 407, that really what’s got me interested in this role.I know how painful it is to work with the government to secure permits for these kinds of projects. If not executed properly, it will lead to severe delays.Fortunately, I’ve developed great relationships with these departments and know their processes inside out. I can help your team navigate the bureaucracy and get your projects completed on time.”You Got ThisWhat ever choice you prefer, one thing for sure is you have to prepare in advance for this question.Unless you’re a gifted speaker, it’s hard to come up with a perfect answer on the spot.The research that you do won’t be limited to just this answer. You can use it in other questions and your cover letter as well.Prepare well and ace that interview. That job is yours!

What are the tools HR recruiters or talent acquisition managers generally use to ease the process?The tools HR recruiters or talent acquisition managers generally use to ease the process come in various forms depending on the utility. Everyone is embracing technology to ease the hiring process. HR management industry would be a $30 billion market by 2025, globally, says Grand View Research. From sourcing and hiring to performance management, every aspect can now be automated.Finding candidates from LinkedIn, posting jobs on Indeed and using spreadsheets to record the details, are all the different ways teams implement to improve the hiring process.Then, there are all-in-one integrated platforms like Mettl, which strives to resolve multiple inefficiencies in the process of recruitement. From eliminating bias in candidate selection and skills assessment to securely conducting interviews online, Mettl can accomplish all those tasks. And with the ongoing development in the field of data analytics, machine learning and AI, the job of HR is bound to be easier with time.So, without further ado, let’s look at the different tools used for recruitment and talent acquisition –JOB POSTINGIndeed –Indeed, which uses the pay-per-click model, is one of the most popular job boards among job seekers. Apart from posting jobs, you can also create ads, to be shown in relevant search results.Glassdoor –Glassdoor allows employees to rate the work environment in the companies, which puts it among the most sought-out job websites. And thus, the employers keep a close look at their company profile along with job posts.Monster –Monster is a widely-known job board. It has a wide range of job types, and being popular, also has a huge database of resumes.CANDIDATE SOURCINGLinkedIn –LinkedIn is a social media networking platform for the professionals, and it’s one of the popular recruitment methods for hiring managers. Recruiters use the tools regularly for sourcing talent and searching for interested candidates.Reddit –Reddit is another social media platform popular among millions. There are different active community messaging threads, which the HR managers and recruiters check to find talents they need. Moreover, it also helps in creating relationships with the candidates.Meetup –Meetup is a service used by people to find and connect with relevant groups around. And many recruiters use it to source candidates from the pool of people interested in particular events.APPLICANT TRACKINGFreshteam –It’s an HRMS which eases up the tasks of HR and recruiters by providing assistance with the recruiting process and streamlining it. Apart from applicant tracking, Freshteam helps to schedule interviews and send updates, among othersZoho Recruit –Zoho Recruit is a powerful web-based Applicant Tracking System for recruiters to source and hire candidates around the world. Apart from tracking the applicants, it also helps in optimising the hiring process.Mettl –Mettl is an end to end cloud-based recruitment platform. From applicant tracking to talent assessment and interviewing to training and development, it offers all the solutions in a single package.TASK MANAGINGTrello –Recruitment and employee management needs a lot of manpower and Trello helps in managing all those people. It is accessible across devices and makes it easy to track processes and tasks. You can move tasks from one stage to another and also, assign them to different people.Slack –Slack is an app for team communications. You can have separate channels to communicate with teams on different projects. HRs can integrate it with Trello to collaborate with the teams and thus, create a seamless workflow.TALENT ASSESSINGHireSelect –HireSelect is a product offered in the SaaS model. Recruiters and managers use it to access candidates’ cognitive skills or examine personality tests and basic job skills.Mettl –Mettl is another SaaS product which resides on the cloud. It is an integrated recruitment and talent assessment platform which offers various assessments like psychometric, cognitive and coding skill tests, along with customisation option.Interview Mocha –It’s another tool with a range of skill tests available. You can check its tests library or create them from scratch and then, grade the performance of the candidates.PERFORMANCE TRACKINGMettl –Mettl offers a seamless cloud-based platform for intuitive reports, engaging survey, employee feedback and performance appraisal. HRs can use it to identify training requirements, leadership traits or plan successive employee.Workday –The Workday performance management tool is another cloud-based SaaS platform which supports the full review process. From employee/manager feedback and review to compensation, it helps evaluate every role in detail.Zoho People –Zoho People is one of those apps that helps in automating employee performance reviews. 360-degree feedback, goal setting and tracking, employee self-appraisal, insights and comprehensive reports are among the different features offered.EMPLOYEE TRAININGTalentLMS –It is a program that suits corporate learning programs for employees. HRs use it to create a customizable learning portal with branded logos and themes. It offers an array of features like video-conferencing and gamification to facilitate learning.iSpring Learn –It is a simple cloud-based LMS software that helps HRs to create/upload courses, organise and monitor the learning progress of the employees. It features detailed statistics to spot required enhancements and thus, re-plan training strategy.Coassemble –This online learning platform, Coassemble, allows HR managers to create their own training programs, manage them and view progress reports. There are a variety of templates ready to be customised to give it the look and feel required.The list is endless, but now that you know about the various tools HRs and talent acquisition managers use, you might be wondering which one would be best for you. Well, the deciding factor would be the needs of the company. No two companies have the same requirements.But, in any case, all-in-one integrated platforms like Mettl would be beneficial, for sure. Mercer | Mettl understands the ever-growing complications in the talent assessment industry and thus, brings a well-researched SaaS product. It boasts of all the tools that talent hunters, recruiters and HR managers need.Here are some of those which Mettl puts into the quiver –Candidate SourcingApplicant TrackingTalent AssessingPerformance TrackingEmployee TrainingWith Mettl you get the opportunity to measure talent better and make precise decisions based on detailed reports.Try Mettl and explore the benefits yourself