Recruitment guide: Baseload Capital

 

Templates

Requirements profile 
Job ad
Interview rubric
Interview guide
Scoring guide

 

Intro

Welcome to this recruitment guide. The purpose of the guide is to make it easier to create a great candidate experience. The system you will be using is called Teamtailor and it will handle all candidate interactions and make it easier to track your candidates throughout the hiring process. The system is all set up for you to start working from the get-go. Email templates, interview kits, job templates, and pages have already been created. All you need to do is follow the steps in this guide and you should be able to create a great recruitment process!

 

Requirements Profile

The first step in any recruitment is establishing a requirements profile. The purpose of the requirement profile is to answer the following; What skills, abilities, traits, and other characteristics are critical to succeed in the role? It’s easy to list a lot of requirements, however, it is not a wish list, it is a requirements profile. As a result, try to think of it as “Need to have” and “Nice to have”. To create a good requirements profile you can do the following:

  1. Talk to someone who currently has the role or has insight into the role and go through the following questions:
    1. What does a typical workweek look like in this role?
    2. What tasks does the role include?
    3. What is required for the candidate to perform these tasks well?
    4. What personal qualities are valued in this role (e.g., teamwork, results-oriented, communication), and how are these defined in your organization?
    5. Are there any skills that are critical to handling the role?
    6. What formal requirements are needed to perform the work (e.g., education, certifications, specific experience)?
  2. Divide them into two categories: ”Must have” and ”Nice to have”
  3. Determine the salary/salary range for the role by ensuring you know your budget
  4. Send a summary to all involved to ensure everyone has the same understanding of the role requirements.

Tip: If you want an example of a requirements profile template, you can use this template. You can use this list if you also need inspiration regarding personal characteristics. If you need to understand and learn about a new role, we recommend using Generative AI like Chat-gpt, Gemini, or similar. Another recommendation is to use O-Net online as it has a very comprehensive database of roles with knowledge, skills, abilities, and experience (this is especially good for the US market since it’s built on data from the U.S Department of Labour)

Example of Must have/Nice to have: Finance Director US

  • Must have:
    • Degree in Finance or Accounting
    • Extensive experience in Finance
    • Experience joint venture/start-up → scale-up
    • Strategic thinking & leadership (trait)
    • Communication & storytelling (trait)
    • Collaboration & teambuilding (trait)
    • Adaptability & problem solving (trait)
    • Financial analysis and interpretation (skill)
    • Financial modeling and forecasting (skill)
    • Strategic financial planning (skill)
  • Nice to have:
    • Experience within the energy sector 

Salary: XX -XX

 

Job ad

Now that we know what we’re looking for from the requirements profile, it’s time to write the job ad. An advertisement serves two purposes: it should provide essential information about the role while also selling the role to the candidate. The job ad should include the following sections:

About the Company: Provide a brief overview of the company: what you do, your niche, and your USP (unique selling point). Since the Core Values are such an important part of Baseload, it’s good to highlight them early on in the ad.

About the Role: Offer a concise description of the role. Outline the responsibilities, the team the candidate will join, and the areas of responsibility within the role. Strive for specificity and avoid generic buzzwords like ”problem solver,” ”passionate about,” or ”always goes the extra mile.” Consider the information you would want to see in an advertisement if you were applying for a job you knew nothing about.

Requirements: Specify the qualifications the applicant must possess to be suitable for the role. This could include specific educational qualifications, experience in a particular program, or language skills, to name a few. However, as mentioned above in the requirements profile – keep these at a minimum.

 

When creating a new job in Teamtailor, use the General job template since it will always have a good base for a job ad based on the Finance Director US role, which you can find a copy of here.

 

The recruitment process

Now you have defined the requirement profile. The next step is to consider when and how you will assess the different parts of the requirements profile. In short, how your recruitment process will look like, what steps and selection methods (interview, references, or case) should be included, and when? Here are some general tips:

 

  1. Check the requirements as early as possible in the process by using selection questions or a short telephone interview. For example: notice period, years of experience, salary, etc.
  2. Have as few steps as possible. Too many steps are often perceived as cumbersome and require a lot of time from you and the candidate.
  3. Have a very clear focus in each step of the recruitment process. For example, a skills-based interview should only focus on the skills, not their motivation or personal characteristics. 
  4. The interview is a good method but takes time from both the candidate and the interviewer so use it wisely.

