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Without the interviewers’ awareness, they might be asking discriminatory questions during an job interview session. Their intention is to find out more about the candidates, however, the following sound discriminatory questions should be avoided:

• What is your religion?

This question is usually asked when the potential candidates are required to work shift / 24 hours on call. The interviewer intends to find out whether the candidates are required to do prayer or willing to sacrifice their prayer time if they are called back to work.

• What is your marital status / Do you have any children?

This question is usually asked to find out how much time could a candidate dedicate to his job / how is the social relationship of a candidate. However, these have nothing to do with the marital status at all. A married candidate doesn’t mean not able to commit to his job, vice versa, as well as a single candidate not necessarily do not know how to socialise.  

• How old are you?

This question is usually asked to find out whether the candidate is "mature". However, age and whether being mature is not really co-related. The candidate shall be tested via non-discriminatory scenario-based questions.

It is alright to have the above questions on the job application form, as they are basic personal information of the candidate. However, it shouldn’t be explore further, or if has to, it should be done in a more careful and professional way.

Would you hiring decision based on the academic performance of your candidates, especially for fresh graduates? If yes, you might be interested to know which are the high performing varsities in Malaysia. According to The Times Higher Education (THE) Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), the five Malaysian varsities which are ranked in Asia’s Top 100 are:

1. Universiti Malaya (UM) - 39th

2. Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) - 51st

3. Universiti Science Malaysia (USM) - 69th

4. Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) - 82nd

5. Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) - 90th

The above ranking is distinguished by both quality and high productivity of research of such varsities.

However, the above ranking is just served as a guide, and it is believed that there are many high quality candidates produced by other Malaysian varsities which are not ranked in the list. It is then the responsibility of the hiring / HR manager to identify the quality candidates.

At the beginning of your career path, you look for jobs, by flipping through newspaper, browsing through internet, or any other method, you name it.

When you are at middle management level in your organisation, you are still looking for a job using the same method. You are wondering why there is no headhunter calling you, while there are so many out there!?

Perhaps you may prepare yourself to get headhunted with the below tips, besides being outstanding within your organisation or field or industry:

• Understand how headhunters work

In order to get headhunted, you must first understand what makes the headhunters tick and how they scour the industries, countries, and even region to identify the right candidates for their clients. They are professional networkers, who collect names of prospective candidates by thumbing through directories in different fields, reading articles about an industry, and asking people for leads. Knowing this, you may attract the attention of a headhunter by writing article or books, being quoted in the press as an expert in your field, networking at industry convention, professional associations, etc. In short, either you make yourself "visible" among the rest, or what you need to do is networking, which required you to meet people who will pass your name to a recruiter, who may then put your name on his / her source list.

• Be proactive and send your resume to headhunter

There is no harm to recommend yourself to a headhunter. The fact is that many headhunters will still advertise as one of their methods to get the right candidates. In case they are not advertising the vacancies of the most desirable jobs, you are creating a good opportunity for your career by being proactive.

• Handle headhunters with care

When you do get a call from a headhunter, speak as professionally as you would when talking to a prospective employer. Bear in mind that headhunters work very closely with employers, and they will make the final recommendation to the employers on the potential candidates to be interviewed. You will be judged on everything, from your telephone manners to whether you ask intelligent questions and give thoughtful answers. It is not only your performance during interview.

These questions do not ask people to describe their specific jobs and what they did, but to find out they way they think, what makes them who they are. Find out the purpose behind these questions.

1. "What is the next thing you have to learn?"

- To identify attitudes towards learning. To look at ability for self-assessment.

2. "Imagine it is six months after you have been in this job. You said to yourself, "I’m glad I took this job because…"

- To identify what is really important to them.

3. "What does the day look like on those mornings you get up and say to yourself, "I can hardly wait to go to work today because…"

- To identify what is important, and what motivates the person.

4. "The next morning you say to yourself, "I really don’t want to go to work because…"

- To identify the demotivators.

5. "If you were financially freedom and didn’t have to work, what would make you want to go to work? How about the work, the company, the people or anything else would be so appealing that money didn’t matter?"

- To find out values.

6. "In your career, describe your biggest success. What made it so?"

- To find out what they accomplished and why they thought it was great. To help assess their skills.

7. "In your career, what is the one thing if you had to do over again, you would do differently? Why? What would you do?"

- To determine if they learn from their mistakes. To determine if they can admit mistakes.

8. "Imagine your best boss, describe his/her best trait."

- To determine how they view their boss and what is important.

9. "Imagine your worst boss, describe his/her worst trait."

- To determine if they can balance between answering the question and putting a positive spin on it or fall into whining about how bad their situation was. Depending upon the answer, you may ask something about their preferred work environment.

10. "What is your greatest strength and why?"

- To know them better.

11. "What is your weakness?"

- To identify whether they do self-assessment and have self-knowledge of themselves.

Behavioral interviewing is interviewing based on discovering how the interviewee acted in specific employment related situations. The logic is that how the interviewee behaved in the past will predict how he/she will behave in the future, whereby this interviewing technique believes that past performance does predict future performance.

In behavioral interview, an employer has decided what skills are needed in the potential employee and will ask questions to find out if the candidate has those skills. Instead of asking how the candidate would behave, they will ask how did he/she behave. The interviewer will want to know how a candidate handled a situation, instead of what he/she might do in the future. Behavioral interview questions will be more pointed, more probing and more specific.

In order to prepare for a potential behavioral interview, a candidate is advised to refresh his/her memory and consider some special situation he/she has dealt with or projects he/she has worked on. On top of this, review the job description from the job posting or advertisement, in order to get a sense of what skills and behavioral characteristics the employer is seeking.

There are no right or wrong answers for behavioral interviews. The interviewer is simply trying to understand how the candidate behaved in a given situation, to determine if there is a fit between the candidate’s skills and the position the company is seeking to fill. In general, the STAR technique is a good approach to response to behavioral interview questions: describe the Situation one was in or the Task one needed to accomplish; describe the Action he/she took, and the Result.

It is normal for an orgainisation to perform reference check on her potential employee. In Malaysia, most reference checks are done in traditional way, by calling the applicant’s former employers, testimonial by the former employers, police check, etc.

Has any employer thought about doing reference check via the applicant’s personal webpages, such as Myspace, Facebook, or blog? In fact, I feel that it is not a bad idea. The challenge of today’s recruiter is the ability to get the candidates who are not only job fit, but organisation fit. The personal webpages of the candidates somehow able to tell the social group and the characteristic of the candidates. If the candidates are writing a work-related blog, it could tell the job knowledge of the candidates.

However, this must be done carefully to avoid any discrimination and invasion of policy. Perhaps in this IT savvy century, employers could add an optional column in their Job Application Form for the candidates to indicate their personal webpages, if the candidates are prepared to share. This would assist the recruiter in their decision making, and might benefit the candidates!