Interview the Job Before the Candidates
Dinah Daniels
The scenario is familiar to human resources professionals and hiring managers. A job opening occurs within the organization, and a file drawer full of resumes is pulled open to start the arduous task of finding the “right” candidate.
If the company is on its toes, a written “job description” may exist, giving the human resources department a roadmap to the educational background, job experience, skills and qualifications that the ideal candidate should possess.
However, if HR proceeds with interviewing candidates before performing one critical internal assessment, a potential hire who looks great on paper may, in fact, be the wrong person for the job.
First, the HR department should “interview” the job before interviewing the job candidates and define a “job profile.” This profile should include information about key result areas, critical connections within the company, behaviors, values and education and experience required to perform the job.
Creating a job profile gives an organization far more useful information than a written job description gives. While a job description states the functions of a specific job and the education, background and skills required to perform it, a job profile illustrates how the job fits into the context of the company. It profiles whom the person holding the job will deal with as key connecting people within the organization. It looks at values and how the job impacts the entire organization as well as specific, measurable outcomes of job performance.
With the creation of a job profile for a given position, a company connects that position to the entire organization in a meaningful way. It requires human resources professionals and line managers or department supervisors to work together and establish a consistent understanding of how a job should be filled and the type of person who should fill it.
Traditionally, the interview and selection process is viewed as a chore that happens in isolation from everything else in a company. But with the creation of a job profile, utilizing input from everyone who is affected within an organization, the decision makers are able to take a fuller view.
The second critical step in the interviewing and selection process is building a candidate profile. Based on the job profile, the candidate profile will give the hiring managers a clear picture of the person they want for the job before they meet a single candidate.
The candidate profile is critical because there is more to matching people to jobs than simply finding the right education, job experience and skill set. Two candidates may possess the same college degree, similar levels of professional experience and work skills that match the job. But if the job requires an assertive decision maker, someone who embraces risk and thrives in a fast-paced environment, suddenly the two candidates may not appear so equal. One may function well in an environment that is more deliberative and predictable, making him inappropriate for the opening. The other may possess the quick-thinking, authoritative characteristics needed, but may also show signs of being somewhat reckless.
No candidate is a perfect fit for any job. There are always gaps between the requirements of a job and the capabilities of even the best person hired to fill it. But an enlightened company will not wait until that person is on board to discover – and be caught unaware – by those gaps.
A successful interviewing process will have several key results. It will: Determine where the strong fits are between a candidate and a job. Determine if there are gaps between the company’s needs and a candidate’s capabilities.
If there are gaps, the interviewing process should yield enough information about a candidate to determine if there is anything the company can do to bridge the gaps or compensate for them. Perhaps the candidates need only take a college course, or perhaps another person within the company can spend a short amount of time providing assistance and training to the new hire.
Many organizations make the mistake of engaging in wishful thinking when job candidates come to them with recognizable gaps. Hiring managers believe that when the person starts working at the job, he or she will adapt to its needs just by becoming acquainted with the organization’s culture. That rarely happens, and the company ends up shaking its finger at the new employee, when it should be blaming itself.
Even in a tight labor market, a company is setting someone up for failure by hiring him when it knows of serious gaps between the candidate’s personality or skills and what the job requires. An enlightened company may go ahead and hire this person, but with a clear idea of the options for filling his or her gaps:
The company can shore up the gaps with other resources within the organization. Or it can redefine the job to fit the capabilities and qualities of the new hire, understanding that some functions will have to be absorbed elsewhere in the organization.
Most failure in the hiring process comes from the fact that people are vague about what a candidate can or can’t do. Maybe they like the way a person meets and greets, or they like the candidate’s education level, but they don’t look at the whole picture, and in the end they make the hiring decision based on the wrong factors.
Most importantly, hiring professionals need to avoid the temptation to compare one candidate to another. What they really need to do is compare each candidate against the job.
By creating both a job profile and then a candidate profile, hiring managers dramatically increase their chances of long-term hiring success – before ever meeting a single job candidate.
Articles
Finding Candidates
- 10 Reasons to Hire Vets
- Hire Older Workers
- Improving Candidate Quality
- Sourcing 101
- Sourcing Candidates Well
- Tips for Building Employment-Related Websites
- U.S. Employ of People with Disabilities: Free Workshops
- Virtual College Recruiting
Interviewing Basics
- 10 Commandments of Recruiting
- 5 Keys to Successful Hiring
- 7 Tips for Successful Phone Interviews
- Behavioral Interviewing Basics
- Contrary Evidence Questions
- Interview Questions: Do's and Don'ts
- Interviewing Opening and Closing Remarks
- Interviews: Common Weaknesses
- Mistakes Amateur Interviewers Make
- Phone Screen Interview Mistakes
- Probing Techniques Explained
- Screening Interviewing: Top 10 Red Flags
- Strengthen the Validity of Your Interviews
- Telephone Interviews: Basics
- Ten Bad Listening Habits of Interviewers
- Types of Interviews
- Typical Probes and Follow up Questions
- What Do Interviewers Need to Know to be Effective?