 

Baseload Core values as a part of the recruitment process

Since the core values at Baseload are such a fundamental part of the organization, they need to be assessed in a structured way during the recruitment process. As a result, one of the first steps that the candidates go through is a Value Alignment. This is done through a 2-step process.

 

Value Alignment Mail

The first step is a Value Alignment Mail where the candidates get an email with instructions to read about Baseload’s vision, mission, and core values: https://baseloadcap.teamtailor.com/pages/our-values.

The candidates are also sent questions about how they resonated with them. This is all sent out and gathered automatically through the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) – Teamtailor. 

 

Value Alignment Interview
The second step is a shorter  Value Alignment Interview. Only candidates that provided good reasoning about how they resonated with the vision, mission, and core values are invited to the interview. This interview has three main purposes:

  1. Get a chance to talk about Baseload as a company and the specific role
  2. Ask questions about how and in what way they resonated with the vision, mission, and core values.
  3. Get a chance to ask some relevant questions about the requirements (e.g. experience, degrees) as well as salary and notice period.

 

By emphasizing the core values early on in the process we can solidify just how important they are. 

 

Behavior interview: Core values and role-specific traits

To further emphasize their importance, the second interview, which is behavior-focused, also asks questions about situations when the candidate has behaved in a way that shows their potential for the Core Values. There are a number of questions to assess the Core Values available in Teamtailor under Settings -> Interview kit. The questions are based on the Core Values behavior definitions that were created as a step to make it easier to assess them. The definitions for the Core Values are found here. The second part of the interview focuses on role-specific characteristics.

 

Baseload recruitment process:

Based on the above, here is a suggestion for a focused but well-functioning recruitment process for Baseload is as follows:

 

  1. CV review (check that the candidate has the formal requirements)
  2. Value Alignment Email
  3. Psychometric tests; Cognitive & Personality (optional)
  4. Value Alignment Interview
  5. Behavior-based interview with a focus on core values and role-specific traits
  6. Skills-based interview with a focus on assessing the candidate’s level of skill
  7. References  (optional)
  8. Decision and employment.

 

When creating a new job in Teamtailor and choosing the General Job Template the above recruitment process (except the optional steps) will be added automatically.

 

Overview of the recruitment process (optional step)

To create a good and clear overview of the recruitment process so everyone knows what is being assessed and who is responsible for what, it is a good idea to create an Interview Rubric. Generally, you don’t want or need to assess the same requirement more than once because the candidate might need to repeat themselves. However, sometimes there might be a need to assess it from different perspectives (interview and reference for instance) or to make sure the candidate possesses the relevant skills. 

How to create an Interview Rubric. 

  1. Open your preferred tool to create tables (Word, Excel, Google Docs, or Sheets) or copy from the template found here. 
  2. List all the traits, requirements, and skills from the requirement profile in the first column
  3. On each row, you fill out each step in the recruitment process in chronological order. Also, add how much time each step in the process takes.
  4. Mark with a cross which requirement is being evaluated in each step.
    See example below:

 

Example of interview rubric (Finance Director US)

 

Time: 10 min – 30 60 min 60-90 min
Requirements CV-review Value alignment mail Value alignment interview Behavior interview Skills-based interview
Finance or Accounting degree X
Relevent experience X
Salary X
Personal traits
Core values X X X
Strategic thinking & leadership X
Communication & storytelling X
Collaboration & teambuilding X
Adaptability & problem solving X
Skills
Financial Analysis and Interpretation X
Financial Modeling and Forecasting X
Strategic Financial Planning X

 

The Interview

The interview is the most common selection method and, if done well, also one of the best. It is also the selection method that candidates value the most. Therefore, it is important to spend time and energy on making the interview as good as possible.

 

Behavior-Based Interview

The best type of interview is called a behavior-based interview. In short, it’s about asking candidates how they handled previous job-related situations. The reason this type of interview is preferred is because how we have acted in a previous situation says a lot about how we are likely to act in a similar situation in the future. The premise is that we are creatures of habit and dislike changing our behaviors. The questions are almost always formulated like this:

  • ”Tell me about a situation when you…?”
  • ”Can you give me an example of when you…?”

Example: Taking initiative

  • ”Can you tell me about a situation where you took on a task or responsibility that was outside your area of responsibility?”

