I've been doing a mini series of posts about the key elements from each speaker's presentation at the recent Enhance Media the Year Ahead Conference. Charlie Atkinson, MD of Human Factors International spoke about “Profiling for Recruitment”. Human Factors is a global business psychology consultancy who work with blue chip organisations to identify and develop their management and executive talent around the world.
Charlie’s presentation focussed on his suggestions for the role of assessment (eg, psychometrics, aptitude testing and role plays) in the modern recruitment process.
Firstly he shared the benefits of using assessments. They are:
- Standardised – allowing direct comparisons between applicants
- Consistent – unlike people an assessment tool will never get tired, upset or emotional
- Objective – do not judge on race, gender or orientation
- Predictive - focus on talent and potential not experience
- Efficient - reduces administrative burden
He then talked about the “onion” model of the individual. If we perceive an individual as made of many layers, like an onion, then:
- The outside layer that you see is “behaviour”. This is easy for anyone to measure simply by watching someone. However it is also easy for the candidate to change. So measuring our behaviours in an interview may not be very predictive of how we will behave on the job.
- Beneath this is the “knowledge and skills” layer. These take a little more effort to measure, eg by questioning/testing (ie, can you create this spreadsheet in Excel?). These take longer for the candidate to change but can be developed through training.
- The next layer is “values and attitudes”. Candidates may not easily share (or even know) their own values and attitudes. In order to correctly assess they will need to be psychometrically measured. They are open to change but not on a day to day basis; it takes months and years for our values and attitudes to change.
- At the centre of the onion is “personality and ability”. In order to determine this you will need to use specialist tools (eg, psychometric and aptitude testing). Ability doesn’t change much after school days. Personality continues to develop into our 20’s but after this it takes a major trauma to have any significant impact on our personalities. Because these don’t really change they can be used to predict how much we are likely to enjoy and perform in a job role.
Charlie talked about some of the problems present within a standard recruitment process. These included the problems of candidates lying on CVs and interviewers only being able to measure behaviours, knowledge and skills rather than personality and ability. He also talked about the problem of candidates being offered the job when they don’t really know enough about the company and the requirements of the role. Finally he touched on how with the standard recruitment process the induction can be hit and miss if you don’t totally understand the needs/ability of the candidate.
Some of his thoughts around how assessments can help in the process were:
- Recruiters should ensure they give candidates a realistic overview of the company and job role to allow the candidate to self-select their appropriateness. To do this you should review the job description and ask for feedback from the incumbent(s) and peers.
- Recruiters should screen candidates against a competency profile (based on the job spec) to increase the accuracy of the decision making process. Once you have screened candidates to interview you can use the assessment you have made of them, against the competencies, to lead the interview.
- Ideally you should establish requirements by analysing existing high performers.
- Ensure you determine your expectations (eg, a 45% score for verbal skills is – or isn’t - acceptable).
Finally, he talked about what he thinks the future of assessment is. He sees the usage of paper based delivery (ie candidates filling out a test on paper) continuing to decrease (although apparently more testing is still conducted via paper than online). He also sees a decline in lengthy user training (a move away from the 10 days required by some providers to attain psychometric assessor status). He suggests that self-selection through realistic profiling (ie, day in the life examples and realistic job descriptions) and the use of “experiential simulations” (ie, give the candidate an example situation and ask them how they would react) will increase.
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