Get Ready for Changes in Interviewing!

The most read topic on The ECI Blog is about behavioral event interviewing and how to properly answer these questions.  Many people are becoming very familiar with the behavioral event interviewing process and are getting coaching prior to their interviews from their placement counselors.  This, of course, has the effect of masking an individual candidate’s true potentials.

For many years in Europe, employers have been inviting potential candidates to simulation workshops as a part of the selection process.  This is a very time-consuming and costly step, but considering that the employment dismissal regulations are so much more stringent in many countries than they are in the US,  the process provides real understanding of a candidate’s real capabilities.

ECI has experience in simulations, given that we offer workshops and assessment centers for current employees.  Taking that knowledge into account, and knowing that simulations are good assessment tools, we have recently incorporated scenarios within our updates and improvements to our Structured Interview Process.

What is a scenario?  This is a simulated exercise that candidates complete during the interview process to see how they will respond under pressure, how able they are to think on their feet, and to evaluate what type of experiences they have had.  Good scenarios enable the interviewer to assess some of the more subtle talents, such as judgment, decision-making, knowledge of the business environment and how to devise a good strategy for solving a typical problem.

By seeing how candidates address the scenarios, how much urgency they put behind taking action or not taking, action as the case may be, and how much depth of the business environment they actually apply, the interviewer gains a real understanding of how the individual might react after the hire.  The very best scenarios are those which might have occurred in the particular employer’s environment.

Think about several situations at your company that have been mishandled or that have the potential to be mishandled by employees who lack the skills and abilities you require in a particular position.  The best scenarios are realistic and typical of the work that is part of the job you are filling.  Here are a couple of scenarios for your reference:

1. Our organization has a very flat managerial structure.  You will find yourself working with people from different disciplines who often have differing objectives and work styles.  Tell me how you would handle working with the President of the company when she knows nothing of your work, yet is trying to demand that you follow her lead on the approach to a particular project.  What strategy would you recommend?  How would you challenge her ideas?
2. Our clients drive our projects.  We cannot control clients’ calendars and so we must adjust our own priorities in order to keep several projects moving along successfully.  Tell me how you would respond when two clients call on the same day and ask for completion dates that overlap on major projects.  Assume that both of these clients are major accounts and each has a big-ticket project for you to complete.  What problems are you likely to encounter?  How will you address these problems?

Once you have assembled six to ten examples, ask a broad range of your current employees in the job to tell you how they would address each scenario.  Evaluate all the responses and determine which responses are best, which are poorest, and which are only average.  If you have one of your scenarios that everyone does well on or everyone does poorly on, eliminate it.   This scenario is either too hard or too easy and is one that really will not return much in the interview process, since it is unable to separate top performers from less effective performers.

By taking time to prepare your scenarios in this way, you will have a better idea of how to assess your candidates’ responses and will be able to recognize candidates who have better potential than others from your pool.   As you use the scenarios, be careful not to lead candidates by offering any feedback or response confirmation.  Some candidates are very good assessors of people and you could be influencing the responses by providing responses.

If you would like more information about using scenarios in your interview process, give ECI a call and we can assist you in upgrading your selection process.

 

How Companies Are Making Better Hiring Decisions

For the last few years, companies were instituting hiring processes that included a number of best practices, but were avoiding the use of tools, such as personality assessments, to assist them in identifying the best candidates. Today,  we are seeing a significant increase in the use of particularly effective personality assessments to enable hiring managers to learn more about the candidate’s natural motivation and talents before they make the hiring decision.

The reasons were varied as to why personality assessments became less used.  I believe that one reason was that we saw too much litigation from unhappy and unsuccessful candidates.  As a result, employers began to shy away from using any tool that could significantly differentiate one person from another.

But the world is changing.  Today, companies understand how expensive it is to hire a new person, how much time it takes to train a new person, and then how much effort it takes to address the disillusionment that arises for the rest of the team when we dismiss that person because they simply did not fit very well in the job or the company’s culture.

So, if you are around long enough, the trends always return.  Today,  companies are again looking for valid and reliable tools to assist them in making better hiring decisions.  Today, however, managers are also much more aware of what makes a good test, the importance of ensuring that the test is job related, and they are doing the diligence ahead of time to be certain that the criteria used for selection purposes is in fact able to identify superior candidates.

Here are some best practices to use when you choose a tool to use within your selection process:

1. Make sure that the instrument you choose is valid and reliable.  Ask the test provider for study documentation and test user references to prove to you that other reputable companies are using the tool for selection purposes and that the tool meets the Department of Labor’s standards for selection.
2. Be sure that the instrument does not probe into private information about the candidate and that the content is job related.
3. Look at the way the test results are scored.  Does someone have to interpret the results?  If so, you risk introducing rater bias into the process.
4. Does the test provider give you a recommendation for each candidate?  Some companies like this feature, while others prefer not to have the recommendation. The important thing is not to put too much reliance on the recommendation itself.  As the hiring manager, you know your requirements best, so don’t rely on others to tell you whom to select.  Performance and match to the job are at the end of the day the most reliable predictors of success.
5. Use the results to ask more questions so that you can really get to know the candidate more fully.  If you only conduct one or two discussions with the candidate, you will make mistakes and choose someone who doesn’t really match the position at some point in your selection process.
6. Make sure you know what you are looking for in the candidate.  What skills, abilities, talents and capabilities do you really need to move your organization forward?  Think about this before the first candidate comes in, not after you become enamored with someone who has a whole lot of capability, but is not really a good match for the job.
7. Check references.  Don’t use the excuse that you can’t get good information about a candidate’s background or prior performance. Hire a good reference checking service to help out with this part of the process.  Better to know the bad news before you make the hiring decision if it is there to be uncovered.

If you would like to know more about personality testing and how such a tool can help you make better hiring decisions, call us to talk.  We can help you build a best practice selection process that includes the necessary steps and tools to find the best new hire possible.

 

 

How to Hire Without Getting Sued

I used to do a lot of seminars and speaking engagements for various groups on topics relating to human capital.  One of the more requested topics was the title of this post.  There are a few good practices to be sure to consider in order to avoid suits from your candidates as you hire new people.  And hiring is beginning to increase!  This is the good news.

The bad news is that some new regulations have impacted the hiring environment and you need to be aware of these as you set about finding that long-awaited new hire.

The OFCCP has released recent guidelines around internet candidates.  If you use web job search services, such as Monster, Career Builder, Snag-A-Job or other such applications to advertise your open positions, be sure that you are clear about stating the steps in the process for applying for the job and the background and experiences you will require in order to be considered as a qualified applicant .   Otherwise, anyone who leaves a post or submits a partial request must be considered, whether they have the qualifications or not.

Also, ask all QUALIFIED applicants to respond to various requests throughout the process, such as attaching a resume, completing an application and returning it within the deadlines you communicate, providing complete references (phone numbers, names and job titles) of supervisors within any prior work experiences, or answering job related questions, in order to show their continued interest in the position.  If the candidate doesn’t respond, then drop them from the selection process.

One of the issues with using on-line services is that they are so accessible and you are likely to get many, many responses to any job postings you open up.  Without the extra steps, anyone who even leaves a partial interest has to be considered in the process, whether they have the qualifications or not.

Make sure that you establish the criteria for selection and stick with it.  If you post the job qualifications, then ultimately hire someone who lacks these qualifications, anyone who does have the qualifications and who applied has a cause of action to sue you for discrimination.   Not good.  If you find that the person you require is not within the pool of candidates who apply, better to close out the listing, refine the qualifications and repost the job opening than to just update the current listing.

Here is an example for you to ponder over.  Recently, a school district in New Jersey posted a job opening for a Kindergarten teacher.  In the ad, they stated that all candidates must be NJ certified, have security clearance, have a degree in Early Childhood Education and that they have 1 year in teaching children in grades Pre-K through grade 3.  Over 600 applicants applied for the job.

The School Board ultimately hired an internal candidate who had served as an aide for the Kindergarten class for 2 years.  She had a degree in Social Studies, not Early Childhood Ed, and had supported the teacher (not led the instruction of the class).  So in essence, the only requirement she met was that she had security clearance.  Hmmmm.  I would bet the farm that there were MANY individuals who did apply for the position who met the criteria better than the individual who was ultimately hired.  This would be a good claim to pursue, were you one of the candidates who was not interviewed or considered and who had the proper qualifications.

Treat all applicants the same and consider them on the merits of their qualifications, background and experiences.  If you don’t believe a person will fit your environment, because he/she has green hair, lots of visable tattoos and does not dress appropriately for a business interface with customers,  make sure that the person you do hire doesn’t also have a bunch of tattoos that you just didn’t see during the interview process, or that your secretary isn’t sitting at the front desk with his hair dyed Daffodil this week, since it is springtime.  Do you follow the line of reasoning?

When you start splitting hairs over how people dress and what they do in their personal life, you are bound to have some problems in the selection process over inconsistent selection criteria.  I am not even sure that we can require that people not to have Daffodil hair or visable tattoos these days.   But if you choose to set such requirements at your place of business,  ensure that you are expecting not just applicants to live within the guidelines and that you act to correct those individuals who work for you and fail to meet your guidelines.

Wait until the successful candidate has accepted the position and actually started work before you notify other candidates that the position has been filled.  I hate to tell you how many times I have been told that someone thought they had the job filled, then found out that the finalist has chosen to take another more suitable (in their minds!) position at the last moment.  This step of waiting will enable you to move to Plan B on your list, should Plan A not work out as planned.

There are many, many, many other things to think about as you hire, such as taking care when  handling confidential data, being sure to gather references and check backgrounds, paying the appropriate wage for the work of the position (rather than for what the candidate attempts to negotiate) and a raft of other considerations.  Happy Hiring!

Favorite Interview Questions for Sales People

Some time ago, we began to develop behavioral event interview guides for our clients to help them to assess the potentials and capabilities of candidates during the selection process.   This approach can be used to assess candidates for any type of job, but when the questions are designed, you need to be sure they are relevant to the content of the particular role.

You can learn a lot about someone from using this approach to interviewing.  The notion behind behavioral event interviewing is to ask about a specific situation in which the candidate demonstrated a particular capability in order to determine the individual’s effectiveness in that situation.   Situation, Action and Result, often referred to by one particular vendor as the STAR model…the T is for Task.

The trick to utilizing this approach is to pick questions that are key to the job and to understand that people who are good at a particular skill will answer the question differently than others might.  Let’s look at sales people, for example.  One of the primary skills required is that the individual has to be able to ask for the sale.  To assess this capability, here is a question to use:

• Tell me about a time when you failed to close a sale.  What did you do in this situation?  What was the outcome?  What would you do differently?

Effective sales people will have a unique tale to tell you about a nightmare buyer who was thought to be the decision maker, but was not, or was someone who was simply shopping the competition.  They will include a myriad of details about the interaction and tell you how they reacted when they faced a similar situation in the future.

Less effective sales people will tell you that they were unable to connect with the particular buyer and that the buyer shut them out before they had the chance to ask for the business.  They will also tell you that next time, they worked hard to identify the actual decision maker.

See the difference?  One is more realistic (the effective sales person) and the other is more process driven, following the sales protocol.  High performers in sales need to make an impact quickly and when they are faced with a challenge, they do creative things to get around the issues.

Here’s another question:

• Tell me about a time when you didn’t get the sale, when you were sure you would.  Why did this occur?  What would you do differently?

In this case, the high performer will give you an example and tell you why they believe they were beaten out.  It is rarely about price!  He/she will also give you a great analysis of why they failed and will look at the situation as an unique incident from which they learned something important to them.  The lower performers will tell you  “you can’t win them all” and that if you throw enough proposals at buyers, eventually something will stick.  Not a very good way of focusing your use of time, if you are in sales.

You are probably asking, so how do I know what a good answer is and what a bad answer is so that when I interview I can tell the difference?  There are so many variables in interviewing that the answer really is through experience.  If you are new to interviewing, ask someone who is experienced in sales, for example, to sit with you while you interview the candidate.  After the interview has been completed, ask your partner to discuss the candidate’s responses and to tell you what they think of him or her.  Compare the results of your impressions with your partner’s results. Did you agree or disagree? Why?  Can you see what the experienced sales person felt differently about the responses when you disagreed?

After you have interviewed several candidates and have some experience, you will learn how to assess the quality of the answers.  Some questions have been proven to be more valid in assessing sales skills.  That’s why you might want to consider calling ECI to assist your company in developing and focusing questions on the skills and abilities that count in your marketplace!  You can select better people and enhance results for your organization.