SBR method

To evaluate the candidate’s answers in the behavior-based interview in a structured and easy way, you can use the SBR method (also called SCAR/STAR). SBR is an interview technique consisting of the three steps below:

  • S – Situation: What did the situation look like, and what led to it?
  • B – Behavior: How did the person act in this situation? It is important to understand what happened (how long did it last, how many were involved, what was the candidate’s responsibility, etc.)
  • R – Result: What was the outcome?

The goal is to get the candidate to give you information about what the situation looked like, what the goal was, what they did to handle the situation, and what the result was. It is a good method to investigate personal characteristics. The idea is that you use these three steps in each question to easily understand and evaluate the candidates’ answers. If you want to read more about this interview technique and the STAR method, click here.

 

Interview Kit and Scoring guide


To ensure that every behavior-based interview is conducted in the same way, even by different people, you can easily create Interview Kits in the ATS, Teamtailor. The interview kit determines which characteristics you should investigate and which questions you should ask. A number of standard interview kits have been created in Teamtailor but if you want to create new kits you can read this article. 

A scoring guide helps you make a fairer and more objective evaluation of the candidate’s answers by providing behavior definitions of what a good match (4) means, and what a low match (1) means. An example of a clear scoring guide is the definitions made for the Core Values.  

How to Create an Interview and Assessment Template

The easiest way to create questions for the interview kit and scoring guide is actually to do them simultaneously. From the requirements profile, you know what you will assess in the recruitment process. However, you also need a clear definition of each aspect you will assess as well as relevant questions to evaluate the things you want to assess (interview kit), and an easy way to evaluate the answer (scoring guide).

With AI Tools


The easiest way is to do it with the help of AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, or similar. Use the following prompt to get definitions, assessment templates, and questions in one:

”Your task is to create a scoring guide from 1-4 for the characteristic XXX in tabular form where 1 = unsatisfactory, 2 = partially satisfactory, 3 = satisfactory, and 4 = exceeds expectations. To do this, you first need to create a definition of the characteristic and then add a clear description for the different levels 1-4 to make it easy to evaluate the candidates. Also, create three behavior-based questions that can be used to evaluate the characteristic.”

Example of a Scoring guide and Interview Kit for Collaboration using the prompt above (Google Gemini was used)
Scoring guide Collaboration
Definition: Collaboration is the ability to work effectively with others to achieve a common goal. It involves sharing ideas, information, and resources; resolving conflicts constructively; and being open to different perspectives.

1. Unsatisfactory

Rarely or reluctantly participates in collaborative activities.

Does not share ideas or resources with others.		 2. Partially Satisfactory

Participates in collaborative activities, but with minimal effort. May not always share relevant information with the team.		 3. Satisfactory

Actively participates in collaborative activities and contributes ideas. Shares information and resources with the team.		 4. Exceeds expectations

Proactively seeks opportunities to collaborate. Always shares information and resources with the team to foster collaboration

 

Interview kit questions for Collaboration:
1. Tell me about a time you had to work with a team to achieve a goal. What was your role, and how did you contribute to the success of the project?

  1. How do you handle situations where you disagree with a teammate’s approach?
  2. Describe a time you had to share information or resources with others on a project. How did you ensure everyone was on the same page?

Without AI Tools

If you do not want to use AI aids, you can use the scoring guide for Core Values as a starting point for inspiration. The most challenging part is usually to create a good definition of the characteristic; to help you, you have this list to draw inspiration from. To create a scoring guide like the example above, it is easiest to create a table with a scale 1-4 and have a more generic definition that you use for all characteristics you assess during the behavior interview. See example below:

1. Unsatisfactory

Shows no clear signs of the characteristic. Difficult to determine if the candidate has the characteristics.		 2. Partially Satisfactory

Shows some potential for the characteristic but needs development. Can give some examples of situations where they have shown the characteristic, but they are not entirely convincing.		 3. Satisfactory

Shows clear signs of the characteristic. Can give several examples of situations where they have shown the characteristic effectively.		 4. Exceeds expectations

Shows outstanding ability to use the characteristic in various situations. Can give several detailed examples of how they have used the characteristic successfully.

 

Skills-based interview

The second type of interview often used is a skills-based interview. The purpose of the interview is to investigate the candidate’s ability for the role-specific skills. You can use a case as a foundation for the skills evaluation or you can opt for a skills-based interview where you ask technical questions and assess the candidate’s skill level.


