TM - November 2007 - (Page 24)

2. Randomly pick two people from the list and ask hiring managers to describe what one person did that made him or her more or less effective. Encourage them to go beyond general evaluative adjectives to describe the person’s actual behaviors. For example, instead of saying “He was more productive,” a manager might say, “He was more productive because he carefully prioritized tasks based on importance.” 3. Work through different pairs to build a list of behaviors and characteristics that differentiate effective and ineffective employees. Retirement Services 4. After you identify several behavioral themes to describe effective performance, ask hiring managers to indicate which ones are likely to have the greatest impact on success in the particular job being staffed. Identifying specific job-performance dimensions provides a much clearer picture of what a good employee looks like. The resulting staffing process starts with a clear sense of what criteria should be used to identify, screen and select candidates. Employee Self-Service Evaluating Candidate Experience, Potential and Interest Making accurate hiring decisions requires collecting job-relevant information from candidates during the staffing process and then interpreting it appropriately to predict how they will behave on the job if hired. For hiring decision makers to be effective, they must collect the right information from candidates, and they also must learn to control the influence of information not relevant to the job, as well as personal biases. When it comes to HR and benefits solutions For example, what does it tell us if candidates arrive for an interview 10 minutes late? Is this a sign of poor organizational skills, an indication they are not committed to the job, or did someone simply give them lousy directions? It probably does tell us something about the candidate, but it’s not easy to determine exactly what. Researchers in fields such as industrial-organizational psychology have spent years studying factors that influence the accuracy of hiring decisions. Their research has found people are remarkably bad at evaluating candidates unless they use some type of structured assessment process. This research also has created many staffing assessment tools to help companies make accurate hiring decisions. These include things such as structured interview guides, qualifications-screening questions, personality measures, background checks, and knowledge and ability tests. Staffing assessments tend to be more accurate than people because they take a systematic, thorough, objective and often complicated approach toward collecting and interpreting candidate information, and then they limit their focus to job-relevant information gathered from the candidate without being influenced by nonrelevant information or situational factors that often bias hiring decisions (e.g., evaluating candidates based on their personal appearance). But the purpose of staffing assessments is not to replace people in the hiring process. After all, assessments do not hire people — people hire people. Managers should not be expected to hire candidates if they do not feel good about them. But staffing decisions hiring managers and recruiters make tend to be much more accurate if they use staffing assessments as part of the selection process. Based on the kinds of information they collect to predict a candidate’s likely job performance, staffing assessment tools tend to fall into three categories (see Figure 1, p. 27). These categories include assessments that measure: • What candidates have done based on work experience, job-relevant activities, accomplishments and education. • What candidates can do based on underlying potential and aptitude for different tasks and activities. • What candidates want to do based on work and nonwork goals, preferences and interests. Screening and Selection Services Health & Welfare Services http://www.adp.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of TM - November 2007

Talent Management - November 2007 Editor's Letter Contents Letters to the Editor Human Performance Leading Edge Learning Connections Viewpoint Finding Candidates with the Right Fit Turning HR Data Into Business Intelligence Compensation Technology: Drive Higher Performance, Gain Competitive Advantage The Art and Science of Influence Training the Ethical Workforce Making the Best Managers Application: Pre-Hire Testing Drives Down Employee Turnover at Advnace Auto Parts Dashboard: The Role of Learning Business Process Outsourcing Insight: Nationwide Insurance: On Employees' Side Advertiser's Index Editorial Resources Full Potential

TM - November 2007

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