The Economy Is Recovering…but things are different

The economy looks as if it is beginning to pick up.  We are noting a difference in the marketplace these days, with customers beginning to investigate purchasing new initiatives, asking great questions on how to adjust deployment of sales staff to maximize outcomes in this turbulent marketplace, and seeing more interest in working with us to work on challenges and opportunities together.   It isn’t a matter of cost, most of the time they have some budget laid aside for investment in solutions.  It is a matter, however, of making sure that the investment they make will yield a good return on investment.

I heard from a friend who had been laid off that she recently found a job, which made me very happy to hear.  Others are having some luck in finding opportunities to at least interview for, so I believe all these are signs that we are moving forward.

Almost every business owner I have spoken with recently is looking for new ways to do business.  The old ways aren’t working very well, so we need to explore and investigate new methods for offering value to our customers, since it looks as if this is the key thing that many companies are looking for. They will spend their resources, providing they know they are purchasing value and useful strategies or products that will provide a return on investment.

So in my mind, we need to be sure that whatever approach we use in the marketplace ought to be directed toward understanding what issues the customer is facing and how we can enable the customer to get there faster and with a good return on investment.   If we can do that with them, then they will buy our proposals.

Maybe this will be the new wave of the future.  You will need to market yourself for the innovative solutions and services you can provide that help customers put added dollars to the bottom line.  Showing the return on investment will help you to distinguish yourself from others.  People are looking at the numbers, so if you can calculate out how much the investment will return to or save them, you might be heard more frequently.

Why did I get passed over for the promotion?

With all the restructuring, lay offs, asking people to do more with less, and working harder every day for less, it really can be debilitating when an opportunity comes along and you don’t get promoted.

It makes you wonder.  What is wrong with me?  Aren’t I doing a good job?  Can I do something different to get promoted?  The true answer to this question really depends on the person and the circumstances.  But more often than not, it is an issue of people not seeing you in the new role or having questions about how effective you might be in the new role.

Let’s take a look at some real situations, names removed, of course, to protect the candidates.

1.  Dan was hired to manage various projects at a small company.  He was a loyal worker who took his responsibilities seriously.  He took pride in doing a good job and worked well beyond the expected hours in order to make sure nothing was overlooked and that he did all the work as planned.  In meetings and when working with others, however, he was not a team player.  He procrastinated and some team members had the experience of having to pick up the slack, since he didn’t have his part finished according to the due dates the team had agreed on.  When it came time to discuss performance, Dan looked for a promotion to a manager level.  He wasn’t given the promotion.  The reason, which he had difficulty accepting, was that if he couldn’t manage his own work in a timely way, how will he be able to oversee the work of others?  His response was that doing the work and managing the work were two different skills.  His manager said this was true, but how did he expect to manage team members who had previously had to do his work because he didn’t get it finished on time and failed to ask for help?

2.  Michael had responsibility for dealing with customers in a sales situation.  He was an excellent source of knowledge and advice to his customers.  He knew how to negotiate a favorable deal and he always followed up to ensure that everything arrived as planned for the customer’s order.  Customers loved him.  But in handling his coworkers, he was directive, he was demanding, did not listen, and often inappropriately teased coworkers in front of others.  A manager’s position came up and he felt that he was next in line for the job.  He was passed over for someone whom he had trained.  He seriously considered quitting.  Aren’t I good enough?  Haven’t I produced a lot of business for the company?

3.  Joe was consistently late for work and often left early for various personal reasons.  He took long lunches and coworkers wondered why he got away with this when he was the first one to complain when they needed a few extra minutes.  He thought he was definitely management material.  While his work was good, his personal attitude was a real source of discussion for many people in the organization.  When he wasn’t promoted, he had difficulty understanding that he was undermining his credibility by holding himself to different standards than others.

All three of these individuals were passed over for the same reason, the reason being that they held themselves to different standards than they held others to.  Dan wasn’t really a team player and didn’t really care if someone else had to pick up his work.  Michael didn’t treat his coworkers the way he treated his customers.  And Joe felt that he didn’t have to abide by the company policies.  These issues are all attitude issues and are one of the most common reasons employers state as the reason they will pass someone over for a promotion.

If you want to get promoted, even though it is hard to hear, you need to be professional in everything you do. Whether it is working on the team, interacting with others or making sure that you abide by company policies, people who get promoted are usually the ones who get the basics right first. Don’t let things that you can control get in the way of getting promoted.

Who’s Hiring?

The short answer, lots of companies.  The more complete answer, however, is companies where there is expected turn over and companies who provide services to people.  The companies who are hiring are often the larger organizations who always have openings because of people moving up, people moving on and people retiring.  To apply and get noticed by these organizations, you need to look at what jobs are offered and how well you match the posted job requirements. These are often the US major employers.

The second group, the service providers, are companies or organizations that provide services to the population, the elderly, home health care, governmental agencies, and those organizations where people go to get help for a particular need.  There are a good many opportunities in these sectors for jobs.  Nursing and health providers, lab positions, claims managers and insurance positions, support staff in hospitals and institutions, clinics and medical facilities have openings as well.

If you want to get noticed by these potential employers, how will you do this?  Here are some ideas to help you along.

1.  Make sure to read the job qualifications and only apply if you can meet these qualifications.  Many on-line search engines use coded queries to pick out those applicants who list the specific experiences presented in the job posting.  If you have the experience, then show it in your application in the terminology used to describe the position in the job posting.  Don’t trust that someone will read your written responses and be able to figure out that you really do have the experience, particularly if you didn’t list it the way it was stated in the job posting.   You are probably dealing with software doing the job of the initial screening and it will do this through a word-matching and number of years matching process.

2.  Follow the directions.  If the posting says “no calls, please”, then don’t call, unless you know someone who works at the company who can put in a good word for you.  You want the potential employer to know that you understand how to follow directions.

3.  Meet the deadlines.  If the posting says “submit your complete information by Friday, April 5, then have your information completed and submitted by close of business on Friday, April 5th.

4.  If you need special certifications for particular jobs, such as licenses or training, be sure that you have completed this training, testing, or classroom activities, and that you have the proof of your successful passing of any tests required.  If you are interested in particular jobs, such as nursing or lab technician positions, then go to school and get your certifications while you are looking for a new job.  This way, you may be able to get your school to help you find a job in this area, as many companies recruit from local training institutions.

5.  If you graduated from a college, go back to your alma mater and ask them for assistance with job hunting.  Many colleges have excellent staff who can help you find a new position and often have requests for people of a specific background, just waiting for someone to express interest.

The long and the short of it is that there are still  jobs out there.  The caveat is that the job you think you want may not be the one you will find.  A lot of the old standard jobs aren’t available any longer.  But there are some new jobs for you to consider.   Be open minded and look at the posted experience requirements.  If you can comply, go ahead and apply.  Be persistent every day.  You just might find a job you will really enjoy and one you never expected you might get hired for!

What Makes a Good Personality Test?

There are many different sorts of personality tests, word list choices (which is most like me or least like me), statement list choices, rate this statement as to how much it reflects who you are, picture tests asking you to interpret what you are seeing, lickert scale response tests, ipsative tests and a host of others.  How do you know which one is the best to use for hiring or developmental purposes?

I think the first question to ask yourself is “what am I trying to accomplish?”  Is it an issue of finding out if the person might work well in a team made of other diverse individuals?  Is it an issue of finding out if the individual matches the criteria for success you have identified in your environment?  Is it an issue of understanding what you will need to do to develop the individual after you hire him/her and will you invest the funds?  Or is it an issue of getting the test to make your selection for you?

The first three questions are fine uses of personality tests.  The last one is not appropriate.  Any assessment you use should be for the purpose of gathering valid and reliable information to help you or the individual better understand the true capabilities, motivators, potentials or personal styles that the person possesses.  And to ensure that the results you get are valid and reliable, make sure that your assessment meets this criteria:

1. Does it measure what it purports to measure?  Another way to ask this question is “Is the assessment valid?”  We can get into a long discussion around validity.  Face validity, content validity, context validity…all important.  Is it the right instrument to use in your particular situation?  Does it measure job-specific requirements, motivators and behavioral traits?
2. Does it measure what it purports to measure consistently?  Another way to ask this question is “Is the assessment reliable?”  Does it consistently produce the same scores for a person through test-retest review in a population?
3. Is it a tool that is more appropriate for use in team building?  Styles inventories (Myers Briggs, DISC, color grouping inventories) are excellent tools for team building, but assigning a particular quadrant of preferred style is not an ideal way to select staff.  Myers Briggs’ validation literature states that the tool is not appropriate for selection purposes.
4. Is the tool fakable?  Is it easy for the person to skew the results through answering a particular way or by choosing answers likely for a particular type of person?  One of the problems encountered with lickert scale type tests (ones where the respondent is asked to rate a statement on a scale of 1 to 5) tend to have this issue.  This is the reason that additional items are often used to determine the levels of fakability.  Ipsative tests (forced rank type items, where the individual is presented with a number of statements and asked them to order them) overcome the issue of fakability.  Depending upon how the scoring routine works, the frequently made argument that ipsative tests cause scores to be high in one area, while automatically causing another area to be low, can be overcome.
5. Does the instrument show good predictive capability?  Can to results predict, consistently and accurately, whether the individual will be a success greater than 75% of the time?  We offer an ipsative assessment that has shown to predict success at better than 97% of the time in some situations.

Personality tests are very useful tools, providing you integrate the use of the instrument within a process and let the tool offer objective information to support your selection process, assist you with developmental planning, or to increase team effectiveness by enabling people to understand how others might be the same or different from themselves.

How Culture Impacts Merger and Acquisition

ECI has helped companies make a smooth transition after merger and acquision.  Our studies have shown that the number one reason merger or acquisions fail is because the culture is never fully integrated.  Company leaders often think that because they have introduced the cultural expectations to the new company members, that is sufficient for a well integrated culture to emerge.

People change when the pain of change is less than continuing to do things as they always did.  So, in the case of cultural integration, some work needs to be done to disable old habits and preferences of the merging organizations, either to come to new consensus on what the culture will be, to impose one of the cultures on the whole organization, or to begin again to devise a new culture.  There are no in-between strategies here, folks.  This is one you have to make a decision around and then put the plan in place to make it happen.

The best way to do this is to go through the basic steps an organization does as it is devising a culture.  Build the mission and vision, decide how to communciate this vision and mission across the organization, execute the communication plan, communicate some more, communicate one last time, and then insist.

Rewarding demonstration of the cultural expectation is a positive way to make sure people follow the new expectations.  Enabling teams to determine how they will live the new cultural vision in their teams is another way.  And of course, taking action to prevent slipping back to the old ways of doing things is important as well.  Always recognize the successes that teams make in this area, as it proves not only to the organization but to all team members that living the culture is important.

We worked with an insurance agency many years ago that struggled with the integration process for some time before they finally developed a new organization.  It was painful, as it always is, because of the idea that two different organizations were coming together for very specific reasons.  The reasons, however, got mired in the details over who is in charge, what is the chain of command and what are the authority levels of each of the partners.  These are key questions that needed to be answered prior to throwing all the people together at one location, but then they didn’t invite us to help until six months after the combination occurred.  Lessons learned.

So if you are considering an integration, merger or acquision, think about the questions of which organizations/teams afford the most likely cultural model to follow, who will be in charge, and what is the new level of decision making in the combined organization.  And communciate the answers to these, and other key questions, up front before you put the structure and organizational charts on paper. It makes it so much easier when you have the strategy in place and know the answers to these questions.

Maximizing Productivity in a Downturn Market

When people find themselves in a changing environment, their primary concern is “what will happen to me either at home or in my job at work?”  High performers, when they are feeling unsure, generally take action to seek a better position in an environment which they perceive as more stable.  Lower performers may be more fatalistic in their response and may find themselves immobilized by the threat of change.   In our work with companies downsizing or reorganizing, without intervention by leadership, the top performers are the first volunteers to leave, while the less successful individuals will remain and enable the company to make the decisions for them.  

If you are planning changes within your company to respond to the downturn in the economy, have a plan and execute the plan, while communicating clearly “what this means for you” as you go along.   If you need to lay people off, identify the positions or people who will be laid off and do the layoff all at once.  Laying people off over a longer period of time is sure to cause mass panic and exit, with your high performers leading the charge out the door.   

If you plan to weather the storm, let people know this strategy as well and what specifically you will be doing that could impact people’s efforts or work.  Is it budget cutbacks?  Is it resource allocation?  Is it refocusing sales in new markets or using new selling strategies?  Communicate these plans to keep people apprised and report on how these strategies are working at regular intervals so that there are no surprises later on. 

The next thing you need to do is to find out how people are feeling and what their concerns are.  Respond with honesty. Listening with concern, offering some reassurance if you can do so honestly, and communicating clear expectations on what people should be working on can help people get focused on the business, rather than the change.