The interviewer must be relatively knowledgeable in the skills being investigated; otherwise, it can be challenging to make a good assessment. The questions also need to give the candidate a good chance to show what they can do within the skill. 

Creating Skills-based interview questions
Again, the easiest way is to use Gen-AI. An effective way is to use the job ad as a foundation. 

Example prompt: ”You will receive an ad for the role of [ROLE NAME] within the [INDUSTRY] industry. Your task is to create relevant skills-based interview questions that measure the candidate’s technical ability for the role. The questions should preferably be based on job-related situations. Below is the ad: [JOB AD]

Example from prompt: Below are four relevant questions that measure the technical ability of a Finance Director in the US: 

  1. Baseload US is experiencing delays in permitting for a new geothermal project, causing cash flow issues. How would you approach this situation to ensure financial stability?
  2. Walk us through the process of conducting due diligence for a potential geothermal project acquisition in a new market for Baseload US.
  3. Explain how you would leverage renewable energy tax credits to maximize profitability and cash flow for Baseload US’s geothermal projects
  4. How would you approach managing intercompany transactions and ensuring compliance with financial regulations across multiple countries where Baseload operates?

Creating skills-based case:

Once again, using Gen-AI is a big advantage to creating cases for interviews, and like above using the job-ad as a foundation.

 

Example prompt:
You will receive an ad for the role of [ROLE NAME] within the [INDUSTRY] industry. Your task is to create a case that measures the candidate’s technical ability for the role. We want to assess financial analysis and interpretation, financial modeling and forecasting, and strategic financial planning. The case should preferably be based on job-related situations. Below is the ad: [JOB AD]

 

Example from prompt: Based on the above prompt we could create a case in Teamtailor using their Content page and get the following example. 

 

Scoring guide for skills-based assessment


Just like in a behavioral-based interview, you need a scoring guide to evaluate all candidates fairly. The assessment rubric can be simpler than for a behavioral interview, as in the example below:

 

1 Novice 2 Competent 3. Proficient 4. Expert
Has a basic understanding, limited practical experience. Can perform tasks independently but may need guidance. Proficient and can handle complex situations. Extensive knowledge, can troubleshoot and lead others.

 

Using the interview kits in Teamtailor

There are already a number of created interview kits available to you in your Teamtailor environment that you can copy and paste to create new ones. You can read all you need about creating interview kits here.

 

When creating a new job you simply select the interview kit you want to on the “Evaluation” step. Unfortunately, you can’t edit or update interview kits or questions when creating a new job. Then you need to save the job and go back to the settings to edit.

When it’s time to interview you simply select the interview kit you want to use on the relevant candidate and press “Leave feedback”. Then you’ll access the instructions for the interview as well as all the questions which makes it easy to conduct a structured interview directly in Teamtailor.

Using the scoring guide in Teamtailor
The default scoring system in Teamtailor is 1-5 which is different from our scoring guides which are 1-4. The reason we opt for a 1-4 is that we erase the middle option which is the most used option. A limited scoring guide forces you to take a stance. So when assessing the candidate, use the scoring guide added as a link in the instructions at the top of the interview kit and simply ignore the 3. 

 

Seven Tips for Conducting an Interview

  1. Structure the Interview: Have an interview kit ready in Teamtailor with all the questions you will ask the candidate.
  2. Ask everyone the same questions: Avoid the risk of discrimination by being consistent in the questions you ask. This gives everyone the same opportunity, which is fairer. It also makes it easier to compare the answers against the scoring guide.
  3. Ask Only Work-Related Questions: Ask questions that are related to the job the candidate is applying for. Talking about personal life can be very uncomfortable for the candidate as they don’t know what they’re being assessed on. Of course, you can ask an initial non-work-related question to ”soften up” the candidate, but the focus should be on the skills and traits necessary for the role.
  4. Ask More Open-Ended Questions Than Closed-Ended Questions: Closed-ended questions mean that the candidate can only give short answers such as yes, no, or a number. Open-ended questions mean that the candidate needs to give a reason, which gives you more information and makes it easier to make a good assessment.
  5. Listen More, Talk Less: It is the candidate, not you, who is the focus of the interview.
  6. Be as Transparent as Possible: Tell about the different steps in the recruitment process and what they intend to measure when they can expect an answer, approximate compensation for the role, and other things that the candidate is sure to want to know.
  7. Put Energy and Time into the Introduction The introduction is critical for every interview, so make sure you have a good one. All interview kits created in Teamtailor have a structured introduction for you to use. 

