How to Select the Right Person for the Right Position

How to Select the Right Person for the Right Position

Critical to business success is selecting the right people, especially executives, managers and supervisors, for leading and managing the work that needs to be done. Selecting someone ill-suited can cost tens of thousands of dollars and much wasted time.

Mistakes are made when a rigorous selection process is not used.

Often, the selection process consists of a relatively few questions sometimes thought up in the moment and conducted by one interviewer over a relatively short time. Likeability, rapport, interviewee expressed interest in the work convince the interviewer that this person should work out.

A shortage of qualified people doesn't make the selection process any easier. How can this process be improved?

Here are some ideas:

Written Job Description

Take time to write a detailed job description. Include specifics on required and desired education, work experience, specific skills, intellectual characteristics, personal characteristics, interpersonal relations, additional personal specifications, and physical requirements.

Writing crystallizes thought!

Determine Person Specifications

Extract between 20 and 30 of the most important person specifications from the job description and create a written list. For each specification, determine the desired competency level using a scale of 1=poor to 10=excellent.

Written Interview Guide

Create a detailed written interview guide using behavioral based questions to gather data about the person specifications. Include questions on culture and character compatibility with the company.

This guide should have space for writing interviewee answers. The number of questions should ensure that the interview is two hours long (you want to 'know' the interviewee when the interview is over).

Now you are ready for the interview. After appropriate candidate screening, the hiring interview can be held.

Here are a few ideas to enhance that interaction:

Interviewers

Hold the interview with no less than two interviewers (one to ask questions and one or more to observe and write answers or collect data).

The person asking questions will be focusing both on the process and collecting data and therefore may miss important clues.

Rate on Person Specifications

Immediately after the interview, individually and silently the interviewers review their data and rate the candidate for each of the person specifications listed in item 2 above using the scale of 1=poor to 10=excellent. A note on each item could be valuable in comparing ratings and developing averages.

Determine Qualification

Discuss and average or set the interviewee competency level for each person specification. Then compare to the desired competency level to see if the candidate is a good match for the job position.

A few low ratings do not necessarily disqualify the candidate but employee development and coaching areas have been identified.

The ideas presented here turn the interview process into a more objective way of matching the person to the desired work requirements. It ensures that emotions and likeability are not the prime hiring motives.

Could these enhancements to your hiring process lead to better decisions and matches to your work? Try it, you'll like it!