"The Art of Hiring Smart: Find the Best Person for the Job"Written by Arthur G. Schoeck
Benchmarking is a process which establishes behavioral standards most appropriate for a given position - that is, what behaviors are most effective most of time in this job. A well-defined Behavioral Job Description acts as a standard in evaluating existing employees as well as a guide in hiring new employees. Today's benchmarking tools are powerful, but they can cause as much damage as good if they are carelessly applied. With help of objective tools and targeted guidance, process has productive results. No matter which quality tools are used in benchmarking process, more and more companies, because they have experienced misguided application, are turning to professional help. Traditionally, most benchmarking has involved profiling employees in a target position to determine which attributes are most common in your best performers. This imperfect method has several potential dangers. First, it actually assumes you already have best performers and that you can find none that can perform better. This assumption limits benchmark standards to your current employees only, and does not consider standards outside your current environment. Another common mistake is that guidelines for selecting and ranking top performers have not been well-defined. For example, sales statistics have been erroneously used to rank performance. As an example, Joe has been selling for us forever. His figures make him look like a top performer, but Joe developed his client base back when all he had to do was take orders as people called in. He was only salesperson in an easy market with little or no competition. Today, however, is much different. Competition is fierce. If Joe had to start from scratch in today's market, how would he fare? How long would it take to build that client base now, if he could at all? If you based your sales position's benchmark on Joe because his statistics look good and hired people with this benchmark as your guide, you may have hired ineffective people with Joe's traits.
| | Finding The Right Career: Matching Your Behavioral Style with the Career that's Right for YouWritten by Arthur G. Schoeck
Ever wonder why some people get law degrees and never practice law? How about CPA who tried it awhile before realizing she just had to try something else? There are many doctors who do not practice. Why? Parental influence? Improper research? Not enough information initially? Erroneous assumptions? Lack of foresight? All of above? Although companies’ base 80% of their hiring decision on education (including skills and experience), 85% of turnover is due to BEHAVIORAL incompatibility. That is, optimum behaviors for position are too far removed from comfortable behaviors person prefers to exhibit. The occupational failures indicate these individuals did not realize what behaviors would have to be exhibited, or did not realize just how different those behaviors are from their own. Changing behaviors, which can only be a temporary adjustment, requires energy, causes stress, or can be very frustrating to individual. All of this takes away from job itself. They must first focus on change, and then on those skills they learned for job. It's not that they cannot do it - they just don't want to do it. When experts say 50% to 80% of people are in wrong job today, they are not talking about training or skills misplacement but about behavioral incompatibility. People have skills that can be applied to various fields in various industries. Whether education or experience is teacher, skills mean little if they don't like doing what it takes.
|
