Recruiting Mr or Ms Right

Too many managers see a candidate and make a judgement on gut instinct.They are easily persuaded (or not!) by the first impressions a candidate makes. However, if the right person can have a considerable impact on an organisation’s success, (and by inference the wrong person could be disastrous!), why would you hire on a hunch? Surely it makes more sense to invest in a formal process. In addition, one has to question why a candidate would want to take job on the basis of an informal chat, the best candidates know that it is important that they understand the role, what will be expected of them and that the organisation they plan to work for has a professional approach in everything they do. These things would not be demonstrated by a cosy chat in a restaurant.

However, that doesn’t mean that gut feeling and instinct should be totally excluded from the process. For example, if an organisation advertises a position, there are a number of hurdles that have to be first overcome before an interview can even take place. For example:

· The right person or persons need to see the advert.

· The advert needs to excite them enough for them to want to respond.

· They then have to respond in a manner that ensures the HR department or recruitment consultants shortlist them.

So how can managers use their instinct to improve the recruitment process? Essentially, managers should always be on the lookout for potential new recruits. As people we are always meeting others either informally (on planes, trains, social events), or formally at business meetings and networking events. It is during these interactions that gut feel and instinct can work best.

By meeting potential candidates outside of a formal process, you can really get a feel for what motivates them and what makes them tick, and make an initial judgement about whether or not they are the right sort of person for your organisation. Once they become interested in what you have to offer, then a more formal ‘assessment’ process can be engaged. For more in depth advice on your recruitment processes and how to improve them why not look at developingpeople.co.uk

Who is Responsible for Talent Management?

Over the past thirty years businesses have had to continuously improve what they do and reduce how much it costs them to do it. The result of this is that many large businesses have much flatter organisation structures, with managers who have much broader roles and many more demands on their time, than previously.

Because of this, managers sometimes want to hand over Talent Management to ‘specialists’ in HR. If this is combined with a Chief Executive who believes that Talent Management is an HR agenda, responsibility can soon slip away from line managers and managing talent becomes a ‘tick box’ activity.

While HR have an important role to play, active Talent Management needs an engaged Chief Executive with line managers who are prepared to take the long term view about the skills the business needs in the future and those who are best placed to meet them.

HR needs to provide the appropriate processes and frameworks to enable Talent Management to work effectively, but it is line management, who are ultimately responsible for identifying, nurturing and developing talent. After all, as a line manager, do you not want a say in who your successor will be?

How to recruit and select the right person

Recruiting the right person can have a dramatic effect on your business, as can recruiting someone unsuitable who could cause real issues. So how can you improve your chances of employing the right person when recruiting staff?

1. Make up a detailed Job Description.

• What does the job entail?
• What sort of candidate you are looking for?
• What is the main purpose of the job?
• What will be their areas of responsibility?
• What are the key tasks?
• How many people will they supervise?

2. Draw up a Person Specification

· What knowledge, skills and experience will this person need?

· What level of education will be required?

Remember that these must only be of importance to the job and must be equally applied regardless of age, sex, race or disability.

3. Salary

To help you decide on the correct Salary for the job, bear in mind pay scales, grades, the current market situation and bonuses, such as a car etc.

4. Advertising the job

· Choose where you wish to advertise the job; local or national newspapers, consultants, job centre etc.

· Make sure that the application form is clear and straightforward.

5. Shortlist

The task of coming up with a shortlist of prospective employee’s should be done by two or more people; this should include the person who will be the new employee’s immediate line manager. You should compare the applicants against your Job Description and Person specification.

6. The Interview

· Prepare a list of initial questions. Open ended questions will encourage them to start talking and also avoid unwanted ‘yes or no’ answers.

· Carefully review each application and make a note of any extra questions or queries you wish to ask an individual person. However, avoid asking questions not related to the job as some may be taken as potentially discriminatory (for example their plans for starting a family etc).

· Ensure that there will be no interruptions during the interviews.

It is vital therefore to ensure that managers who are involved in selection and recruitment have been trained and can demonstrate the necessary skills. Recruiting the right person will help your team and organisation flourish, selecting the wrong one can cause real issues.

Recruiting the right person – define your criteria first!

A survey last year by Right Management Consultants* found that almost 7 out of 10 employers say that it costs them between 2 and 3 times an employee’s annual salary to replace that worker if he or she doesn’t prove to be a good hire, with the higher the position, the more likely the costlier the mistake.

While the survey may have included a number of ‘subjective’ considerations such as recruitment, training, severance and reductions in productivity in the replacement cost estimates, the truth of the matter is that poor hires cost organisations time and money and so it is vital to get it right first time.

The first step in the process to ‘getting the right person’ is to identify a ‘specification’ for the ideal candidate. As a minimum this should be a description of the skills, qualifications, capabilities and experience that a candidate would need to fulfil the role successfully. However, it’s important not just to think about the current role, for example, you may also have a requirement to find someone who has the potential to take on a broader or more senior role.

The following questions are designed to help to prepare an appropriate person specification that can then be used to assess potential candidates against.

1. What technical skills are required for the role?
2. What qualifications are needed?
3. What level of intellect and thinking ability is needed? Does the role include resolving complex and challenging problems?
4.What specific behavioural traits are required? Does the role require big picture and long term thinking, or is it more about the day to day detail and completion of tasks? What type of behavioural profile is most successful in the organisation?
5. What experience is needed? Does the role require international experience, or experience of leading a team or specific sector experience?
6. What level of personal impact and credibility is needed for the role? Will the role holder need to interact with and influence customers, peers, other stakeholders?
7. What are the ideal candidate’s motivations and values? What are the organisations values? How important is it that the role holder can identify with these?

In addition, it is important to identify what ‘standard’ of ability is required. This could be in the form of minimum qualification levels or comparison to internal or external benchmarks.

The above is not meant to be an exhaustive list of selection criteria but a guide on the sorts of criteria that should be considered. Clearly, preparing a list of selection criteria is only half of the task of selecting the right candidate for a role. However, it is the vital first step in ensuring that the right candidate is selected first time.

* Lower Employee Morale & Decreased Productivity Are Biggest Consequences of Bad Hires & Promotions" [Right Management], press release, April 11, 2006

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