If people are concerned about some aspect of their life at work, such as their 401K plans, consider providing more information about that issue.  At ECI, we will be conducting a 401K investor meeting in the next few weeks and have added some new funds to our plan to enable people to weather the storm that is occurring in the stock market.  Giving people more options within their 401K contributions can help people feel more in control of the change, as can having experts come in to give advice and counsel on how to get through the volatile marketplace.

Lastly, I think it is important to let people know that their efforts and contributions are valued.  This is a good time to let people know how much you appreciate their work and to offer some positive feedback on their individual accomplishments.  While we should be providing feedback at regular intervals, this is an especially important time to reinforce good performance and valued activities to enable people to understnad that their efforts are appreciated by the organization.

Using Personality Assessments in the Selection Process

Some recent statistics in an Inc magazine article claim that 1 in 10 applicants admit that they lie on their resumes.  In a separate study, 50% of recruiters  verified that they find significant discrepancies on resumes they have received.  I was a bit shocked by those statistics, so I did a little search on the web to see what else I could find out.  In the first page of my search, I found “10 Ways to Lie Legally on Your Resume”, and a claim that over “50% of people lie on their resumes” in another source.  This is probably the reason why many companies are seeking out additional tools, like personality assessments, to find out more reliable information about candidates.

Also, reported in additional sources is that over 33% of companies are currently buying testing services from about 2200 test providers.  There is a broad range of test types and a variety of factors that can be measured with these types of tools.  Your results will be only as good as the provider and the testing product you decide to use.  Some general guidelines to consider in using assessment during the selection process:

1. Use only assessments that are non-discriminatory, valid and reliable for selection purposes.  Some tests should be used only for development or team building.  These include styles inventories, which bucket people within particular preferences, like the MBTI, or which assign person’s preferences to color groups, or measure styles or types.  These types of inventories should not be used during the selection process.
2. Every individual who reaches a particular stage within the selection process should be given the assessment tool.  Place the assessment further along within the process to ensure that sufficient other information has been gathered which can be used IN ADDITION to the assessment results for decision making.  No more than 20% of the hiring decision should be made based solely on the assessment results.  Too much reliance on test results by hiring managers should be avoided.
3. Develop selection standards within your own environment using the assesment tool and a sufficient population (at least 60 people) to produce valid criteria.  Do not simply test high performers.  This is a very unprofessional practice sometimes recommended by test providers.
4. Use a structured interview process in conjunction with assessment to investigate the individual’s prior experiences and successes on the job.  Prior success is the best predictor of future success.
5. Have the candidate interviewed by more than one person and use the assessment results to guide the interview during the process.  The assesssment is a tool which provides reliable information about the candidate in order to investigate the individual’s true potentials.  It should not be used as a pass fail step in the process.
6. Discuss each candidate’s merits after the interviews and assessment process is complete to ensure that balanced decision making occurs when selecting finalists.
7. Don’t advise remaining candidates until the recommended candidate is on the job.  Many times, good candidates may have several offers and will accept these offers, only to continue to search for their ideal position before actually beginning work. Get a signed employment contract if at all possible when the candidate accepts the position.

If you follow these steps as you incorporate assessments in your selection process, you will be able to significantly enhance the quality of your new hires.  For more information about ECI’s selection process and the ECI Behavioral Insight, give us a call or visit our website.

Why do we need job descriptions anyway?

You walk into a networking event filled with folks from outside the company and industry you work in.  One of the first questions you are asked is… “What do you do?”.  How easy is it for you to answer this question?  Many times this seemingly simple question is hard to answer concisely.  We start talking about the types of tasks we work on, the people we encounter, our clients, and before you know it we’re presenting a 15-minute monologue while our audience is glazing over.  

Why is it so hard for us to describe what it is that we do and what our expectations of others are?  In today’s world of conglomerates, cross-functional companies, and matrix organizations the “what we do” has become much more complex and much less “cut and dry” than it used to be.  Due to this evolving world and workplace of increasing complexity, job descriptions are more important than ever.  Job descriptions serve many critical purposes.  A few of these include the following:

• They provide a description of the standards of performance of the role for those in the role
• They outline critical role activities, interactions, environmental factors, and reporting lines for applicants
• They contain the content utilized by compensation professionals to establish wages for the role
• They provide detailed information to internal partners, allowing them to understand what it is you do

Due to the crucial role that job descriptions play in today’s world of work, it is more important than ever that your company dedicate adequate time to devise job description documents for the roles within your organization.  From our experience, we have often found that job descriptions do not even exist for many roles and when they do exist, they are often out-dated, lacking critical information, or riddled with inaccuracies.  So, not only do job descriptions need to be present, but they must also be error-free, up-to-date, and they must contain essential components of the job.  Job descriptions are not designed to be all-encompassing.  If this were the case, we would have job description books rather than 1-2 page documents for each job!  However, job descriptions should provide the following key information:

• An overview of the key activities of the role
• Scope of responsibility
• Key interactions/partner interfaces
• The context of the work environment
• Reporting relationships
• Skill, knowledge, and ability requirements for entry into the role
• Educational and experience requirements for entry into the role
• ADA compliant physical requirements

Although job descriptions are commonly thought of as an administrative detail or as a “we’ll get to it when we have time” item, these documents play a critical role in today’s complex, ever-changing workplace.  For more information on job descriptions, including how to write a good job description, give us a call or visit our website.

Great Behavioral Event Interview Questions

The most common search that leads to our website is for ECI Interview Questions.  Whether this is precipitated by prospective candidates whom employers have asked to complete the ECI Behavioral Insight or by employers themselves is more difficult to determine.  Behavioral event interview questions ask the candidate about prior successes or learning resulting from an experience in past jobs.  There are many sources for these types of questions.  There are many sources for Behavioral Event Interview Guides.  ECI offers such a system, including training for your staff in interview skills, called the Structured Selection Process. 

My perspective is that if you only hire once or twice per year, it is difficult to retain your skills in behavioral event interviewing, without a bit more structure around the process.  Providing your hiring managers with a staged interview guide, including potential drill-down questions to ensure that interviewers fully explore responses, can ensure a bit more consistency within the process.  The issue here, however, is that you will need to provide sufficient questions from which the manager might choose to meet the particular requirements of an interview or the particular job opening.

The principle behind behavioral event interviewing is that past success is the best predictor of future success.  By exploring what an individual has accomplished in past roles, a better understanding of the individual’s full potentials can be confirmed.  Therefore, the format of a good behavioral event question is:

• “Tell me about a time…..” “Describe a situation in which…” “Give an example of…” These are the beginning of the question or the conditions/situations about which you wish the candidate to describe his or her prior experiences.
• The candidate will respond by describing the details around the situation or activity from their prior experience.  This example should be work-related and relevant to the particular situation asked about in the question.  As the interviewer, you need to ensure that the candidate covers all 3 aspects in his or her answer – the situation or circumstances, what the individual (I did… not we, or I should have, or I think), and the outcome or result that was achieved.

If the candidate omits part of the response, the job of the interviewer is to ask additional questions to ensure that all three parts of the answer have been given. 

If you are the candidate, be sure that you fully desribe all three parts (situation, action and results) within your response.  This is most assuredly not a place to make things up, candidate, since a savvy interviewer will return to any resposes you give where your answers appeared to be disjointed, questionable or unrealistic.  You will hear the question again, phrased in a different way, regarding an additional situation, in which to confirm that you have actually accomplished something within your prior roles.

So, for the reason you are reading this discussion, here are some effective behavioral event interview questions you might like to use if you are an interviewer, or as a candidate, you might like to think about.

1. Tell me about the best manager you ever had.  What specifically did this manager do to help you to maximize your full potentials?  What results were you able to achieve?   (This question is really about what type of supervision you need to do your best work and are we willing to give you that much support.)
2. Tell me about a time when you were faced with a disagreement with a coworker.  How did you handle the situation?  What was the outcome?  What would you do differently if you were faced with this situation again?   (This question is really about whether you can manage your own conflicts with others or whether you will run to your manager every time some disagreement arises.)
3. Give me an example of a time when you were unable to convince a prospect to buy your solution.  What objections did you uncover?  How did you handle these?  (This question is really about whether you can sell and whether you have the confidence to admit that sometimes we make mistakes.)
4. Tell me about a time when you served in a leadership role.  What were some of the issues you faced in working with your team?  What results did you achieve?  (This question is really about your ability to organize a group and to drive the group’s action, even if you have never served in a manager or leader role.)
5. Tell me about a time when you bent the rules to accomplish your goal.  What was the outcome?  Would you do the same thing again if faced with the situation?  (This question is really about whether you see rules as absolutes or as general guidelines and whether this style fits in with the organizational preference.)

These are just a few of the behavioral event interview questions included within the ECI Structured Interview Process.  If you are an employer, contact ECI and we will happy to discuss this process with you and to develop a customized interview guide for your company.  If you are a candidate, sorry, you’ll need to visit your local bookstore and purchase a good resource guide, like Competency-Based Interviews: Mastering the Tough New Interview Style and Give Them the Answers that will Win You the Job (Kessler).

Why must I remain so objective when I’m hiring???

Have you ever heard that we form an impression of a person in the first 5 seconds?  How accurate can that impression actually be?  What information can truly be gathered about an individual in 5 seconds?  Well, the 5 second rule is based on scores of scientific studies in Social Psychology.

Now, apply that to a job interview situation.  Most applicants, regardless of actual qualification for a role, have been practicing, have been coached, in short, they’ve rehearsed as if for an acting role.  What you are actually witnessing, especially in the first 5 seconds, is an individual’s acting ability.  You are seeing only their “impression management” skills.  On the flip side, you are also very likely to see a candidate who gets nervous for an interview and doesn’t respond well to your questioning.  After all, job interviews are inherently situations where one goes to be judged.  What you are very unlikely to see is any actual or useful indication of how the individual will perform on the job.  That is, of course, unless you ensure that you include objective procedures in your hiring process. 

Objective procedures are those that can be quantified, or counted.  These are procedures that can be instituted and easily taught and are to be used in the same way each time your organization hires new people.  They are tremendously useful in accounting for that human error factor that causes a measurable amount of money when one accounts for loss due to a bad hire.  However, what often goes overlooked is the overall disruption to the company when the wrong candidate is selected, which can be enormous.  Whether the incorrect hire decides to leave on their own or must be terminated, there are negative effects.  Consider the amount of time when that individual is lacking in productivity, is tardy or absent, or even worse, is just plain disruptive!  These are just a few ways in which your company will suffer by holding on to an antiquated and damaging unstructured, subjective hiring process.

So, here a few simple components you might want to include in your structured hiring process:

1.  Have a checklist for your resume screeners 

• Include simple job requirements that are your absolute cut-offs such as education, years of experience, types of experience, years in industry, etc.
• When a candidate has a certain number of “checks”, they can be moved to the next phase of the process
• This is quantifiable and removes the “human error” or subjective error possibilities 

2.  Develop a Behavioral Event Interview Guide

• Include a method for scoring responses so that you can ensure quantifiability
• Include questions that will allow candidates to describe actual instances from their experience that you can apply to the role you are interviewing them for
• Further limit the possibility of interviewer subjectivity by having more than one person interview each candidate 

3.  Incorporate a Personality Assessment

• Including a valid and reliable personality assessment will help you to see how a candidate will fit into your organization’s culture
• You will be given an indication of their approach to work
• You will see how to work with the individual, what motivates them, and how to best manage them
• ECI actually studies roles in practice and develops a “job footprint” that shows hiring managers what top performers in your organization look like

Quantifiable, objective procedures also protect you and your company.  There are those people out there who make their living by suing companies who didn’t hire them.  Companies who leave themselves liable are by and large those who don’t have structured hiring processes.  By documenting each step and being able to demonstrate that all candidates go through the same process, you are protecting yourself from costly lawsuits.  Also, by being able to show that you quantified, or scored each candidate, you can show why you hired one candidate and not another.  If you think you are too small to worry, you should know that most employment and hiring law policies apply to companies of 15 people or more.

For more information on structured hiring processes, visit our website or better yet, give us a call!

Do Competency Systems Produce Real Results?

We recently did a study to see if a Competency System we built for a client produced any measurable results, or if it was just a “nice to have” system that management preferred to use.  Our client is within a large pharmceutical company and leads a sales force which sells to institutions and hospital physicians.  The primary difficulty you have in assessing the real impact of a pharmaceutical rep’s efforts is that, outside the vaccine and medical device arena where sales can be tracked by order, it is very difficult to measure exactly what impact the rep has on prescription writing of any given physician.  There are so many factors that impact the sale that the direct linkage between rep activity and actual sales is a dotted line at best, particularly in the institutional or hospital setting.

