| |
| |
|
Management Information |
|
|
|
Hiring Tip -- Picking The Best Candidates
I often hear leaders from all types of organizations ask questions about hiring the right person. Their questions usually sound like these: ? What if their resume looks great but they have a bad attitude? ? What if they put on a good act and then don't work hard? ? How can I tell how they will perform after I hire them? A great way to answer these questions starts with a well-defined interview process. I have heard the procedure called many things. I first learned it as the Behavioral Event interview process. The guiding thought behind this system is that "while it is no guarantee of success, past performance is the best indicator of future performance." Here is the main idea -- develop an interview system that forces the candidate to tell you, in direct and specific terms, how they have worked in the past. You want the candidate to do more than recount where they have worked and what experience they have. You can read their resume to get that information. You want the candidate to tell you: how they think, how they work, and how they relate to other people. Actual implementation can get a little involved, but the basic process goes like this: 1) Identify the key skills (attributes, attitudes, etc) for success in your organization. In a big company, you might develop the list by interviewing successful people in the organization. In a smaller company, you could brainstorm with the owner(s) about what they want to see in an employee. 2) Rank the competencies to separate the "must-have" traits from the "would be nice" traits. Write your list in the form of a checklist for use during interviews. 3) Develop a series of questions that get people to tell you specifics about their experience. The best series start with broad, open-ended questions and lead to follow-up with questions that dig for specifics. For example, the series could go like this: Start with an open-ended question like "Tell me about a time in your high school (college, internship, last job, etc.) when you had to convince another student (co-worker, etc.) to help you?" or "Tell me about a time from your last job (internship, college, etc.) that you had to make a sudden change in plans?" Let them pick the scenario; you probe for specifics. When they give you the scenario, begin the process of "peeling the onion." Ask follow-up questions like "When that happened, what was the first thing you did?" Then, "Who did you talk to to make the change happen?" Maybe you could follow that with,"Did they react positively or negatively to your request, and how did you respond to them?" The idea is to get the candidate talking about how they handled a specific situation (their feelings, actions, and responses). By addressing a specific situation rather than a hypothetical scenario, you get a good feel for how they might handle a similar situation in the future. 4) As the candidate responds, look for evidence of the core competencies you identified in step 1. Use your checklist to keep track of your observations. 5) Train several people to conduct this type of interview. Always have more than one person involved in the process. I suggest having several people interview the candidate. Each interviewer should ask about a different part of the person's life and work experience (school, work, volunteer work, etc). 6) After the interview process, get each interviewer together to compare notes and observations. If the candidate demonstrates the key skills you are seeking across several areas of their life, they are likely to bring those skills into your business. Now you have a good basis for deciding whether this person fits you and your organization. I have been through this type of interview on both sides of the table. I find that it works very well and creates a win-win scenario for both parties. For the qualified candidate, the process feels good because there are no "trick" questions. For the interviewer, it gives you concrete information that you can use to make an informed decision about the candidate's fit in your organization. Only the unqualified candidate loses. For them, the process is uncomfortable. They must give specifics; there is little room for "shading the truth" to get the job. You may use this article for electronic distribution if you will include all contact information with live links back to the author. Notification of use is not required, but I would appreciate it. Please contact the author prior to use in printed media. Copyright 2005, Guy Harris Guy Harris is a Recovering Engineer. He works as a Relationship Repairman and People-Process Integrator. His background includes service as a US Navy Submarine Officer, functional management with major multi-national corporations, and senior management in an international chemical business. As the owner of Principle Driven Consulting, he helps entrepreneurs, business managers, and other organizational leaders improve team performance by applying the principles of human behavior. Guy co-authored "The Behavior Bucks System(tm)" to help parents reduce stress and conflict with their children by effectively applying behavioral principles in the home. Learn more about this book at http://www.behaviorbucks.com Learn more about Guy at http://www.principledriven.com
MORE RESOURCES:
