Flooded Candidate Pool

Save Thousands of Dollars Interviewing Superior Performers

As difficult, it is for the millions of unemployed people in our country today so it is for businesses that need to hire new employees.

The challenge for hiring managers is to hire people who will be superior performers in open positions and for the new hires to possess the personal talents, the job needs.  Research reveals that people who are a match to the position produce more for a longer time with very little personal stress.

Most hiring managers wear a number of “hats” and hiring new employees is not one of them they like to wear.  The raw cost to hire a new employee is very high but because the costs are in drips and drapes it goes unrecognized lulling business managers into believing they can afford the increased costs.

Some costs of the hire of a new employee

• Time to construct the help wanted advertising  ad to accurately describe the position and reach appropriate candidates
  
• The costs of the advertising for the position
  
• Time to evaluate received resumes
  
• Time to take a closer look at the resume to determine with pile it belongs on
  
• Time to re-review the resumes in each pile
  
• Time to have a stakeholder review a possible candidate
  
• Time to contacted candidates for a telephone interview
  
• Time to arrange a date and time for the first interview
• Time for the interview
• Time lost for the interview because the candidate was late, did not show or did not meet basic criteria for the job or company
• Time to arrange a second interview with a stakeholder – needing to fit into their schedule
• Time to review the second and sequent interviews with stakeholders
• Time to prepare an offer and deliver it
• Time to wait for the candidate to accept it (has other interviews that have not been completed)
  
• Time to interview the next best candidate if the first one rejected the offer
• Time to place the advertising a second or third time because of poor results
•  Time to start the process all over again because the new hire did not show up, they quit shortly after coming on board or it is determine they are a poor fit for the culture of the organization.

Many executive managers require the above to be part of the other daily duties of the responsible person.  However, the selection process consumes a large block of time that imped the success of regular duties being completed.  If a better method for screening and evaluating candidates were available, it would reduce the time needed to complete the selection process.  It turns out there is a proven method for saving time and producing outstanding selection results.

One of ways for improving the selection of candidates is by having them complete a short questionnaire as part of the application process, consisting of questions the hiring manager would like answers to before talking with.  The answers deliver subtle but powerful information.   The questions will be unique to the company and the hiring manager’s needs.  These up front questions will weed out people who know they are a poor candidate for the position and will provide the hiring manager with important information about the possible candidates in their own words.

To their credit, the unemployed never become as good a sales person as they are selling themselves on why they are the best fit for the position.  Over worked hiring managers need to quickly end the endless review of resumes and interviews that can result in the hiring of the wrong person for the position.

The pressure from an organization to fill a “much needed” position quickly is very great.  The buildup to the need for the new hire likely was building for some time, putting additional stress on the current staff.  The hiring manager now has the pressure of filling the position from two sources that tends to create urgency and urgency can produce a hire that may need to be repeated.  (See the costs for that above)

The solution to ineffective hires

Benchmarking positions provides hiring managers with job related interview questions that keep them focused on what the job calls for during the interview.  This process will also provide the candidate and the hiring manager information about the human skills that are needed to carry the technical skills of the position.  The research is very clear; people who have the personal talents for their position are superior performers for a long time.

The benchmarking process is a consensus view of the position by job-impacted stakeholders.  Who is a “job-impacted stakeholder”? This person has a demonstrated commitment to the growth and development of the company.

The following scenarios describe benchmarking with different outcomes.

One is the benchmarking of a sales position and only sales types develop the consensus view of the needs for the position. Now consider that 80% of the sales in most organizations are produced by 20% of the staff. In this case, there will be many more average sales people in the group those high performers.  These two groups tend not to see the job or company in the same light. Experience demonstrates that the benchmark will not produce the information the company needs to build superior performers.  

However, when stakeholders who are impacted by the sales process, i.e. customer service, accounting, warehouse, installers etc. develop the benchmark the result is a broad based view of the needs that affect the bottom line.  The sales people (or those of any of job type) tend to focus only on the job of sales but the impacted stakeholders focus on how the position can be better performed from their interaction experiences.  They are looking to make their jobs easier to do and have strong ideas about how it can be accomplished.  They are a diverse group looking at the same position.

The interviewing process

When it is determined what personal talents are needed taken from behaviors, motivators, acumen, and competencies, they become the tools used to prescreen candidates before you talk with them.  The cost saving to this process is tremendous.  The hiring manager will interview only people who are a match for the position.

When the interviewing process consists of resume review, personal history AND determining the candidate’s ability to do the job it is doomed to fail.

It is fair to say that most interviews violate EEOC rules.  Most interviews are conducted by the “seat of the pants” of the hiring manager.  If you do a post interview of candidates for the same position, they will report they were asked different questions about how they would perform the various tasks the job called which is against EEOC rules.  All candidates must be asked questions about the same needs of the position.  Many times the interview becomes a personal conversation, which adds to the cost of interviewing because it is not necessary.

However, when it is determined that candidates have the skill set the position calls for AND are interviewed with job related questions the results are significantly better.   Benchmarking the position develops key accountabilities the hiring manager needs a candidate to fill.   Conducting a complete interview is the key to successful long time hires.  Builders cannot build if they do not have a plan to follow it is also true for interviewing; job related interview questions produced from the benchmark process become the guide for EVERY candidate interview, which the EEOC likes to see.  (If you are thinking you are, too small for the EEOC to do an audit you may be right but what is legal is usually the best way to go for everyone) 

Often employees will question the directives of their managers about the requirements of the position.  Many employees, managers and non-managers have been the victim of personal bias forced on them.  Biases create a very stress full environment to cause employees to be suspicious about why they asked to do something especially if they do not understand the reasons.

A benefit of the benchmarking process is that the company stakeholders devoted a considerable amount of time and energy to create a consensus view of what the key accountabilities of the position are.

When employees question a manager’s directive they are in the position to define how the directive was created and that, they support the effort of the stakeholders of the company.  It is powerful way to reduce the feeling some have of biases are coming from the manager.

When a position is benchmarked, managers can focus on the real needs of the position rather than on the duties, they think the position calls for.  It gives them the time to coach employees to use their person talents in the position that will be rewarding to both parties.

Conclusion

Benchmarking has proven to save businesses thousands of dollars in the hiring process, produces better hires who stay employed for a long time and complete process in a very efficient period.  Better hires, lower stress issues, increase productivity for a longer time and give businesses an outstanding ROI when the benchmarking process is part of their hiring process.

 Call me today at 610-458-3511 for a face-to-face demonstration of the patented benchmarking process we use. 

Source: John Mathis, Owner/President, Keyline Company, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Copyright protected.