 Executive Tools
- Executive Summary
- Self Assessment Checklist
Expert Practices Articles
- Developing a Staffing System
- The Performance-Based Job Profile
- Recruiting
- Recruiting "Top 25 Percent" Talent
- Screening
- The Interview
- Validating the Interview
- Making the Decision
Tools & Analysis
- Sample Performance Profile
- Self Assessment Tool
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Developing a Staffing System
The key to hiring effectively, say Vistage speakers Lou Adler,
Ed Ryan, Barry Shamis, Charles Sheppard and Barry Deutsch is to
have a staffing system that provides a template, a model and a process
for those who recruit, screen, interview and hire new employees.
Having a staffing system won’t guarantee success every time.
But it will dramatically increase your odds of getting the right
person in the job with each new hire.
According to Shamis, building an effective staffing system consists
of five essential steps:
- Painting a picture of the successful person
- Developing a cadre of qualified candidates
- Screening the candidates
- Interviewing the candidates and checking references
- Making the hiring decision
Because personnel selection affects the entire organization, the
impetus to put a staffing system in place must come from the top.
CEOs can’t get involved in every hiring decision. But if they
want to improve the quality of hires at all levels of the organization,
they must make staffing a strategic priority and take full responsibility
for the system that makes those hires.
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The Performance-Based Job Profile
The absolute bedrock of every effective hiring system, say our
staffing experts, is a performance-based job profile that spells
out the essential activities a person must accomplish and the outcomes
he or she must deliver in order to get the job done. To use job
profiles to maximum effectiveness, say our speakers:
- Use a performance-based job profile for every hiring decision.
The best way to predict future job success is to uncover examples
of past performance using a performance-based job profile.
- Build each job profile around objective, quantifiable, measurable
criteria. According to Adler, the ideal job profile fits on one
page and includes the most important outcomes of the job, the
qualities and characteristics the person needs to get the job
done (stated in specific terms of knowledge, skills and abilities)
and short- and long-term performance criteria that spell success
in the job.
- Benchmark job performance against both internal and external
standards.
- Regularly update job profiles as the organization grows and
jobs evolve.
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Recruiting
The next step in the hiring process involves finding enough qualified
candidates. Our experts recommend the following recruiting best
practices:
- Develop a recruiting culture. Everyone -- from the CEO on down
to the front line workers -- should keep an eye out for potential
employees.
- Establish an employee referral program. Set up a program whereby
employees receive cash bonuses and other rewards for referring
talented people.
- Create compelling, opportunity-focused job ads. According to
Adler, the best job ads describe an opportunity rather than a
job, focus on what the person needs to do (not what they need
to have) and describe where the person is going, not where they
have been.
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Recruiting "Top 25 Percent" Talent
You can’t hire great employees unless you first attract great
candidates. According to Vistage Speaker Barry Deutsch, getting
top talent to knock on your door involves four steps:
- Understanding what attracts top performers
- Defining a compelling marketing statement that captures the
excitement of the position
- Identifying where to find the top candidates
- Defining the channels to go after those candidates
Deutsch believes that top performers evaluate job opportunities
based on three essential criteria:
- Challenge on the job
- Learning and growth opportunities
- Chance to be part of an outstanding team
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Screening
An effective staffing system includes a pre-interview screening
process that minimizes your time investment by bringing in only
the best candidates for face-to-face interviews.
Our experts recommend the following screening best practices:
- Learn to read résumés properly. Proper screening
of résumés will allow you to narrow the pool of
candidates to a manageable size with a minimum of time and effort.
- Read the résumé in proper chronological order,
starting with the first job and working your way forward to the
most recent.
- Look for increasing levels of responsibilities and accomplishments.
In particular, look for achievements that closely correlate to
the job at hand.
- Use the résumés to screen in rather than screen
out. The last thing you want to do is inadvertently weed out great
candidates.
- Never read more than six or seven résumés at one
time.
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The Interview
After the job profile, interviewing represents the most critical
part of the hiring process. Staffing expert Charles Sheppard believes
that every job interview should answer three questions:
- Can the person do the job?
- Will the person do the job?
- Does the person fit the job and the company?
"The sole purpose of an employment interview is to predict
success on the job," he says. "In order to do that, you
have to be able to answer these three questions. Uncovering that
kind of information requires structured interviews that focus on
eliciting information about past job behavior specifically related
to the job at hand."
Our experts recommend the following interviewing best practices:
- Prepare for each and every interview. You can’t "wing
it" and expect to make good hiring decisions. Prior to each
interview, review the résumé and job application,
your notes from the phone interview, the job profile and your
list of prepared questions.
- Use a structured interview process for each candidate. A structured
interview uses a prepared list of questions designed to surface
information related to the job profile. This process keeps you
focused on gathering examples of past performance and prevents
the candidate from taking control of the interview.
- Focus on uncovering information about past performance. The
more you can uncover examples of past performance that match the
job profile, the more you can make objective hiring decisions.
- Provide regular interview training for all hiring managers.
To improve the quality of your company’s hiring decisions,
have your hiring managers update their interviewing skills at
least once a year.
- Ask only behavior-based questions. During the interview, avoid
opinion-, credential- or experience-based questions. Instead,
ask behavior-based questions that uncover an applicant’s
specific work-related experiences and allow you to assess job
performance.
- Check all references. Reference checks are necessary to verify
information collected from the résumé and during
the interview, uncover additional information and provide legal
protection
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Validating the Interview
The final step before making the hiring decision involves validating
the truth of what you learned about the candidate using two essential
tools -- personality assessment and reference checking.
According to Deutsch, personality assessment tools fall into three
broad categories, each with a different cost and level of sophistication.
- Level 1 assessment tools include the DISC and the many variations
that have been developed over the years. These tools are quick
and usually inexpensive ($25 to $50 per person), and most can
be taken and processed online.
- Level 2 instruments, such as the 16 PF or Calipers, typically
go 12 to 16 layers deep. They cost more (about $250 to $300 per
candidate) and have to be interpreted by an industrial psychologist.
- Level 3 involves sending the candidate to an industrial psychologist
who gives a battery of tests over a period of several days. These
tests can run from $1,000 to $5,000, depending on the level of
service, and should be used only for high-level, "gamebreaker"
positions.
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Making the Decision
With an effective staffing system, making the hiring decision becomes
the easiest part of the hiring process. To make the best hiring
decisions, our experts recommend the following best practices:
- Evaluate the candidates against the job profile, not against
each other. If none of the candidates meets the job criteria,
don’t hire any of them. Instead, step back and reevaluate
your job profile to make sure it is realistic. If it is, go back
to the recruiting process and start over again.
When evaluating candidates, Sheppard recommends rating behavioral
examples based on the following criteria:
- Is it an incident of effective behavior?
- Is the example recent?
- Did the candidate give detail?
- Does the candidate exhibit the behavior much of the time?
- Did the candidate give a reference?
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