Most companies follow a common hiring process when soliciting candidates for an open position. That process probably includes creating a job advertisement, posting the position in the newspaper or a job board, sifting through resumes, and identifying the candidates to interview.
Although accepted as common practice we have found that many gaps exist in hiring that can be bridged with some minimal additional efforts at the front-end. By identifying core job success attributes, also know as the “job benchmark”, the entire hiring process flows more smoothly and has greater success.
Here a just a couple of our job benchmarking successes:
* Success Story – 50% of a company’s new hires were lost during the training program. After benchmarking the job, they were able to hire the right people and increase retention to
80%.
* Success Story – An organization had a 74% turnover in their sales force. After benchmarking and debriefing, they retained 100% of the sales force for the last 18 months.
The job benchmarking process is successful because it helps avoid some of the more common hiring pitfalls many organizations face. A few good examples of this include:
• The risk that the person screening the interviews may not be familiar enough with the job requirements to differentiate great from good or poor resumes.
• Leaders may not ask the right questions to determine whether or not the candidate possesses all the right attributes to be successful in a job. (In fact, most interviewers focus on the technical requirements of jobs. However, research indicates that 3/4 of hiring failures are actually due to soft skill deficiencies — such as poor interpersonal, influence, and conflict resolution skills.)
• Leaders may rely strongly on testimonies of prior colleagues or trusted friends of a candidate in making hiring decisions. Although it can be great to have that type of insight, other aspects of the organization including size, leadership style, and organizational culture may influence the potential success of that candidate. Not all candidates perform equally well in all environments.
How do you avoid these hiring pitfalls?
We recommend first analyzing the job to determine which attributes are most critical for success. Job benchmarking is simply analyzing the success factors for a job BEFORE taking any other hiring steps. This analysis includes determining which competencies (technical and soft skills), behaviors, and motivators will most effectively deliver the key accountabilities for this position. Once you’ve “let the job talk” by clearly articulating the technical and soft skill requirements of the job, the rest of the hiring process flows more effectively. Obviously, the best candidates will possess the attributes that fit the specific requirements of your unique job, team and organizational culture. Our performance fit model provides a pictorial of this concept:
The next step is to measure the candidates against that job benchmark. This approach minimizes the gaps mentioned in the common hiring process. None-the-less, interviewers must be well trained in structuring and objectively assessing candidates against the job benchmark within the interview process. We recommend composing some targeted and objective interview questions that ask candidates to provide specific examples of those job success attributes. For example, if conflict management is a key success factor, you might ask the candidates to share an example of a recent tough conflict that they encountered at work and describe how they handled it and what happened as a result.
As a final check, we recommend inserting a validated assessment tool at the end of the hiring process. Before extending a final offer, an assessment provides an objective measure of your candidate’s FIT with the benchmarked job attributes. Here is how that works:
Once you’ve narrowed your field of potential job candidates to the top 3-5, candidates are asked to take a three part assessment. A good assessment measures three things: the behaviors, motivations and competencies (soft skills) of the candidate compared to the job benchmark profile. The objective assessment provides a check on the interview process and can effectively raise red flags about the candidate that may not have been revealed during the interview process. In the end, investing a little extra effort in the objective assessment provides peace of mind, reduced hiring errors, and significant improvement in choosing star performers.
~ © Copyright protected, all rights reserved worldwide. Co-authored by Diane Brown and Gary Sorrell.
