It is that time of year when lots of new graduates will be looking for jobs. But, who do you hire to take on important positions in your organization?
When I ask business owners and senior managers one of their top challenges, most say putting the right people in the right jobs.
What is the best strategy for doing that? Well, to begin — stop reading resumes! That could be a losing strategy if you really want to hire the best and the brightest. Think about it: do you believe any potential employee is going to put on their resume that they failed or were fired from a past position?
More importantly, who do you think is actually writing most of the resumes these days? It is either their parents, or consultants whose only focus is to provide professional resume writing services.
Asking for references now is also a problem. Most organizations will not provide a reference (good or bad). This has resulted from the fact that disgruntled job candidates, who have been denied a job, have tried to sue their reference providers for submitting negative evaluations to their perspective employers.
All of this is making it more difficult for managers to hire the most appropriate staff. You want people who not only have the talent and potential to be successful in the job, but will also make a positive contribution to the culture of your organization.
Although you can never be 100 per cent certain you will find the perfect candidate, here are three things you can do to increase your odds:
1) Conduct a skills assessment. There are a number of instruments that can help you with this. There are two that I am very impressed with. One is the PI (Predictive Index). This assessment has the ability to provide a probability of success the potential hire has to become competent in a particular job. It does this by understanding the job requirements in behavioural terms and matching those desired behaviours with those of the candidate.
Another is the PXT Select. It’s an assessment used for selection, development, training, managing and succession planning. It measures how well an individual fits a specific job in your organization. It can also measure team and manager fit.
2) The second strategy is to use a psychological assessment that will determine the best fit into the culture of your organization. The one I use is the LSI (Life Styles Inventory). This instrument determines conditioning that the individual has been subjected to and how they think at a subconscious level which then determines their overall behaviour.
The LSI provides an overview describing the applicant’s characteristics and how they translate to everyday performance. You will get detailed information about the applicant’s strengths and development areas, including how they affect work relationships.
3) The third is to use behavioural interviewing techniques. While a resume will tell you what they did yesterday, behavioural interviewing will assess how a potential employee thinks and will make decisions in the future.
An example of this type of questioning would be: “What would you do if you had to carry out a company policy that you did not agree with?”
Organizations I work with who have adopted these strategies for hiring staff find they are able to conduct more effective recruiting and lower attrition rates significantly.
My question for managers this week is: What is your process to ensure you have the right people, doing the right things and behaving the right way that will create a culture resulting in long-term success for your organization?
Joseph Sherren, international business transformation specialist, can be reached at 902-437-6998, or check his website www.gatewayleadership.com
