Because good interviews help ensure successful hires, they should be conducted with the same foresight and finesse that one would bring to a major sales meeting, union negotiation, security analyst conference or board of directors presentation. To paraphrase a well-known saying, an ounce of preparation is worth a pound of cure. READ MORE

No candidate is likely to possess every characteristic you desire, nor may the best qualified (on paper) of three or four finalists prove to be the best fit for your organization. Ultimately, we hire those whom we like - and the more inclusive we can be at the beginning of the search, the more exclusive we can be at the end. READ MORE

It's the 'Main Event' - the face-to-face interview - at which new careers will be launched or left at the dock. The employer is deciding whether to extend a job offer, while the candidate is deciding whether to accept one if offered. This is clearly an interview that's going nowhere. Totally monotonous and stuck in an endless loop of resume verification and leading questions. Indeed, no effort is required to conduct it. By contrast, great interviews require a clear understanding of what information the interviewer hopes to obtain - and what kinds of questions will produce the intended results? Here are ten questions that do an especially good job of revealing what makes a candidate tick... READ MORE

Are your employees simply showing up most days? Half of all workers hate their jobs. Wait, scratch that: let's be more precise. According to a new survey by The Conference Board, a non-profit organization that studies business issues, just 51% of all American workers say they are satisfied with their jobs. That figure stood at 59% just seven years ago. Perhaps most alarming, workers aged 35-44 had the highest level of satisfaction in 1995 (at 61%) - but today have the lowest (at 47%). READ MORE

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL recently confirmed what many long have suspected - namely, that "Online job boards have lost their cachet." (July 12, 2005) Why? According to the Journal, they are yielding "landslides of r'esum'es" that mostly come from unqualified candidates. "The trick - something that executive-search firms and headhunters have known for decades - is that the perfect candidate is usually working happily at a desk somewhere." The Journal is exactly right. READ MORE