(Assumes a list of candidates has been managed to a reasonable number for final vetting)
If you are vetting a truly high-potential candidate, chances are you are not the only company on the list, and, chances are you may only have one shot.
And consider that recruiting and selection share some common factors that are keys to landing the candidate. Factors like “Face of the Company”, “Speed”, “3’s should not be selecting 1’s and 2’s” (abbv. 3’s> 1’s &2’s). Other factors include “Differentiation”, “The Plan”, “Competency Interviewing”, “On-boarding” and “Who’s on the team”.
“Who” is on the evaluation team is critical. Each manager or professional who interface with candidates IS the FACE of the Company. Make sure the team can represent the company … the object is to have the candidate thinking, “I would love to work for him/her”! So consider if your performance system is 1 = Excellent and 5=, well not so good, then you want only 1 and 2 performers interfacing with candidates. The process is to evaluate candidates, and I would suggest 3 performers can’t evaluate level 1 and 2 talents. Ultimately the objective is to so differentiate your business that candidates will eliminate your competitors as employers.
“Competency based interviewing” has taken some shots lately. I yet view it as a great evaluation tool. The value in using this form of evaluation, along with others, is that it is a way to discover strengths and weakness in candidate behaviors.
To clarify, for our purpose here there are two kinds of competencies. Functional Competencies (skills – technical knowledge used in engineering, IT, HR, Finance, etc.) and Effectiveness Competencies – which are behaviors.
Functional Competencies are skills that are related to and lie within specific functional areas such as engineering, materials and logistics, human resources, supply chain management, finance and so on. A functional competency in engineering would be hydraulics, in human resources – compensation, in finance – understanding financial statements and so on. Some Functional Competencies are common to all functional areas – Microsoft Word and Excel would be examples as would project management.
Effectiveness Competences (EC’s) are OBSERVABLE behaviors such as adaptability/flexibility, honesty, professional presence, hard work, integrity, communications, leadership, business acumen, influence, analytical capability, judgment, and so on. When you work with a peer, boss, or any employee for a short period of time you can easily observe their behavior. You will know if they have professional presence, if they work hard, if they are analytical, if they are adaptable and an effective communicator. EC questions are often used as a basis for interviews as they reveal important behaviors. There are many sources of lists of competencies, as well as sample behavioral interview questions on the Internet.
EC’s are critical career makers (or breakers) as they are observable by any level of co-worker, open doors (professional presence), impact co-workers careers and daily work environment (compassion, talent management, leadership, team work), are a factor in the ability to learn (listening) as well as have others learn from you (patience, understanding), display your energy and enthusiasm for your work and your company… in a few words, EC’s make or break more careers than technical knowledge (functional competencies). They are excellent forecast factors of a professional’s future capability in higher-level positions.
On-boarding is critical, but we’ll save that for a later posting.
This posting on this topic could run on forever. If you want to improve your hiring and selection process, take a look at why people turn down job offers. You can easily obtain a list and know what avoid, what to focus on, and how to improve your process. And if you pay attention to the dates of the articles, you will find that business has been repeating the same mistakes for a very long time.
***** S&E *****
Success & Excess 