The Metiss Group's Blog

After you invested in developing Job Accountabilities and a Job Profile at the beginning of your selection process, you’ve noted the ease with which the decision of who to hire, and not to hire, has been.  Too often, we notice some leaders failing to get the real “bang for their buck” because that appears to be the end of the point at which the Job Accountabilities and Job Profile are used.

During your one-on-ones and quarterly performance reviews, be certain to go over the accountabilities and success factors by asking whether or not your direct report is on track or off track.  If off-track, ask the employee if they need additional resources or obstacles removed to get themselves back on track.  Also ask by what date should you expect to see them on track.

Additionally, the Job Profile can provide a path to reinforcing the right means by which to achieve those results.  So ask about the behaviors, motivators, and skills you defined as critical to the job at least as part of your quarterly reviews.  As an example:  please describe for me a time you demonstrated Goal Achievement or Personal Accountability in the last quarter.  The other option is to use the behavior based interview questions used with candidates to probe the right characteristics with employees.

Remember if the Job Accountabilities define WHAT we want done in a job, and the Job Profile defines HOW we want the job performed, a real superstar will accomplish both.  Use what you already have in place to drive the performance excellence you seek.

You just finished following your selection process and you are ready to make an offer to a superstar.  The superstar accepts your offer and commits to starting in two weeks.  Now what do you do?

If you found a superstar, someone else is about to loose one.  Expect the superstar’s current employer to try to keep them from leaving by offering increased pay, more responsibility, or a promotion.  You are at a disadvantage here as the superstar has some allegiance and may have second thoughts.  All your hard work and expense following your selection process may be for naught if the superstar decides to rescind their acceptance.

After your offer is accepted, stay in touch with the future new-hire.  Coach the superstar on how to handle their company’s offer to stay.  Ask them, “What is your current boss likely to offer you to get you to stay?  What are you going to do if you are offered more money to stay?  What are you going to tell your boss if s/he offers you a promotion?”  Give them tips on how to answer.  Simply planting these seeds, will help your chances of not loosing your superstar.  Additionally, regular emails and calls are essential to letting the superstar know you really want them.  Meeting for lunch before s/he starts working for you is a good idea.  Your superstar will be excited after deciding to come work for you; keep that excitement from wearing off and avoid the risk of loosing them.

Empower you future new-hires for success and your career will soar.

We recommend assessing candidates after the phone screen, core values assignment and first interview.  As assessments become easier to administer, we are seeing more-and-more organizations assessing candidates at various points in their selection process.  In some cases, where they are being inserted, and how they are being used might create a legal/moral dilemma.

Legally, no assessment should count for more than 1/3 of the selection process and no assessment should be a go/no-go decision on its own.

There are two other business reasons not to assess too early in the process: 1) you might be investing in an assessment for a candidate you don’t like and could have screened out without the investment; and 2) the assessment might bias your view of the candidate before you meet. Meeting with a candidate before assessing allows you to be open mined about their styles.

A bigger mistake hiring managers make is administering assessments too late in the process.  It is common for managers to assess candidates as the final step “just in case something pops up.”  By the time a candidate gets to this stage of the process, hiring managers have emotionally committed to the candidate and cannot objectively interpret the results.  If hiring managers are deep into the process and committed to a candidate, don’t bother assessing.

Assessing candidates after the first interview allows the hiring manager to confirm their observations and objectively focus on concerns in follow-up behavior-based interviews and behavior-based reference checks.

We recommend every hiring manager have a repeatable selection process consisting of three phases: job and candidate definition, screening, and evaluation.  How do you know if your selection process is any good?  If you can answer yes to these questions, you probably have an excellent selection process:

• Do your employees respect the new hire for succeeding in your selection process?
• Would your employees cringe if they had to go through your selection process?
• Do weak candidates drop out of your selection process because it is too hard?
• Are superstars attracted to your company because your selection process ensures weak candidates are not hired?
• Every new hire, without exception, goes through your selection process?
• A potential superstar has not dropped out of your selection process because you moved too slowly?

Develop a quality selection process, be disciplined in administering it, and empower your team for success.

Select (verb) – To choose in preference to another or others; pick out (Random House Dictionary).
Process (noun) – A series of actions, changes, or functions bringing about a result (Random House Dictionary).

Does your selection process consist of a series of actions to bring about an ideal choice of candidates?  Many leaders rely on intuition, gut instinct, or some haphazard interview approach when choosing among candidates.  We recommend hiring managers use a defined, repeatable process for selecting talent.

Your selection process should include three phases:

• job and ideal candidate definition;
• screening;
• evaluation.

Define the job and ideal candidate in the definition phase clarifying what is expected of the job and what the ideal candidate will look like.  The screening phase should include consistent behavior-based questioning and assessments that tie back to the job and candidate definitions.  The evaluation phase should analyze gaps and discrepancies between observed candidate behavior and job and candidate requirements.

Define the steps in your selection process, stick to them, and you will empower those in the selection process for success.

It wasn’t long ago that most leaders had assistance booking their travel, typing their memos, and printing and coping their reports.  Now, with today’s technology, most leaders book their own travel on-line, use their PC to type their own memos, and have high-speed laser printers for printing their reports.  It’s time for leaders to use technology to do their own recruiting as well.

Today, just like in the days of having assistance typing memos, most leaders seek assistance recruiting their next hire – typically from HR.  These HR experts, while well intentioned, are working with some handicaps.  They typically don’t know exactly where the industry or profession-specific experts are to be found and if they find the superstars they typically aren’t given access because they lack the credentials to “enter the fold.”  If they do get access to an industry or professional group (on-line or in-person), the passive candidate superstar wants to talk to the industry expert to understand what might be alluring about the work being done in the department with the vacancy, not the HR person.  College athletic coaches understand this the best.  When they recruit superstars, they personally contact the recruit’s school, meet with the recruit, and pitch them and their family on joining their team.  College coaches do not rely on someone from the admissions office to recruit their talent.  You shouldn’t either.

There are many easy to use technological resources for leaders to recruit their own talent.  Aside from the common job boards, Craigslist, industry sites, and LinkedIn are often free, effective for reaching the passive job-seeking superstars, and easy to use.  HR Advantage will be hosting a webinar March 4th at 2:00 EST to demonstrate how to use LinkedIn to source and recruit superstars.  A follow-up session will be held on March 25th at 2:00 EST for a hands-on, step-by-step workshop where, live, we’ll walk an entrepreneur through establishing a presence/profile and help him begin trolling for talent right then and there.  Reply to this email to reserve a spot for the webinar or click here for more information.

Empower yourself with the tools to recruit your own talent and you’ll be even more successful.