 

References

Taking references can serve various purposes, but it primarily aims to verify or confirm information gathered during the recruitment process. The simplest method involves using digital reference checking systems such as Refapp, but these come with a cost.

The most common approach is to call and interview individuals who have worked with the candidate in some form or way. To extract the most valuable information from the reference, adopt the behavioral interviewing method and ask the same questions asked to the candidate during the interview. An example question to assess how Thorough a candidate could be:

”Can you describe a situation where [Candidate’s Name] identified an error or mistake in a project? How did they handle the situation, and what was the outcome?”

This provides two data sources: the candidate’s self-reported behavior and the reference’s observed behavior. Additionally, inquire about the reference’s professional relationship (workplace, the timeframe of interaction, whether they socialize outside of work, and the candidate’s specific job responsibilities). There are interview kits available in Teamtailor for reference checks. 

Please note:

  • Obtain the candidate’s consent before contacting references.
  • Respect the reference’s time and provide clear expectations for the conversation.
  • Maintain confidentiality of the information gathered during reference checks.

By following these guidelines, you can effectively utilize reference checks to make informed hiring decisions and identify the best candidates for your organization.

 

Evaluating the recruitment process

In order to get an understanding of how the recruitment process is perceived by the candidates a survey is automatically sent out to all candidates that apply for a job at Baseload, regardless if they get rejected or get the job. The survey can be found if you press “Surveys” at the top of the page. The survey is called “Help us improve our recruitment process”.

 

Integrations available in Teamtailor

There are a number of great integrations you can get via the Teamtailor marketplace (https://www.teamtailor.com/sv/integrations/). Here are a few that we recommend:

  • Personality and problem solving tests
    • Alva labs 
    • Assessio
    • AON
  • Automated reference checks
    • Refapp

 

There are also a great number of available AI bots that can help you transcribe and summarise interviews. That means no more note-taking and more focus on the candidate. Here are a few options:

  • Aspect
  • Fireflies
  • Sana labs 
  • Klang.ai (specialized in Swedish)

 

GDPR

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is particularly important to consider during recruitment as we process a significant amount of personal data. Therefore, this data must be stored and handled correctly to comply with the legislation. Below are a number of recommendations that should always be followed as they are written based on GDPR legislation. The standard options for data processing and privacy policies have already been activated in Teamtailor for your convenience. However, the following are only recommendations, not legal advice as we are not GDPR experts:

Key GDPR Rules to Consider When Recruiting:

  1. Collect and process only relevant personal data: Limit the collection of personal data to what is absolutely necessary for the recruitment process. You may not collect sensitive personal data that is not relevant to the specific role, such as ethnicity, religion, or political affiliation.
  2. Clearly inform candidates how their data is used: Provide a clear and easy-to-understand privacy policy that describes how you collect, use, and store personal data during the recruitment process. Inform candidates about their rights under the GDPR, such as the right to request access to, delete, or correct their personal data.
  3. Obtain consent for data processing: Obtain clear and explicit consent from candidates before processing their personal data. Consent should be specific, informed, and freely given. Document consent in a satisfactory manner.
  4. Protect personal data securely: Implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect personal data from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. Use encryption, strong passwords, and other security measures to protect the data. Restrict access to personal data to those who need it for their work.
  5. Delete personal data when it is no longer needed: Establish a clear policy for how long personal data will be stored. Delete personal data as soon as it is no longer needed for the recruitment process or for other legitimate purposes.
  6. Be transparent and accountable: Document how you collect, use, and store personal data. Be prepared to demonstrate how you comply with GDPR requirements upon request from authorities or individuals. An ATS is an effective way to comply with GDPR regulations as it often has an automatic function for this in each ATS.
  7. Appoint a data protection officer if necessary: If you handle a large amount of sensitive personal data or systematically monitor individuals, you may need to appoint a data protection officer. Data protection officers can provide advice and support on GDPR compliance issues.

Remember that GDPR is a complex regulation, and this is just a short summary of the most important rules to consider when recruiting. For more detailed information, see the website of the Swedish Data Protection Authority: https://www.imy.se/

Following the GDPR rules is not only a legal obligation, but it is also a way to build trust with candidates and show that you take their privacy seriously.