..I am an HRIS Manager (with a tech background) and need some advice on excellent HRIS questions for possible applicants...
Ok HRIS manager, I will try to answer your question with as little evil as possible (my coworkers gladly throw resumes at me to opine on anyone who claims to have HR technical skills, but rarely subject them to my interrogations er.. questions)
Here are 5 basic areas that I would touch on(and have been "subjected to")
1) Besides HRIS/technical experience How much functional HR experience do you have and in what areas?
The past few interviews I have had were more concerned about how much HR knowledge I had and less interested in how technical I am or am not. To quote one HRVP "I can get a dozen techies in here tomorrow, but none of them will have a clue about HR" My compensation and benefits background really helped me in this situation. "Great! someone I don't have to explain what a compa ratio means"
2) I would ask about implementation/upgrade experience--how many systems/types; what role did you have etc/how customized was the implementation
Even if you do not intend to implement a new system, you will be upgrading the one you have. A major upgrade it can be as demanding as a new implementation especially if you have complex custom processes . If the choice were between an applicant who was versed in my current system, but no implementation exp vs someone who implemented any HRIS system, I would lean towards the implementation background.
3) Give me some examples of how you provided excellent customer service.
Yep, as you know, HRIS is a service organization---and even if you are evil, you still need to be professional and make the customer think you are not evil.
4) Have you any experience with outsourcing, or dealing with a SaaS vendor?
Chances are your senior management is going to read a trade rag or buy into the groupthink that outsourcing saves money at all costs and you are going to have to deal with outsourcing. If you have, tell me about it and how you would deal with a vendor with poor support?
5) On a scale of 1-10 rate how technical you are---with 1 being "what's a computer?" to 10 being I wrote my own operating system because Vista was a memory hog.
You want a 5. This can be fun---get a partner in IT (or do it yourself if you have a tech background) and get a feel for how really technical they are. I remember one interview where the IT director came in and asked me some basic questions about SQL; database keys; effective dated tables and the issues involved in querying data tables; inner joins vs outer joins etc.
Oh, I was offered the job(s) in my examples above, but didn't take them for work/life balance reasons. (didn't want the commute, nor the travel)
Anyone other suggestions (I'm tempted to throw in "how long have you hated Payroll", but that's a given)
3 comments:
I make it a point to suck up to payroll. I need them.
But, I understand where you are coming from. When I was in HRIS, payroll made my boss cry.
Oh, and thanks for answering! I'm going to link you.
Thanks for answering my question! I'll try not to be that evil also!
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