So the first issue we faced was how to design a survey process to gather sufficient valid data to determine whether consistent application of the competency factors actually resulted in higher sales, performance ratings or customer satisfaction rates.  We deployed a survey process first to representatives, asking them to rate their own abilities in consistently demonstrating various behaviors within the competency model.  Next, we ask the reps’ managers to rate the reps’ performance in consistently demonstrating the competency behaviors.  After we had all this data, we compared the responses to actual sales results to see if in fact there were significant correlations between consistent demonstration of competency behaviors and higher sales results.

Those reps who rated themselves, and whose managers rated them, higher were significantly producing increased sales.  The conclusion then, is that if you create a competency system that is relevant to the factors that lead to success, and the factors/behaviors are consistently demonstrated in daily activity, you will get better sales results.  Here we were able to produce actual numerical correlations of the relationship between consistent demonstration of competency behaviors and higher sales results.

Everyone has felt that there was some sort of relationship between competency and results, but to actually measure this using individual ratings and statistical correlation in a very straightforward way has rarely produced significant results.  In our study, we have shown that it is the consistency with which the individual demonstrates the described behaviors which results in higher productivity and better performance ratings, as assessed by managers and by individuals.

We are just entering the last phase of our survey process, which is determining whether customers note the consistent demonstration of competency factors during their activities with reps.  We’ll let you know if we find a correlation between the customers’ perceptions of competency and actual sales results, once our survey results are in.

If you are interested in learning more about how ECI can help you to measure the relationship between your performance management system and actual productivity of your people, give us a call at (908) 806-3444.  We’ll be happy to speak with you further about the process.

Part I: How To Increase The Quality of Your New Hires

Companies are increasingly seeking out ways to enhance the accuracy and effectiveness of their hiring and promotional processes.  They are exploring the use of a variety of tests and measures to gather the information they need to make better decisions.  They look to tests to help them increase objectivity within their processes and to get to the root of an individual’s real talents and potentials. 

Employers worry that if they put a test into their selection or promotional process that managers will rely too heavily on the results.  This can be a pitfall of such tools, since most well-constructed tests tend to be quite accurate in the results they produce.  If the selection process lacks sufficient steps, or if the steps are not effective, managers probably will resort to trusting the test to make the decision. 

With the recent release of the OFCCP and EEO updated selection guidelines, new rigor is required for any selection or promotional system, including test validation.  “Validation” used to mean “we put together focus groups of our best employees, who provided their ideas on what success looks like in our own environment.  We used that input to develop our selection system and/or our competency model.” 

Or a testing provider would suggest that you test 5 or 10 or your top performers in a specific role and establish a selection standard based on the results.  Whereas these approaches might have been overlooked in the past, they will not meet the new guidelines established through the Department of Labor, the OFCCP or the EEO Commission.  Today, validation means that your company gathered and used statistically reliable data about your jobs to create selection, promotion and career tools and decisions.  It means, for example:

• that you have up-to-date, accurate job description for the position that includes Essential Functions, the context of the position, background and experience levels and reporting relationship
• that you did not incorporate any process or step that has adverse impact in screening out or negatively impacting protected classes either in selecting, promoting people, or establishing a dismissal process
• that you assessed the job using objective and accepted methodology, such as ADA compliant Job Analysis 
• that you were able to determine through your data collection process the acceptable business necessity of why the criteria you are using for selection or promotion is essential to perform the job in your business environment
• that you are able to show a clear linkage between the selection criteria you have identified to the actual steps you use within your selection or promotional processes, and finally,
• that your selection and promotional criteria has passed a number of tests of statistical significance to show that the criteria you are using in fact does not show statistical and practical significance between protected classes and the comparison group when disparate impact is being assessed.

These are, however, only a part of the issues that you must consider as you devise selection, promotion and career processes or make decisions about the people you employ.  If your company has greater than 100 employees, and/or if you are a government supplier with contracts of more than $50K, then your company must comply with the  new OFCCP guidelines. 

 

Tomorrow, we’ll write some more about how to develop compliant selection standards.

Part 2: Devising Selection Standards for Hiring New Staff

Adverse impact occurs where there is a statistically significant difference between selection, promotional, or compensation levels between members of a protected class and an appropriate comparison group.[1]  However, according to the 1991 Civil Rights Act, this difference only amounts to discrimination if the tools used to make the business decision are invalid and not consistent with business necessity.  In other words, numerical and significant differences between the selection rates of groups are allowed, as long as the tools responsible for those differences are in and of themselves valid and reliable and have been developed following a rigid, standard, and legally defensible validation strategy.  But the employer is still responsible to show how the test is job-related and meets a business necessity, even in these cases.

 Since the release of the April 2008 OFCCP guidelines update and some recent case law, the determination process now includes looking at the actual tools and systems used within the selection and promotion systems.  Validity and reliability tests will be completed by OFCCP’s new statisticians on these tools to ensure that they do not treat protected classes differently than they treat comparison groups.   In the old days, OFCCP audits were not too bad.  Today, they look like the process EEOC uses to evaluate disparate impact.

 

This new OFCCP analysis for disparate impact includes a thorough review of:

1. the Job Analysis results in which the skills, knowledge and abilities and personal characteristics were evaluated within a particular job are identified
2. how these skills, knowledge and abilities map back to the specific steps of the selection, promotion or termination processes
3. how tests that are administered in fact measure the skills, knowledge or abilities essential for success in the position
4. the job description, to ensure that it is current and accurately reflects the essential functions the position  within the company’s own environment

This much more rigorous assessment of selection, promotional and termination criteria could cause significant difficulties for many employers who are relying on old, non-existent practices or those who allow their hiring managers to utilize their own preferred processes. 

 

 

The environment is further compounded through the use of popular internet selection systems, where potential candidates are allowed to apply for any job opening or can post their resumes on job sites whether they meet the stated qualifications or not.  Job seekers can perform searches to attach their resume to any number of open and advertised positions, with little consideration for the job title or understanding the selection process of the company offering the position.  Recent guidelines hold the potential employer accountable to track race, age, gender, and ethnicity data about all applicants.  This is why, at ECI, we added the tracking criteria to our eci-assessments site for all test takers.  When employers need the data, it will be available for all candidates who reached the assessment step.

 

In the absence of clear definition of an “applicant” by the employer, potential problems arise in determining how to track candidate data and determining whether the applicant is in fact even interested in being considered for the position.   When employers have no standardized steps in their selection process, if the selection criteria is vague or if the steps are very loose, then almost every person who provides information may be considered a viable candidate for the job opening, regardless of whether they meet the qualifications for the job or not.

 

While the OFCCP has recently released guidelines on who internet “applicants” are, these guidelines are quite broad and can be troublesome when the employer has no additional, consistent steps through which all applicants must pass before becoming a candidate for consideration.  Having in place a selection process that includes multiple, valid, job-specific criteria against which applicants are assessed is the first step, but not the only step necessary to comply.[2]

 

Many companies incorporate on-line, computer or paper-based testing within their processes to evaluate a candidate’s particular knowledge, behavioral skills and abilities.  Any tests that you use should meet the standards for testing set out by the American Psychological Association and should follow the guidelines set forth by the EEOC.  Online tests fall under the same rigorous standards as do all other types of tests used for selection.

 

Best practices for testing and selection cited by the EEOC[3] include:

 

1.        Employers should administer tests and other selection procedures without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age (40 or older), or disability.

2.        Employers should ensure that employment tests and other selection procedures are properly validated for the positions and purposes for which they are used.  The test or selection procedure must be job-related and its results appropriate for the employer’s purpose.  While a test vendor’s documentation supporting the validity of a test may be helpful, the employer is still responsible for ensuring that its tests are valid under the Uniform Guidelines for Employment Selection Procedures.[4]

3.        If a selection procedure screens out a protected group, the employer should determine whether there is an equally effective alternative selection procedure that has less adverse impact and, if so, adopt the alternative procedure.  For example, if the selection procedure is a test, the employer should determine whether another test would predict job performance, but not disproportionally exclude the protected group.

4.       To ensure that a test or selection procedure remains predictive of success in a job, employers should keep abreast of changes in job requirements and should update the test specifications or selection procedures accordingly.

5.        Employers such ensure that tests and selection procedures are not adopted casually by managers who know little about these processes.  A test or selection procedure can be an effective management tool, but no tool or selection procedure should be implemented without an understanding of its effectiveness and limitations for the organization, its appropriateness for a specific job, and whether it can be appropriately administered and score.

 

Or is your test used as a tool to provide additional information to support your interview process?  In either case, the

results from any test should not make up more than 20% of the hiring decision in order to comply with fair selection

standards.  The results from tests, such as personality measures, can enhance the reliability and validity of your

processes, providing that these tests have been professionally prepared and rigorously validated.  Ensuring that any

tests you administer are in fact valid and reliable, and that they are shown to be valid and reliable against your own

population and environment, are additional steps you will need to complete. 

 

It is no longer acceptable to take the word of your outside test or system provider that tools or a criterion is valid.  You will need to ask to see the diligence that went into validation and reliability studies by requesting the technical report or validation report for these tools.  These reports should include item analysis, EEO scores comparison for protected classes, show that no disparate impact results through the administration of the tool, and should provide statistical data concerning face validity and content reliability, all based on a statistically significant population of results.  If no report is available, or the study lacks rigor, you should immediately find another, more valid assessment tool. 

 

Also, your test or system provider should have professional experts who can revalidate their tools against your jobs and in your own environment.  They should be able to show that no adverse impact occurs as a result of the use of their tools for your particular jobs through a statistical study process. If your providers cannot do this for you, look for another vendor. 

 

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[1] EEO & Testing Quarterly Review. HR News & Information (July – Sept 2004) p. 3.

[2] For additional information, visit the US Department of Labor website at www.dol.gov

[3] Fact Sheet on Employment Tests and Selection Procedures, www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/factemployment_procddures.html.   Pg. 5

[4]The US Department of Labor and Justice and the Office of Personnel Management issued the UGESP.  A copy of the regulations are available online through www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs.html

“Fit”…a Two-Way Street

What does it mean to find an employee that truly “fits” your organization?  What does a good “fit” look like from the perspective of the applicant?  Organizational fit, job fit, and motivational fit are key factors that drive how new employees will assimilate to the work environment, mesh with the corporate culture, as well as how the individual will perform in their role. 

Meet Jim, an aspiring sales executive with background in the finance industry.  Jim is looking to gain exposure outside of the financial industry and to attain a role that moves him up the proverbial “ladder”.  In the finance industry, Jim excelled in various sales roles, acquiring greater levels of responsibility very quickly.  He has thrived in the structured, regulation-driven environment in which his company operated within the industry.  Looking to expand upon his professional resume, Jim is now exploring employment with organizations across various industries.  Although Jim’s experience has primarily come within the finance industry, he believes that he can easily transfer his knowledge and skills to a different environment.

What is the best fit for Jim?  Organizations, of course, are very focused on finding the ideal fit for not only the role they are hiring for, based on skills and experiences, but also for a good match to the organizational environment and culture.  But how many companies focus on ensuring that their role, corporate environment, and organizational culture are truly an ideal fit for the applicant?  It is easy to assume that if we, the organization, find the ideal fit then the organization must be a perfect fit for the individual as well.  Unfortunately, this assumption may be inaccurate at times.  Applicants are eager to make a good impression during their interview and may have the propensity to sacrifice concerns or misgivings of their fit to the role or the organization in order to give the “correct” answer or tell the interviewer what it is they think they want to hear. 

Going back to our friend, Jim…Jim is interviewing for a sales manager role with a successful computer system design company.  The company is a trend-setting, forward-thinking organization focused on innovation and leading the way in the industry.  Jim has had some qualms over whether or not he would be comfortable working in such an “outside the box” environment.  His previous experience was in a very structured, guidelines-driven envrionment which he thoroughly enjoyed and felt comfortable in.  Although he questions his fit to the computer system design company, he goes forward with the interview and is hired.  Nine months later, Jim is living in a land of ambiguity and is surrounded by creative minds who are more comfortable “bending the rules” than abiding by them.  Jim is not comfortable in his position nor in the organizational environment which is a stark contrast to his ideal work situation.  Jim is back on the search for a role and company that is truly a good fit for him.

