Hunting for the Perfect Hire, Part 1

June 15th, 2016 Posted by Business Development, Development, Experts, Guest Posts No Comment yet

Many organizations do the “Ready, Fire, Aim” approach to Hiring and don’t take the time to clearly define the “target” of what they need.  As a result, you miss the mark and get a poor hire. In this article, Tom Willingham talks about the steps of creating the Benchmark through defining the filters and clarifying the target employee.

Take Control of Your Hiring Process!  7 Steps to Improve Hiring Success.

Recently I had the opportunity to assist a Client with hiring for a new position.  Rather than using their historical process of posting on national job sites and then slogging through piles of resumes or a cluttered inbox to find the best candidates, I suggested they try a new Hiring Process.

Step 1:  Create a Benchmark and Write the Job Posting

Hunting for the Perfect Hire - Part 1Rather than writing a traditional Job Description listing competencies and duties of the position, I challenged the Client to consider the results and accomplishments they expected the new hire to deliver.  As we developed the Job Responsibilities and identified Key 24 Month Deliverables, we created a “Fast Forward Resume” that clearly identified the expectations against which the new hire would be measured.

The strongest personality assessments are multi-measure tests that capture cognitive ability, personality and interests.  Such assessments have been shown to be more than three times as effective in predicting job performance.  Therefore, the management team used the Prevue Assessment to create a Benchmark for the position.  The Prevue Benchmark clearly defined the range of General Abilities, Motivations/Interests and Personality that would be the best fit for the position.  By combining the elements of the Job Responsibilities, Fast Forward Resume and understanding the desired Abilities and Personality, the resulting Job Posting provided greater clarity for the search.

 Step 2:  Create Job Screening Questions:

Next we created a series of Job Screening Questions to help filter out unqualified candidates.  These questions identified criteria such as years of related experience, level of education completed, and specific technical skills that the ideal candidate would possess.

Step 3:  Define Scoring and Disqualifications to Filter Candidates:

Scoring and Disqualification criteria were then defined for each Job Screening Question to filter out unqualified candidates and spotlight those that met the ideal criteria.  For example, the ideal candidate was to have 5-7 years of experience in various areas.  Any candidate that responded noting three years or less experience would be flagged as unqualified or “DQ”.  If the initial filtering process did not produce a sufficient pool of candidates, we could still review the “unqualified” candidates.

Step 4:  Automatically Post to Multiple Job Boards: 

Using the web-based Prevue APS Applicant Tracking System, the Job Posting and Screening Questions were entered and the Position was automatically posted to a dozen job sites.  Additionally, Prevue APS creates a custom branded Job Board so, when applicants click the link to apply, they can see any other Job Openings for the company and browse the company’s website.

Stay tuned for Part 2 where we will discuss the results of the search!

Tom WillinghamTom Willingham is the President of The Hampton Group, an Operations and Management Consulting Firm he founded in 2003 to help middle market companies in Southern California achieve superior performance levels. Tom has 28 years’ experience in operations management, specializes in driving waste out of manufacturing and office processes, and has worked with over 100 facilities and thousands of employees to generate innovative solutions to drive bottom line performance.

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