According to Norm Bobay, founder of hireMAX, one of the key disconnects is that while business owners may be able to clearly identify the technical requirements of any given job (the specific skills needed to do it well), they aren't able to benchmark the "softer" elements, like personality, people skills, and communication skills. These factors are the ones that can prevent employees from succeeding at specific jobs, much more so than the technical aspects.
"Quite commonly, people measure skills and fire for attitude," Bobay said. "The person doesn't fit the job or get along with the team, or they don't have the leadership abilities required."
Bobay and Larry Baker of LVB & Associates (and a facilitator for DuPont Performance Services), provided an overview of ways that companies can more effectively measure for personality when they are evaluating new hires. The presentation, "Benchmarking a Job's Performance Standards," took place Friday afternoon at NACE.
"You need to measure the personal traits of the applicant, their behavior, their personality type," Bobay said. "You look at the job and determine if you had the ideal person doing that job, what would they look like?"
First, Bobay said that owners have to more accurately define the job. He presented a questionnaire that asks more than 100 different questions in different ways to outline the key components and accountabilities of the job. Are there going to be certain behaviors the employee needs to have? Will the employee be motivated in that position by money, job satisfaction, or other factors?
"You determine who would be the ideal person for the position, who you have doing it now, and how they match up," Bobay said. Owners also have to be honest about their own expectations. In some cases, their goals for a certain position may simply be unrealistic, and no employee is going to measure up.
If an employee doesn't match up to a job, that doesn't mean they can't be taught some of the skills that would make them a better fit. "You aren't going to turn an introvert into an extrovert, but you can look for areas where everybody can adapt," Bobay said. "It's rare to find a perfect fit for the job, but you can put a person in the position who will excel naturally. The best case scenario is that the position energizes the person."
The biggest challenge is just measuring the personality traits that are necessary for a given job. That's hireMAX's specialty, and Bobay outlined how this can be done during the presentation. "You can tailor the evaluation to the needs or the position within the company, so you measure the things that are critical for success," Bobay said. "Then you can take the top five candidates and measure them apples to apples against the job. That helps eliminate a lot of unnecessary interviews. Why interview a person who doesn't match up to the job?"
Performing this kind of evaluation makes it easier to ask good questions of both the application and their references. "It's gotten tougher in this economy because there are so many people that just need a job, and they'll tell you anything you want to hear," Bobay said. "This process helps screen some of those folks out."