Jim’s situation is not an uncommon one.  This “mis-fit” between applicant and environment results in reduced morale, job satisfaction, as well as increased absenteeism and turnover.  This costs the organization time and money on hiring, on-boarding, and training processes while costing the employee stress, time out of work, and emotional well-being.  But how in the world do companies figure out if the two-way street of “fit” is in alignment?  Interviews and supporting hiring tools, such as personality inventories, can be invaluable to ensuring this alignment.  Although neither is a “magic elixir”, asking very detailed, targeted interview questions that uncover the individual’s work and style preferences can uncover critical information needed to determine fit.  Moreover, personality inventories, such as the ECI Behavioral Insight, provide the interviewer with information about the candidate that extends beyond the skills and experiences commonly found on the resume.  Personality assessments allow the hiring manager to gain insight into the innate behavioral tendencies of the applicant, including information regarding natural motivators and drivers.  Where these motivations strongly differ from the work environment or characteristics of the role, the interviewer can probe to gain a better understanding of the potential misalignment between the candidate and the role/organization.

“Fit” issues are a major concern for organizations due to the tremendous costs companies incur after a bad hire.  It is important for organizations to take a holistic approach and consider concerns of “fit” from not only the perspective of the company, but also that of the applicant.  For more information about job, organization, or motivational fit or the ECI Behavioral Insight, send us an email or give us a call!

What is my company’s culture and why does it matter?

The culture that exists within a company is something that many people may not pay attention to on a day to day basis.  However, it is an element of your organization that should not be overlooked.  It is an element that can make all of the difference when introducing your company to a potential hire.  A targeted description of the values and practices your company ascribes to as it conducts business can be very illustrative, time saving, and cost effective.  A lack of fit between an employee’s work preferences and goals and a company’s culture can cause an endless stream of discord.  Discord leads to a lack of productivity at best, and high turnover at worst.  It is easy to see the financial implications of both. 

 

At ECI, we regularly conduct studies of organizations in our efforts to assist in the reduction of turnover.  All too often the findings of these studies reveal undefined culture and divergent viewpoints among leadership.  In order to avoid cultural lack of fit the first place to begin is of course, the most obvious, to define your company’s culture.  Culture should be a topic on meeting agendas regularly.  It does tend to evolve with marketplace shifts, other external factors, and especially changes in personnel, so it should be discussed and agreed upon biannually.  An objective 3^rd party study is a very effective, but not absolutely necessary, way to determine and define your organization’s culture.  You can quite simply gather your leadership and have a round table discussion with your vision and mission statements as starting points.  You may actually find that there is discord between your mission and vision and leaderships’ collective viewpoints of the current culture.  If this is the case, the time is ripe to embark on an initiative that re-aligns your company’s culture with the values of its employees.  Researchers report that companies with alignment between their mission and vision and culture are at least twice as successful as others.

 

One simple way to either preserve or adjust your company’s culture moving forward is through the administration of a personality assessment.  Valid and reliable assessments reveal the innate motivators and drivers of individuals.  You can adapt your culture by identifying what works well within your organization, then defining those traits that are common among your top performers.  You can then manage lesser performers more appropriately by gaining an understanding of where, how, and why these lesser performers are inherently different.  Additionally, moving forward, hiring to a profile that leads to success and aligns to your culture will create greater cohesiveness among your teams. 

 

Skills, knowledge, and experience are rather straight forward aspects of an individual to measure and assess.  These elements of a candidate are fairly easy to evaluate during an interview, reference check, or even a simple resume screen.  However, it is the more personal, value-based aspects of employee and organization that determine success or failure of fit.  The importance of alignment between your company’s culture and the values and goals of your employees should never be underestimated.

Diversity and Cultural Fit

We often hear about leaders of companies who avoid the use of assessment tools because they believe that these tools could screen out diverse candidates and could expose their organizations to lawsuits.  Is this true or false? 

The answer to that one is, it depends….If you utilize a tool that is not well constructed and tends to score populations or groups differently, then the answer is probably true.  This is why you need to do some diligence before instituting the use of any tools within your talent management systems.  Avoid the use of tools that must be hand-scored or interpreted by an individual, as these may generate rater bias.  Styles inventories are fine for development and team building, but should not be used for selection purposes.  Tests that are easy to fake, such as word inventories (which statement/term is most or least like you) should also be avoided, unless the test documentation can provide high reliability and validity.

Be sure to ask the test provider for the technical report or validation study before introducing any new tool within your company and have that report reviewed by someone familiar with testing to ensure that the findings are sufficient to demonstrate reliability and validity.  Also, ask about disparate impact on protected classes to see what studies have been done and what proof the test provider can offer you that the tool does not discriminate.

The research around the importance of cultural fit could cause companies to put diversity aside in favor of only hiring people who match a particular success model, since these people should have a better chance of success.  When this occurs, it is generally a result of some key factors.

1. The test being used in fact causes disparate impact as it scores.  If it didn’t, then all people, regardless of gender, race, age, or ethnicity, who demonstrate particular preferences or tendencies will match the core factors for success.
2. Too much emphasis is being placed upon the results of the test.  This is frequently a problem where training is not consistently offered in how to use test results and how not to use test results. 
3. Avoid the use of a test that produces a Recommendation – Good Match to Position, Poor Match to Position – Recommended or Not Recommended, then you increase the chances that your managers will look at this bottom line first and put aside the information they gathered in interviews or in the work experiences.
4. Hiring managers don’t really know what factors lead to success in a particular role or position.  They tend to look for and hire people who are more like them, rather than people who demonstrate the core factors for success for a particular role.

Note that we’re talking about core factors for success.  If you want to encourage diversity, stick to the core factors for success and hire people who are motivated by the work and the general milieu of your culture, rather than they possess one or two key traits that you know are common to people in your company.  We once had a client who refused to look at any candidate who didn’t have a score of 50% or higher on Pace/Urgency.  We had to do a good deal of education to show that Pace/Urgency wasn’t the only core factor for success. 

Put less emphasis on secondary style factors, and avoid doing as our client above did, unless you are driving change in your culture.  If you need people with more initiative, then look for individuals who possess independence, high energy, a bit more tendency to take risks and who are quite flexible.  These tendencies are all readily measurable in a good personality assessment.  Once your new hires are on the job, however, make sure to manage them as they need to be managed, or they will soon move elsewhere!  

If you follow these simple principles, then you will be able to hire a diverse population who are a cultural fit with your organization.  Using good assessment tools isn’t something you need to be afraid of.  Consider Home Depot.  The EEOC recommended that they include such measures to help hiring managers make better hiring decisions on the basis of more objective information, after a suit of discrimination was raised.

Regrettable Losses

I wish I could tell you that we at ECI have the answers to every organizational issue you can raise, but this is simply not the truth.  From time to time, we have to let people go and we have people we wish would have stayed, move on to other jobs.  In each instance, we always wish our former team mates well, and try to assess what we could have done differently to maximize the individual’s potentials.

As one of our writers pointed out a few posts ago, the reason most people start looking for a new position is that they are feeling as if they don’t “fit” within the roles to which they are assigned.  The easy “misfits” to recognize are the people who can’t seem to understand what the assignment is, or they can’t get things done, or who dive too deeply into the complex details of their work, thereby missing the “forest for the trees” at the end of the day.  Sometimes, this is a matter of coaching and teaching to build the confidence needed to get the job done.  Other times, this is a matter of egos, and something you probably won’t be able to resolve.

The more difficult ones to recognize are the people whose work is so superior that you believe everything is steller.  You know the person might be a bit stressed, but since they do so well with your customers and rarely need support, you keep telling yourself that things are fine.  You listen to your clients telling you what a good job this person is doing and figure that, because of this, the person is fully gratified in the role.

You find yourself particularly shocked when these individuals tell you they have found another job and will be leaving soon.  After the fact, you go back and you look at the results of the good performer’s ECI Behavioral Insight and start questioning yourself because you knew this all along.  The results tell you that this person likes a stable environment, where an orderly approach is in play.  They prefer knowing the rules and having everyone abide by these within the team.  They take pride in devising a process, then using the process in new projects, since it worked so well the last time.  They don’t like having to invent thinking for every project that comes along.  Because of the high standards they set for themselves, their chances of feeling fulfilled in such an upredictable environment as exists at ECI for the long term term are probably somewhat limited.

In these cases, you just have to be thankful for having the person with you for a time and hope that the experience provided good learning and growth.  And of course, you always keep in touch with them to follow their progress into new places.

Exactly What Is Emotional Intelligence Anyway?

It is easy to get caught up in the hype of catch phrases that travel around the conference room.  As business people, we tend to want to use a flashy term that is fresh to gain attention and perhaps put a fresh spin on an old idea.  Sometimes, we simply want to use a term that we have continuously heard used in corporate settings.  In particular, one phrase I hear too often misused is Emotional Intelligence.  It is one of the most frequently inadequately defined terms I hear, especially when used to describe either sales or management techniques.  Most commonly I hear people using and defining EI as nothing more than simple self-awareness.  The term Emotional Intelligence, sometimes called EQ or Emotional Quotient, has been in use for well over 20 years now.  However, it continues to gain in popularity in corporate settings.  The time seems ripe to provide a bit of a background and overview.

The truth is that it is not necessarily the fault of laypeople when they incorrectly define and apply EI.  Authorities in the peer-reviewed literature actually fail to agree on one standard definition of EI.  Divergent viewpoints are quite common in the literature and unfortunately there is currently no measurement of EI that passes the rigorous psychometric standards of many personality assessments.  There is currently no measure of EI that is acceptable for use in employee selection.  Many measures should probably not be applied in developmental efforts either.  However, there are 2 approaches that serve as the basis for the most widely studied measures currently in use that will help to elucidate what EI is beyond simple self-awareness.

1.  The most popular and widely applied in organizational settings approach is what is known as the “mixed-model” approach.  It is called “mixed” because it is a mixture of some classic personality traits and Emotional Intelligence abilities.  Many of these approaches break down EI into 4 main components as follows:

• Self-Awareness - this is ability to read one’s own emotions and to recognize their impact while using those “gut” feelings to guide decisions
• Self-Management – which involves controlling one’s own emotions and impulses and adapting them to changing circumstances
• Social Awareness – which is the ability to sense, understand, and react to others’ emotions while also maintaining an understanding of social networks
• Relationship Management – this is the ability to inspire, influence, and develop others while managing conflict

2.  The other is the Ability Based Model which is much more academic in practice and theoretical basis.  Also, measurement of Ability-Based EI tends to be more difficult and does not lend itself to self-report type instruments which are of course, the easiest to administer.  The distinguishing factor for pure Ability-Based EI is that EI is defined as a type of intelligence and is innate.  In short, it can not be developed.  There is a much more cut-and-dry background to this theoretical basis which also tends to limit its utility and application in a business setting.  The Ability-Based definition is as follows:

• “The capacity to reason about emotions, and of emotions to enhance thinking.  It includes the abilities to accurately perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions, so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to effectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth.”  (Mayer & Salovey, 1997)

As you can see, although the approaches to measurement of EI may be very different academically, the 2 approaches describe a similar entity.  Further, this entity is considerably more than being self-aware.  Rather, it is about managing one’s own emotions and effectively managing relationships.  The draw of being able to measure an individual’s capacity for such a thing is certainly understandable.  However, it is a “buyer beware” marketplace for certain when it comes to choosing an instrument to measure EI.  Some of the best selling and most popular EI instruments have been excessively disparaged in the literature.  If you are in the market for an EI measure, you would be wise to consult an expert such as someone with a background in psychometrics.  Good test makers will always provide a technical manual of how their instrument was validated.  Having an expert review these manuals will help to lessen the chance of improperly measuring the EI of individuals in your organization.  EI tends to be a construct that carries much more emotional repercussions than personality, therefore, it is all the more important to do your diligent research when selecting a tool.

Communicating Effectively During Difficult Times

With the current economic crisis facing us, much of the active workforce is under the greatest financial strain of their lives.  Oil, gas, and even rice (who would’ve thought?) prices are on the rise, deeply impacting families across America.  As we have recently witnessed in the news, the financial crisis has had a damaging effect on many companies, causing the doors to close on some of those we least expected.  And now, the troubled stock market’s looming impact is spreading to concern across the globe…

With this economic downturn, fear is in the hearts (and wallets) of employees and employers alike, threatening attitudes and morale in the workplace.  Morale has commonly been linked to performance on the job.  It is therefore essential that considerable time and effort be invested to keep company morale high and employee attitudes positive, despite the stress on leadership and management.  One way to encourage positive morale across the team is to keep employees as fully informed as is feasible.  Allowing folks to be “in the loop” is a great way to minimize the presence and harmful influence of the ol’ water cooler communication (a.k.a. gossip) grapevine.  Notify them of big changes that are coming before they hear it from erroneous sources to prevent such inaccuracies from spreading like wildfire through the organization.  A transparent environment in which individuals feel they are well informed also helps to build and strengthen feelings of trust. 

