Get better at getting better people

This may surprise you, then again perhaps not, but all the research suggest that the standard job interview is a terrible way of assessing whether a person is going to be successful in any given role. The evidence suggests that if all you know about two candidates is what you see in a job interview then it’s basically a coin flip over who will be the better.

This is important for cultural organisations which are nothing if not about people. Get a recruitment decision wrong and the level of impact on small teams is disproportionally harmful.

So what do you need to know to make a good recruitment decision?

1.????Are they competent? Obvs I know but this is the easy thing to discover. Get the JD right and you can find from a sift of the applications those who are able to do the job. HOWEVER this means that you must be correct about what the job entails AND create priorities within that job role, i.e. not so important if they don’t know about that but they need to be experts in this.

2.????Are they a good fit for the team? This requires two things, knowing how they think and how they behave. This will tell you whether they match the way the organisation works or bring something new to the team.

It’s the latter of the two which is usually neglected. Evidence suggests that “gut feel” or being a “good judge of people” is an illusion experienced people like to carry with them. What they draw upon is getting one or two decisions right a long while ago and then believing they will always get them right.

The important thing therefore is to bring process into job recruitment especially around fit. Here are some prompts which ai hope might help you improve the way you do things

1.????Get the JD and The PS right, no I mean really right, review the functions and set priorities for what is most important.

2.????Know what sort of principles, values, attitudes and social styles will match the role and complement the team. Conduct a social styles analysis, set up a tendencies questionnaire. Setting some personality profiling processes need not be expensive but you need to do it on the team as well as the candidate in that way you can ensure a good fit.

3.????Work harder at recruitment. Use the networks you have, LinkedIn, job ads but ask your network to circulate and think about targeting people yourself.

4.????When doing a first sift of the applications create a team and ask them to do it independently as this will give a clear sense of who might fit the role.

5.????Invite those on the long list to clarify in writing or video the evidence you need to be satisfied. This will replace the traditional interview. Then rank again with separate judges who are the top 5 for the role for competency alone.

6.????This is when you get people in for a face to face. This is when you hold a structured conversation about who they are and what they want from work. Focus on the person and who they are. Perhaps begin by asking what their ideal job looks like in terms of the environment the culture the types of people they work best with. Questions based in the areas in this diagram might help you understand how they work as people and how they might interact with the team.

7.????Now you have a fully rounded basis for making a decision

Of course people may game the systems and then they will be found out, honest authentic conversations will find the right person and give you the team you need.

Message me if you found this useful.

Keith

https://open.spotify.com/show/3kbXYuqOjal5sn2EKOhJHL