Interviewing Best Practices
- 7 Keys to Effective Selection Interviews
- A Closer Look at Behavior-Based Interviewing
- Advantages / Disadvantages of Interviewing
- Applying Core Competencies to Selection Interviews
- Are You Really a Behavior-Based Interviewer?
- Assessing Speaking and Listening Skills
- Best Practices in Interviewing Candidates
- Deadly Interview Mistakes
- Death by Interview
- Ensure Hiring Success in Every Situation
- Executive Assessment Should Be Mandatory
- Generational Interviewing
- Hiring Interview + Strategic Applicant Management
- Hold Evening and Off-Time Interviews
- How to Interview a Top Performer
- Improve your Interviewing Techniques
- Interview Questions to Assess Soft Skills
- Interviewing for Ethics
- Interviewing Millennials
- Interviewing: Business or Psychology
- Metrics Interview
- Peeling Back the Onion
- The Positives of Panel Interviews
- Time for Candidate Advocacy?
- Tips for Conducting Successful Interviews
- Two Critical Interviewing Questions
Laws & Documentation
- Applicant Reference Release
- At Will Employment Release
- Avoid Negligent Hiring Mistakes
- Employee Referral Program Metrics
- Fair Labor Standards Act Information
- Four Interview Questions Never to Ask
- Giving Employee References
- Hiring Compliance Guidelines
- Hiring for Small Business
- Interviewing People with Disabilities
- Job Denial Letter
- Legal Issues in Interviewing
- Minimize Employment Risks: Document
- SAMPLE Employment Policy
- SAMPLE Letter: Educational Records Check
- SAMPLE Letter: Reference Check
- Ten Safe Hiring Tools
- What is Negligent Hiring
Line Manager / Recruiting Partnership
- Defending Candidates to Hiring Managers
- Interlocking Core Competency Interviews
- Internal Application Process
- Making Internships Work for You
- Making the Case for Behavioral Interviewing
- Non-Traditional Merit Pay Alternatives
- OFCCP Definition of an Internet Applicant
- Why Managers Shouldn't Do Most Hiring
- Workforce Planning: Strategic Staffing Strategy
Post-Interview
Pre-Planning & Retention
- Bonus or Incentive?
- Brand-Building on a Budget
- Build a First-Rate Hiring Process
- Closing the Deal
- Compensation Plans: An Overview
- Conducting an Exit Interview
- Good Hiring Starts with a Good Job Profile
- Improve the Quality of the Employment Function
- Interview Process Problems
- Interview the Job Before the Candidates
- Job Description Template-Link Pay to Performance
- Linking Pay to Company Performance
- Selecting and Using Salary Surveys
- Succession Planning
- Succession Planning: Identifying Top Performers
- Using a Pre-Interviewing Questionnaire
- Winning the War for Talent
- Worker Shortage by 2010: Preparation
Reading the Candidate
- Beware of Those Who Boast
- Blind Man's Bluff
- Decision, Decisions: Choosing the Better Applicant
- Detecting Deceit in Interviews
- Little White Lies on Resumes
- Suspend Judgment Until the Interview is Over
Recruiting Basics
- College Recruiting Basics
- College Recruiting Essentials
- Cut Down on Interview No Shows
- Discouraging Low Quality Applicants
- Don't Hold Too Many Interviews
- Job Descriptions: Why are they Important?
- New Strategies for Screening Job Candidates
- Preventing Resume Overload with Questionnaires
- Resume Review Basics
- Test Validation Explained
- The Value of Person-Organization Fit
- Three Companies Cut Turnover with Tests
Recruiting Best Practices
- 25 Telltale Signs of the Wrong Candidate
- 5 Overlooked Ways to Hire Winners
- Asking the Right Recruitment Questions
- Attracting Your Competitor's Employees
- BPR.......for Recruiters!
- Candidate Engagement
- Cloud Recruiting
- Evaluate Your Capture Strategy
- Hiring Best Practices
- How Do You Attract and Retain the Best People?
- How to Attract Applicants to Undesirable Jobs
- How to Attract, Develop and Retain Best People
- How to Find and Keep Valued Employees
- Ignorance and the Human Condition
- Onboarding Success Secrets
- Secrets to Non-Profit Hiring
- Selecting Top Management Talent
- Semi-Active Candidates are Best Bets
- Six Core Selling Principles
- Skills Based Recruiting: When, not How
- Smart Choices: How to Hire the Best
- Strategy for Hiring the Best This Year
- The Uses and Misuses of Personality Tests
- Top 10 Employee Selection Mistakes & Solutions
- Treat Candidates with the Carbon Rule