Of course being transparent and open with employees is “easier said than done” when the news is not pleasant.  Companies faced with minimizing extra expenses, cutting staff numbers, or, at the very worst, closing their doors are tasked with communicating information that is potentially devastating to their employees.  In these messages, it is even more crucial that information is stated clearly and with sufficient detail to ensure that employees feel informed and up-to-date.  While employees are concerned over the state of the organization they work for, regardless of the change they are facing, employees want to know “what does this mean for me?”.  Communicating the impact on the individual employees should be a top priority.  Once the information has been presented, it is also important to have a system in place to respond to employees’ questions of the situation.  Appropriate resources such as a “Frequent Asked Questions” guide or a  point person to field questions, provide employees with the opportunity to review the information in more detail and can also serve to engender a sense of confidence in the company’s efforts to keep the employees informed.  

Although it is important to be transparent with your employees and to ensure that they feel informed, it is just as critical to determine the “right amount of information” to share.  At times, it can be a very fine line between sharing too much information versus not sharing enough and the outcome of either of these situations can be equally troublesome.  “Just the right amount of information” clearly varies by the situation and company.  But, regardless of the nuances of the circumstances, it is essential that organizational leadership establish a standard for what information will be shared, when it will be shared, and the potential outcomes of sharing the information.  Developing a clear communication plan, outlining these details, can enhance an organization’s ability to communicate even difficult news effectively.

How Do You Build a Competency System?

A lot of the people who visit our website want to know the answer to the question “How do you build a competency system?”  And of course the answer is, “It depends.”  The things that determine how to approach building a system are really pretty simple:

1. How many people are in your organization?     100 or less, 200 – 5000,  over 5000
2. How many common job groups do you have?   Under 15, Between 15 and 50, Many more than 50
3. How unique is your company and the work you do?   Not unique, Somewhat, Very unique
4. What type of systems does your company prefer?    Simple, Somewhat detailed, Detailed
5. Do you have people on staff who can champion for the development of the system?    Yes        No
6. Do you have good job descriptions for every role?     Yes        No
7. Can you gain leaders’ support for this program easily?     Yes       No
8. How much do you have for a budget for the work?   Nothing, A little, Have funding

Let’s start with the first question…how big is your organization.  If you have less than 500 people, you are probably better off with a very simple system that has organizational competencies, centered around the values you expect people to demonstrate as they interact with one another and your customers.  Then use well constructed, functional job descriptions to behaviorally describe the technical skills and abilities expected in each job title.  This system works well when you have a number of job titles and not enough people to establish a real baseline of what differentiates high performance in a distinct role.  You can, however, identify and study what behaviors are found in high performers by rolling populations up into job families or job groups.  (Leaders, Associates, Supporting Roles)

If you have more than 500 people, or one population that encompasses a large part of your workforce, you can incorporate technical skills and abilities within a single model for specific jobs or job groups.  For example, in a pharmaceutical sales company where many people are focused in field sales work, you could devise a distinct family of models for the sales team.  Model 1 would be for Sales Representatives, Model 2 would be for District Managers and Model 3 would be for Regional Leaders.  These three models would be related to one another through the use of a single set of dimensions, with the performance factors, or behavioral descriptors for each dimension,  differing at the job level.  In this way, a continuum is established.  Selection processes, career planning and other talent management processes which rely on the competency model become more targeted and easier for users to understand.

On to question 2 – How many job groups do you have?  If you have many job groups, in which the jobs within the job group are quite distinct, then you are better off reverting to the model described above of using cultural competencies working side by side with a behavioral job description.  This gives cohesion to the system, while enabling people to see themselves within the models for developmental purposes.  If you have only a few job groups, then you are better off preparing a model for each job group, leveled by the various positions present within the group, such as described above for our friends in the pharmaceutical company.

How unique is your company?  Most people will respond that their company is quite unique, but in reality, most companies are quite similar, particularly industry by industry.  A good way to investigate the degree of uniqueness is to go to industry websites and look for typical job descriptions.  Review these to determine how differnt you really are.  If you tend to be quite different from the norm, then go ahead and build a competency around your cultural dimensions, supported with good behaviorally based job descriptions that you have cast to reflect the actual job content in your positions.

What type of systems does your company prefer?  This is a good question and perhaps one of the more important considerations in developing your system.  There is no way that a company which tends to invent as it goes along will do well with a detailed system of definitions and a complex set of tools.  If your company is still growing and developing its culture and marketplace position, or if you are in a time of distinct change, then you are better off with a very simple system that defines key behaviors that everyone is expected to demonstrate.  If your company is very stable and tends to have a good deal of familiarity with performance management systems and tools, then you have a better chance of succeeding with a more detailed model. 

However, our own experience with our clients over the years shows that if you want them to use it, they have to “get it” quickly and be able to remember it.  We recommend no more than 7 dimensions, each containing no more than 3 to 5 key descriptors.  This enables both managers and performers to target the things that count in the role and to focus on developing primary skills, knowledge and abilities.

Tomorrow, I will discuss how to decide whether to try to do the work yourself or hire an outside resource to build your system.  If you would like additional information about ECI’s competency systems, visit our website at www.employerconsultancy.com and download our Competency White Paper.

How Do You Build A Competency System? continued….

A critical aspect of constructing a Competency System is whether you have someone on site who can champion for the cause.  If your company is smaller in size, and you have an HR professional who understands the rudiments of competency construction, you may be able to create the system yourself with a bit of help from friends.  There are several good websites that offer pre-made competencies to use.  The good part of these systems is that they are very quick to implement and your performance management process is generally housed in a single database on the site you choose.  The downside is that the provider has your data and you may be forced to enter a lot of information about your company and your employees.  If you can live with the approach and the content they provide, this may be your best plan of action.  Some of these sites also enable you to input your own descriptors, and give you a good deal of flexibility in accessing developmental resources and ready-made tools to support the process.  Some providers even have seminars where people can take classes in competency system development for a fairly inexpensive cost.

If your organization is larger and more complex, then you really should be thinking about conducting a study process in order to identify the factors that differentiate high performance in your organization.  The best decisions are based on objective and valid information. 

Avoid putting people in a room and working with a facilitator who asks you what means success.  Your chances of drafting an effective model are significantly reduced with this methodology and you will probably spend a lot of money for the consultant.  One size does not fit all where Competency Systems are concerned, particularly within the larger organization.  You’ll need a system that aligns to your culture.

ECI uses a multi-staged process for gathering the information upon which to build competency systems.  The process includes behavioral assessment, using a valid and reliable instrument, job analysis in the field, an employee survey, leadership interviews and sometimes customer feedback.  By correlating this data base of responses to actual performance on the job, statistically valid factors are identified upon which to construct the content of the system.  Visit the ECI website for more information about this process and to download our Competency White Paper.

We also recommend that you put together a task force made up of people at a high enough level in the organization to make decisions around process and content.  This aspect also enables you to gain some buy-in at the grass roots level and to enhance uptake, once the system is designed.  Most assuredly, you’ll need a consultant to work with your task force so that you keep the team focused on getting the work completed and implemented.  Don’t offer this assignment to your interns, however, since you need people who have experience in managing others and in making decisions at upper levels.

Having good up-to-date job descriptions can be a real benefit when you are constructing a Competency System for a lot of reasons.  First, you can use these documents to identify common behaviors that people have to demonstrate to be successful in your company.  Also, the technical aspects of the role can be described in the job description, thereby reducing complexity in your models. 

Leader support is essential for the success of your Competency System.  We have worked with companies whose sales leaders have said….”Frankly, I don’t care how they bring in the business.  As far as I am concerned, if they close it and achieve their goals, I really am not going to lower their performance rating based on some competency system.”  If this is a fair representation of your organization, then you have some work to do before you even begin to build your system.  Otherwise, you are wasting time and resources to build a system that will find itself a binder on the shelf. 

In cases where leadership support is lacking, determine what problems are being encountered in the marketplace and with your teams that would be addressed through the implementation of a Competency System.  You may need to champion for the cause for awhile before you actually begin to build the system in order to gain that essential leadership support.  If leaders are not willing to participate at a basic level and do not see the value in the system, your chances of success are seriously reduced.

Budget is something you can work around.  If you have a very large organization, you may need to put together an HR team to lay out a plan and then approach the process over a period of 2 or more years.  Begin by building the models and getting people to use them for selection or for developmental purposes.  Then add on another talent management process, such as performance reviews.  Continue to add new processes year by year until the whole Talent Management process has been developed and is cohesively working together on the foundation of your Competency System. 

If you have a small organization, then your most cost effective strategy would be to learn more about competencies and know what type system you wish to build.  Next, collect some information from your employees through surveys and through conducting job analysis.  Look for trends in the information you gathered upon which to construct your models.  Last, put together the task force (including one or more of those leaders we talked about) to develop the tools you will use to install the system.  This way, you gain some buy-in from people and a basic understanding of how the system can work.

There are as many good competency systems in use as there are bad.  Some basic principles of devising good Competency Systems are:

1. Involve people in providing input on what means success in your organization.  You make better decisions on the basis of facts.
2. Match your system to the preferred style of your organization – simple or detailed, depending upon what people seem to prefer.  Notice, I did not say “complex.”
3. Make sure your system is simple enough to be easily understood by users.  Avoid having 20 or 30 dimensions with multiple descriptors.  Better to have 5-7 per job family, and incorporate the key factors beneath the dimensions.
4. Gain leader support before you begin.  If you fail to gain the support of leaders, the system will fail.
5. Make sure all parts of your Competency System tools are linked to the common base of dimensions and definitions.
6. Have good job descriptions.  These can help to support your system and give you many more design options. 

If you would like more information about ECI’s competency systems, please give us a call at (908) 806-3444.  We’d be happy to offer a recommended strategy to help you build your system.

Are You Downsizing or Maximizing?

Turbulent times cause companies a lot of problems, and sometimes opportunities.  One question our clients ask is how to staff the current operation to support the business, without cutting out so much muscle that you lose the ability to grow or improve your profitability.  There is a break point in that discussion and the answers depend upon what your end objective is.

We’re used to seeing nearly annual reorganization by our clients in the pharmaceutical sector.  The reasons behind this are related as much to the need to show a positive return on the balance sheet as they are to addressing shifting market needs.  I believe that some companies continually refine the quality of the sales force, for example, by doing a nearly annual lay-off to avoid having to dismiss staff for cause and taking the chance that they will be sued for wrongful discharge.  But, hey, I get it.  The average time to run someone through the discharge process is about 9 months.  That is a long time to wait in a turbulent business environment to make a change and correct a performance problem.

So if your end objective is to enhance the quality of your workforce, then perhaps consider the lay-off method to clean house.  If you choose this method, be sure that the criteria you use to do your lay-off is based on organizational need, and not personal preferences for various individuals.  While I am very concerned about age discrimination, I think seniority is poor criteria to use for the lay-off benchmark.  It is easy to use and a very clean method, but it may not help you to prepare for the future, based on your future vision, or enable you to maximize productivity in the current environment.  On the other hand, your older employees have a lot of knowledge and experience.  They can be a great source of advice and counsel on what to try, what has worked in the past, and what to avoid to weather the storm.  So you will need to weigh both sides of this logic as you make your decisions in the final analysis.

If you are moving in a new direction or perhaps seeking merger and acquisition opportunities in the marketplace, you’ll want to focus on enhancing productivity of your workforce as much as you can and increasing your profitability.  But again, don’t start with the names of the people and pick your favorite people.  Start with the goals and objectives and your strategic plan for the future.  Be sure to review this plan carefully with current market conditions in mind.  You probably won’t have the resources you might have had 3 or 4 years ago for development, resources or marketing.  So staff to achieve that new plan, given the available resources you do know you have. 

In tough times, it is a lot less expensive and more profitable to sell new products to existing customers than it is to generate new customers.   The proviso here, however, is that your new strategic plan needs to be aligned with the opportunities and needs of your existing customer base.  If not, then you will need to identify your less profitable customers, downsize them, and put your resources toward developing new business in new channels who will help achieve your plan.

The whole point in solving the impact of the turbulent market on your organization is that we need to evaluate what resources we have, time, money, people and opportunities.  Next, we need a specific idea of what we want to build that will take advantage of the opportunities which will emerge in the changing economic conditions.  Then, we think about organizational structure to support the idea.  And last, we assess the people, based on the criteria needed to achieve the new idea.   

And be prepared.  Sometimes, your top performers may not fit your new model.  But with a clear understanding of the skills, knowledge and abilities you do need, you can staff to achieve those needs, even in a turbulent marketplace.

Answering Behavioral Event Interview Questions

One of the most frequent searches that leads to our website is “How do you answer Behavioral Event Interview questions?”  Or more often, “How do you answer ECI interview questions?”   For those of you who are in the job market, and it seems like there are a huge number of people looking for work these days, here are some tips from a firm who provides such questions to potential employers.