Management - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Profound Knowledge We all are on a quest for knowledge. Whether its information that will make our lives easier or just small packets of data that in a trivial way allows us to sort out "why things are the way they are on this planet. Business Innovation - Value versus Quality Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas. Tales From the Corporate Frontlines: An Unexpected Benefit This article relates to the Compensation and Benefits competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys. It tells the story of a company that offered a new benefit to its employees, solved the problem of lagging productivity, and boosted morale at the same time. Introducing the 15 Frameworks of Successful Self-Employed Professionals A framework is a way of thinking, a point-of-view, a perspective on something. Here are the 15 frameworks of the successfully self-employed professional. Leadership in Troubled Times Leadership in Troubled Times The first task of a leader is to keep hope alive. - Joe Batten Leading an organization can be challenging, even when times are good. Uncommon Common Sense - Know What is the Most Important Thing in Your Business Over 3 of my meetings with 3 business owners last week, what really shocked me was how uncommon common sense was. 2 out of 3 I spoke to do not know what is the most important thing in their business. Innovation Management - IBM Opens Lid On Its Treasure Chest IBM, which registered 3248 patents last year, has decided that sharing technology can sometimes be more profitable than jealously guarding its property rights on patents, copyrights and trade secrets (Herald Tribune, April 11 2005).International Business Machines have come to the above conclusion 205 years after the invention of electric light - thus clearly illustrating that even the 19th largest company in the world (fortune. Managing Change in the Workplace Change is exhilarating. Change is terrifying. What Consultants Want You to Know (But You Never Ask) I've been both a CEO and a consultant, so I've seen from both perspectives what goes right and what goes wrong when a consultant comes in to a company. Generally the CEO or the manager who hires the consultant tells the consultant what he or she wants. Creativity and Innovation Management - Competition versus Collaboration There is much confusion as to whether competition or collaboration is most beneficial to creativity and innovation. Though there are negatives to collaboration and it is not easy separating the effects of time pressure and group activity, in general collaboration beats competition. Once Upon a Conflict Once upon a time there lived an innocent, hardworking manager. One day he dared to wander from the safety of his open-concept office to speak out at a team meeting. The Diamond Cutter Geshe Michael Roach is a Princeton graduate and a Buddhist monk. After graduation, he spent seven years studying the wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism. Performance Management Made Easy Performance Management is a process that both employer and employee often fear!Why is this so!There is much misinformation about the performance management process and performance appraisals in management circles today. We often think that best practice demands that we must performance appraise 'no matter what'. Top 10 Things Every Business Should Provide for Every Worker - Including the Boss! Doing business and meeting the needs of workers is increasingly complex. Employees and managers often prefer a cafeteria-list of fringe benefits (a "flexible spending account") so they can choose increased health care, child care or more time off as their individual preferences dictate. The Myth Of Relationship Selling Revealed At Last The second you quit being the 'best deal' for your customer, he'll drop you like a hot potato. Regardless of how many lunches you've bought him or birthdays you've remembered. Four Ways To Make the Case For Outsourcing How do you convert outsourcing leads into clients? You may need to make the case for outsourcing."Businesses today are kicking into survival mode," says Bill Allison, managing director for the Pacific Southwest Management Solutions & Services Group at Deloitte & Touche. 10 Resolutions For The New Year!! Each year many people create a list of resolutions designed to help them improve their lives. As Business Leaders, we also need to take a look at our business lives and find ways to improve ourselves. Performance Management - Getting The Most Out of Your Employees Managing for Best PerformanceIn it's simplest form, performance management is a common sense set of discussions that make sure people are clear about what they need to do, have the support to do it and get open and honest feedback on their performance.Any performance management process should answer 4 important questions for your employees:· Direction: What do I need to do and how well? · Feedback: How am I doing? · Rewards: What happens when I do well? · Support/Development: What happens when I need/want help?Lets look more closely at each of these:DirectionEmployees are not mind readers. Medical Malpractice: Three Myths That Cost Your Hospital Millions What's the use?Nothing you do will hold down the cost of medical malpractice. It feels that way sometimes, doesn't it?Unfortunately, for many risk managers, that's not too far off the mark. Knowledge Management - Leadership Behaviours Which Encourage Knowledge-Sharing The concept of knowledge management or knowledge sharing makes intellectual sense to the leadership teams in most organisations. Why wouldn't we want to learn from our successes and failures, and translate that learning into value?However, there is often a gap between the conceptual understanding, and their own behaviours as leaders - and that can be a problem? How do you engage leaders both intellectually and emotionally, in a way which will make a difference to their day-to-day behaviours? It requires more than a set of competency frameworks!The examples below are taken from the bestselling fieldbook "Learning to Fly ? Practical knowledge management from leading and learning organisations", written by Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