Before you go to your interview session, take time to think through your own key experiences and success stories.  What are the situations where you personally achieved outstanding results?  What did you do specifically to achieve the outstanding result?  What was the benefit of your efforts to the company and to your own personal growth?  This is the fundamental structure of behavioral event interview questions.

A good interviewer will be able to probe into your answers and check on the validity and sincerity of your responses to the questions.  What employers want to confirm by using behavioral event interview questions is that you have the experience (real, actual, accomplishments and knowledge) that you said you had in your resume and in your application.  Employers are verifying the presence or absence of the key skills and competencies that are required for success in the role.  It is an expensive proposition to bring people into an organization these day, so the better the selection process, the better the results after hire.

Some things you definitely don’t want to do in the interview:

1.  make up a story – this is big trouble and you will get yourself into a jamb with an experienced interviewer using a Behavioral Event Interview process who knows what he/she is doing

2.  stick with one or two examples of your experiences and continually end up going back to these as you answer questions. This shows that you have limited experience or knowledge and that you cannot talk intelligently or in-depth around a particular subject

3.  use the proverbially “we”  “my team”  “I should, I would, I could have” examples.  These are also dead give-aways that you don’t have the experience.

4.  fail to answer the question.  Don’t bother providing another answer to a question or avoid answering the question.  If you don’t have an answer, admit that you don’t have an answer.  However, if you have more than 2 such responses, you might really not be a good match to the position for which you are being considered.

5.  try to take over the interview by answering the question with another question.  Well trained interviewers will find this arrogant or condescending if done too frankly and with persistence.  Your best day is when a poor interviewer starts gabbing about his world and the company and how wonderful he/she thinks it is.  In those cases, nod and smile and definitely ask more questions to keep him/her going.  If his/her ego is that big, they deserve to hire you, even if they don’t know about who you are!  This happens much more frequently than you might imagine.

Things you should do:

1.  Be honest and open about your prior experiences, without complaining.  Do not, however, demonstrate a poor attitude about your most hated boss or colleague, your worst nightmare job, what you can’t stand about your current or past company.  If you offer these responses, we don’t want someone with a poor attitude, so regardless of you skill set, better interviewers will not move you forward in the process.

2.  Stick with business.  Answer the questions without going on and on.  Don’t start talking about personal information, relationships with people, who you know or your off-time activities.  This is not something that should be discussed in an interview anyway.  And if I, as the interviewer, don’t know who you do, who cares.

3.  Be polite and professional.  Do not interrupt or tell jokes.  Dress appropriately for the interview and clean yourself up.  Get your hair cut or styled in a more traditional manner.  Nothing worse than going to an interview with heavy perfume, bad breath, body odor or other issues that people could find offensive.  Fine if you have tatoos and piercings.  That’s your business, but do we need to see all of them during the intervew?  Match your persona to the company environment into which you wish to gain employment. That’s your best bet.  If people see that you fit, you are 30% of the way in the door.

4.  Make sure your resume and application are accurate and that they clearly reflect your skills, experiences, and accomplishments – embroidering your actual experiences and adding in some accomplishments you might not have achieved can be red flags.  If you get caught, which you might in the interview, you will be knocked out of the process.  If the employer checks references, as more are doing these days, you will have problems.  Something like over 50% of people’s resumes cover up employment gaps, include errors or downright misinformation these days.

5.  Have prepared 4 or 5 really good questions about the company you would like to know more on.  DO NOT ask about salary until you get down to the later stages of the interview process and let the interviewer be the one to bring it up.  Wait until you get down to the top candidacy stage to  negotiate.  Your research should be able to tell you what the employer pays for people in similar roles.

That’s it.  Getting a new job requires persistence and a lot of activity.  Be sure to load your pipeline with at least 10 or more possibilities each month and keep that many prospects in your pipline until you get hired.  Having that many options is what it will take these days to get yourself hired.  Good luck and happy interviewing.

How To Achieve HR Department of the Year

A few days ago, some of the folks at ECI were invited by a client to attend an HR Department of the Year awards dinner.  We knew that our client and his wonderful team of Recruitment and Talent Management Staff was in the running for this prestigeous award.  Annually, companies apply and compete in a variety of categories, such as Staffing, Compensation and Benefits, etc., for this award which is given by HR Executive magazine. 

This was the first time we had heard about this award program, although now that we have been looking into it, we see that it has been in place for several years.  Our client is quite unique in the staffing arena, since he heads up the Talent Acquision function within a recognized pharmaceutical company.  The things that he does differently are what I am nearly positive helped them to win the award.  Here’s my view on how they won.

1. His team is highly responsive and customer focused.  They work hard to deliver what their hiring managers need to enhance the quality of staff, while continually working to improve results.
2. He is a great manager.  He is able to look at the potential of his staff, to see their strengths and capitalize on their strengths, rather than worry about their weaknesses.  He provides good positive feedback, and plenty of it.
3. He has identified a number of vendors who buy into his philosophy and serve as an integral part of his team to deliver what he wants, how he wants it.  He sets high expectations for his vendors, but is very open with them and in turn, his vendors do backflips for him.  These vendors all work collaboratively together as well.   They have learned to know one another and regularly talk to one another.  They often have mutual clients, outside of our customer.
4. He is great at planting the seeds and tending them until they grow.  When he has an idea, he starts talking with people about it.  He engages them in the notion and eventually, through persistence, gets them to agree to following him where he leads.
5. People in his organization see him as a leader, one who produces positive results and one who leads, rather than a supporter.  This is an important differentiator.  HR is not viewed as the gatekeeper, nor does his team have the reputation for telling people what they cannot do.  Rather, he helps his internal customers see the benefits of doing things his way and what results they can achieve by working with him.
6. He has worked hard to brand his Talent Acquisition approach with clear thinking and strategy.  As such, he draws people from arenas where they are most likely to be a good match to his company.
7. He answers the phone himself.  He recently told us that if you don’t answer the phone and talk to people, you probably won’t know what’s going on in the marketplace or what the possibilities are. 

We are very proud of his team and that our client won this award.  We’re enjoying it vicariously.

Creating Selection Standards

We recently had a team discussion over whether a company with 50 or less employees and no government contracts needed to abide by OFCCP, EEO and Uniform Guidelines in its hiring criteria.  Who must comply and which federal guidelines should these clients follow in developing their selection standards?  You might be interested in this discussion, if you are developing selection standards for your company, or haven’t reviewed yours recently.  There are a variety of guidelines, legislation, and case law out there you should know about and some new issues that have been raised because of all the web sites offering candidates and employers the opportunity to find one another.

The first question is “Which program are you talking about?”   EEO and affirmative action?  Uniform Guidelines for Selection or the OFCCP?   And who needs to comply?  Are their organizational size limitations, government contracts needed to require compliance, or other things that are of importance?  Here are some citations for your reference that may help to answer, or confuse, you  on the matter.

1. OFCCP:  “The Executive Order prohibits federal contractors and federally-assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do over $10,000 in Government business in one year, from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The Executive Order also requires Government contractors to take affirmative action to insure that equal opportunity is provided in all aspects of their employment.”
2. EEO Guidelines:  Each Government contractor with 50 or more employees and $50,000 or more in government contracts is required to develop a written affirmative action program (AAP) for each of its establishments. This section also requires annual tracking and reporting of data about candidates being selected, promoted or released.
3. Uniform Guidelines for Employee Selection Procedures:  The Guidelines cover all employers with 15 or more employees.  They also apply to government contractors and subcontractors.  The Guidelines establish procedures for instituting all tests, selection processes and inventories used to make hiring decisions.

So the short answer is, if you have 15 or more employees, then you had better take a look at your selection process to ensure that it does not discriminate against protected classes and that you gather sufficient information in interviews, tests or inventories, reference checks, background screens or other procedures to avoid falling awry of the 4/5ths Rule. 

The 4/5ths Rule is part of the EEO Guidelines and says that no selection procedure may screen out individuals within protected classes at a rate of 80% of the rate at which it screens out the unprotected classes.

In my mind, here are the points to look at:

1. Does your company have more than 15 employees?  If so, then you must comply with the Uniform Guidelines and be sure to remember the 4/5ths Rule.  No government contracts mean you don’t need to worry about instituting the affirmative action plan just yet.  If you have $10K in government contracts, however, then you need to write the affirmative action plan and institute it.
2. Does your company have over 50 employees and $50K in government contracts?  If so, then you must comply with the Uniform Guidelines as above and also take action to institute an affirmative action program, including the written affirmative action policy and annual reporting.
3. Does your company have contracts with the government that yield $10K or more per year?  If so, then you must prepare and institute a written affirmative action policy.
4. Does your company use the internet to advertise your openings and gather resumes?  If so, then the newest OFCCP guidelines say you need to be soliciting information on race, gender, age, and ethnicity.  Your applicants get to decide whether they will provide the information, but you need to ask for it.  Also, it is a very good idea to respond electronically to every individual who submits interest in your position and ask them to verify that they are in fact interested.  A good practice is to ask them to return additional information to you.  Lack of a response documents that they are not an active candidate for your consideration. 

At the end of the day, rather than try to distinguish your accountabilities in devising selection criteria on your own, and what information you should be tracking, ask your company attorney to advise you.  And once you have your selection process in place, have your attorney review it and take his or her advice on how to improve it.  Business is tough enough these days without having to deal with a claim arising out of any of these laws, guidelines or agencies.

How To Respond in Reference Checks

A few weeks ago, I received a call from a placement firm checking references for a prior employee.  This individual didn’t leave here on the best of terms so I had a bit of trepidation about what the recruiter would ask me and how I should answer her inquiries.  Of course, the lawyers were telling us “name, rank and employment dates” as the standard response.  But recent case law has found that employers who pass along their unsatisfactory employees to others with glowing recommendations and misrepresent the real facts could open themselves to liable from the new employer.

I always try to be honest with these requests, but to watch what I say with care.  I am open in sharing the strengths of the individual and in offering examples of positive business contributions the individual made to the organization.  When asked about the individual’s weak areas, I also try to be open, but I rarely offer examples, even when pressed. 

The other thing we do here at ECI is to prepare an exit letter that states what we will say about the individual when other employers call for references.  In this way, we have some documentation to use in the process and are more likely to stick with the facts of the matter when someone calls to check references. 

More often than not, my own experience is that people want to do well at their work.  The reason they fail is more of a mismatch issue, either with the work group to which the person is assigned, to his or her manager or to the company.  Often employees expect and need certain things to do their jobs effectively and the company cannot consistently supply the things the person needs. 

For example, some individuals believe that they will soon become managers, since we are a smaller employer.  So, they work hard and hope they will soon be promoted.  We tend to be very clear about the fact that we are a very flat organization and your promotion will probably be more like “you get to work on more complex accounts and larger projects,” but people don’t usually hear that part.  Sometimes a person takes on a role in the organization, and they get stuck in that box for the whole time they are in their career with you.  A lot of this has to do with a perception of the individual and people’s prior experiences which tend to color the actual assessment of the person’s real skills and capabilities…or in the alternative, the individual may have a blind spot he/she is unable to accept. 

For others, they want to work independently and to provide to the client what they believe is best for them, regardless of the company’s philosophy or business approach.  The problem with that one is that there is generally a history with a client and as a consulting firm, you’re probably best off in approaching the client in they way they are accustomed, rather than frequently trying new strategies or systems.  Their knowledge of how you work is probably why they hired your company in the first place.

I was lucky this time.  I was able to talk about the prior employee in a favorable way, because the employee does have many fine qualities and made a positive contribution to our company.   If I had been the placement counsellor, I think I might have asked a couple more pointed questions to see what I could find out.  Silence is as strong a predictor as an indepth answer at times.

The next time I hire, however, I am going to look into Skill Survey.  This is an online application where potential employers ask the candidate to provide work references and contact information for prior employers of the candidate.  Each prior employer is asked to complete an online confidential questionnaire and to rate the candidate on key work areas.  The responses are all rolled up for the employee and you get to see what others have to say about the individua’s prior work experience in a nicely presented report.  Apparently, the response rate is very high on this application and the information yielded is far superior to what you can get doing a phone check.   

And the big advantage is I don’t have to answer those phone calls anymore.

Strategies for Reinventing Your Company in Hard Times

Everyone I talk to is looking for strategies to maximize business in tough times.  Yesterday, we talked with a colleague who works for a company headquartered in Japan.  She told us that one of their senior officers came to visit the US division and told everyone to look at the lull in the business as an opportunity to redefine their business strategies and to take time to improve how they perform their work.  Through thoughtful review of current approaches (what works well and what needs to be improved) and looking for opportunities that come during difficult times, adversity provides the time to devise the most creative strategies.  What a positive perspective!

Another colleague told us that the most important thing to do is focus on what you do well and capitalize on it.  Identify your core sales channel and devote all your effort to building your business there.  Identify potential customers who are within that channel and shake the perverbial tree until you achieve success.  While this strategy is a bit more scarey, it certainly makes sense, since what you do well is generally something that you know very well, probably can be done pretty cost effectively, since you do it so often, and something that you can do without adding additional resources in most cases.

The third strategy I think is important is to get rid of the customers who require a lot of support and care, but who provide you with little revenue.  If they aren’t profitable, then you are better off without them.  Focus the resources you just freed up to work on expanding your business with the customers or potential customers you know are profitable and who see you as a partner, not a vendor.   If it costs you money every year to negotiate contracts with the client, and you are continually reducing pricing and providing more service for less revenue, you might want to take a close look at that customer to see if they really provide you with a return on investment. 

The last strategy I think is important is to continually expand the relationships you have within your customer base to be sure that you have multiple points of contact within the organization in case the customer’s business changes quickly.  If you only know one or two people and these people are at a fairly low level or at the extreme, at the top of the organization, when times are difficult, you know who goes first.  Make it a practice to know people at all levels of the organization so that when change comes, the new broom doesn’t sweep you out the door.

While none of these ideas are particularly innovative, except perhaps the one from our friend in Japan, adversity is the mother of invention.  I am taking time to think of ways to apply these ideas to make some lemonade.

Handling Problem Workers

My sister was an executive vice president in banking.  She decided to retire when she saw the sub-prime market starting to go crazy and realized that the way she believed a book of mortgages should be developed and managed differed substantially from others in the industry.  Too bad she didn’t stick it out.   While my sister is a very strong person and does have a strong sense of justice, I doubt that she would have been able to overcome her high level of correctness to shame the industry into taking the higher road.   Nonetheless, she was a very effective leader in her own right and we often discussed how she was managing some of the issues she faced in overseeing her team.

One problem she faced was having to manage a large number of hourly workers.  These people were handling a lot of transactions each day, were responsible for entering complex data accurately, and had to answer a lot of inquiries to move transactions through the process.  Unfortunately, they were also stressed out and had many items on their agendas, some typical to a traditional hourly workforce.  The vast majority of her team members were women who were single heads of households trying to make ends meet while juggling children, elderly parents or other problems that faced them.  For many, work provided the only stable environment in their lives. 

She learned early on that the best thing she could do for the team was to establish a fair set of rules and guidelines for work and to ensure that these were followed consistently for everyone on the team.   Within her team, she had a number of supervisory staff, many of whom had worked their way up to their positions through their own hard work and through promotion.   In her mind, it wasn’t the hourly staff who caused the majority of the issues, but rather the way in which some of the supervisors handled the problems.

Favoritism, giving a break once and having the break expected every time, not having the courage to take action when a problem first began, and ignoring some issues all were actions that caused workers to become problems.  I certainly am not saying that the majority of issues arose from the supervisory staff, but had the supervisors followed the rules consistently and applied them fairly, many of the people who became problem employees would have been reformed or gone before becoming problem employees.

People become very resentful of problem employees, even though as a leader, you probably aren’t hearing much from anybody.  The impact of the problem employee is often far-reaching.  Other team members end up taking messages and answering phones, picking up the slack for their troubled worker partner, and generally feeling as if they are being used by the organization.  And the impacted team members are unlikely to speak up, since that might make them appear as if they are complaining.

Once the problem worker is gone, however, there is often a sigh of relief.  the hidden impact of problem workers can be significant.  Since it is a new year, it might be a good time to discuss how supervisors are handling people with problems.  Your remaining team members will be greatful.

Establishing Validity of Selection Criteria

We build structured hiring processes for our corporate clients.  Some of the processes we see, prior to the revision, are long-drawn out systems of multiple steps and the collection of data that one would be hard pressed to review, much less show that the step was job related.  The issue of valid selection criteria is emerging as a area of interest to employment lawyers.  Today, you need to be able to show the validity and business necessity of any selection criteria you use.  You must be able to document that the standards you use for selection are in fact essential to the job and/or predictive of success on the job, while not causing disparate impact on protected classes.  You must be able to show through statistical analysis of your workforce data that the selection criteria is in fact related to factors demonstrated by your own workforce at particular established levels.

Criteria Validation:  There is a lot of new information out there to be concerned with in devising your selection criteria.  If you can answer these questions with a “yes” you are probably on the right track:

1. Did you do Job Analysis on the job with several individuals (high, medium and low performers) to determine the essential functions of the position, the context and working conditions of the job, the technical skills or knowledge needed to do the job, the ADA standards required of workers?
2. Do you have a compliant job description which is up-to-date and incorporates essential functions of the job based on the information you gathered in Job Analysis?
3. When you established your job posting for the position, did you ensure that you are using criteria that is evident in the current work force? 
4. Do you have multiple steps in the process that produce job-related information on the candidate upon which you base your decision?
5. Do you rely too heavily on a single phase of the process for making your final decision?
6. Do you handle each applicant the same way and does every qualified candidate go through every step?
7. Is your selection process free from steps that cause disparate impact within protected groups?
8. Do you know whether your selection criteria is valid?  And by this, I don’t mean that you pulled a focus group together to look at the new criteria and everyone agreed it was fine.

Establishing Valid Selection Criteria:  In these times, employers need to be particularly careful in managing the selection process because people are so desparate for work and many candidates are willing to assume significant risk in challenging an employment decision which negatively impacts them.

Here is a recent posting on the Department of Labor website regarding the Uniform Guidelines for Selection:

The degree of relationship between selection procedure scores and criterion measures should be examined and computed, using professionally acceptable statistical procedures. Generally, a selection procedure is considered related to the criterion, for the purposes of these guidelines, when the relationship between performance on the procedure and performance on the criterion measure is statistically significant at the 0.05 level of significance, which means that it is sufficiently high as to have a probability of no more than one (1) in twenty (20) to have occurred by chance. Absence of a statistically significant relationship between a selection procedure and job performance should not necessarily discourage other investigations of the validity of that selection procedure.

While you might wonder how you are going to accomplish this, it might not be as difficult as you think.  What this particular guideline is requiring is that you can show the relationship between the criteria or steps you use in the selection process and actual performance of the job.  For example, if you do an analysis of your workforce and find that only 15% of the workforce has a 4-year degree and you are requiring the degree in your job posting or in the job description, you have a problem.  However, if you say that a degree is desirable and will accept relevant work experience instead (providing this is true of your analysis of the existing workforce), your criteria should pass.

If you say you require a particular level of math skills, such as would be demonstrated through the administration and scoring of a test of basic math, but the job does not require the use of basic math, here again, you have a problem. 

Begin by asking what particular skills are required in the job.  Does the person need to write memos?  You can find out by doing some job analysis with people in the job in your own company.  If you find that this is an essential part of the job, then you might assess writing skills.  But be sure that the content of the test is job specific and that the scores you use for establishing the pass rate are statistically significant at the .05 level with the scores demonstrated by existing  people in the job.   Unless you are up on statistics and test construction, I wouldn’t advise that you attempt this yourself.  There are plenty of good consulting firms you can hire at a reasonble cost to do the work for you.

Personality Tests:  How about behavioral measures, such as personality skills assessments?  Again, avoid any measures that incorporate non-job related content.  If you can show the relationship through statistical analysis between the results of the assessment and its ability to predict success on the job at the required level, then you are on a far better footing than if you simply use the test provider’s documentation of validity.

Many test providers give you an extensive validity report that shows that there is no disparate impact caused by the instrument or that the instrument is valid and reliable in measuring what it purports to measure.  The problem is that the OFCCP or the EEO won’t allow you to rely solely on the documentation for the instrument, unless you do the diligence of validating your selection standards within in your own workplace.  And of course, if there are holes in the test documentation, they will use that in making their case against your invalid selection criteria.

There are a few exceptions to this on-site study guideline, such as you have too few people in a role to do a study, performing a study is virtually impossible since everyone with the job does considerably different work, the role might be new to your organization, AND  the job you have is similar to one in which the validation study work was originally completed.  However, you still will have the obligation to monitor the impact of the assessment regularly, to show you did some Job Analysis after a period of time to understand the work context, and that you have a good and up-to-date job description.   If you are a good sized organization (over 50, although many regulations are applied at the 15 or above level), you need to look into the establishment of valid selection criteria and show how the criteria is statistically related to workers or the work actually being performed.

Tomorrow, I will discuss validation of interview questions, so tune back in.

If you would like additional information on validating selection criteria, visit the Department of Labor at either the www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/factemployment_procedures.html  or www.ofccp.gov/policy/docs and you will find some very useful documents there to enable you to understand the issues more fully.

Look for our upcoming Webinar on Establishing the Validity of Selection Criteria.  The sign-up sheet will be posted on our blog.

Establishing Validity of Selection Criteria – Part II

When it comes to assessing the validity of behavioral event interview questions, we need to understand what we are attempting to do.  Some people loosely use the term “validity” to mean “we had the questions reviewed by our legal counsel, or senior management, or our consultant, to determine whether they met standards for selection in the Uniform Guidelines.” This approach is a first step in ensuring validity of a question, but it certainly doesn’t meet the full criteria.  In this context, however, there are a few points to check as you begin to assess validity of your questions:

1. Does the question ask the candidate about JOB or ROLE SPECIFIC information?  If the question isn’t about the job or about a factor that you can show through correlative studies is related to success on the job, you should probably avoid its use.
2. Is the behavior, skill or experience related to the successful performance of the job?  If you ask candidates about the most innovative idea they ever created at work and the job you are hiring for does not require creativity, your question could be challenged.  Same thing goes for asking candidates to complete a test of spelling when spelling or writing is not required in the job.
3. Does the question gather information about the personal background, marital or child status, preferences or sexual orientation of the individual?  If so, better not ask that one either.
4. Does the question ask about hobbies, church groups, sports activities, or other free time activities?  If there is no relationship between the job and these categories, then this is a question to avoid as well.

This list could surely be increased, but the rule of thumb for your first screen of questions is to ensure that they are job related and that they focus on the skills, knowledge and experiences that you know are linked with success in the job.

Next, one way to establish validity would be to ask existing people in the job in your company to answer the questions within your interview as if they were being interviewed.  Note their responses.  How did best performers answer the questions?  How did average and below average performers answer the questions?  You may wish to use key word analysis to group the responses and find out if these two groups answer the question in the same way or differently.  If the whole group tends to answer the question the same way, you need to decide whether the information you are asking for is basic information you have to have of the candidate or if the question in fact is really worth asking. 

Over time, you can track how various candidates answered your questions and which questions seemed to be able to identify better potential candidates.  It is a good idea to show how you did your analysis and to keep the documentation you used to draw your conclusions.  Of course if you can show some statistical correlation between the resonses of your candidates, using key word analysis, and the relation to actual performance, then you are on your way to establishing some real validity in your questioning guides.

If you don’t have the time, wherewith-all, or interest in exploring this area, you can always call ECI.  We enjoy the challenge of identifying differentiating items within the selection process and tracking validity of selection systems.  Happy hiring!

Changing World of Competency Models

We’ve been preparing competency models for our clients for over 17 years.  As you recall, we define competency as skills, knowledge and abilities applied for a specific outcome.  Only when we understand what the real outcomes of performance are can we build complete models that really help people perform their best. 

Lately, we have been asked to align our competency models to various web based systems, generally covering 2 to 3 different levels of jobs within the same family.  Often these models will be used in combination with a more global statement of competency that is based on the company’s value or vision statement.  I am still unsure whether this is a good approach or not.  But of course, we do as our customers ask and endeavor to establish clear expectations for performance within the broader context of a group of jobs.

Most of these broader models use a common group of dimensions and define those dimenions using various levels, such as Learning, Applying, Leading and Expert.  The object here is to define the skill, knowledge of ability in behavioral terms and to discriminate between the 4 levels using appropriate examples.  Here is one I am working on today:

Financial Acumen:

• Learning – Understands and can accurately interpret financial statements, such as income and expense, balance sheets, profit and loss, accounts payable and receivable, to assess the state of business.
• Applying – Uses financial statements to identify trends and to allocate resources to maximize profitabilty and enhance growth.
• Leading – Can fluently discuss financial results, based on the analysis of reports and tools, in order to identify opportunities for increased profitability and evaluate performance of the business.
• Expert – Serves as a source of reference in the use and interpretation of financial data and analysis for others. Uses financial tools to develop and manage a profitable business, which maximizes the return on investment of resources.

As you can see, there are differences between the levels and the primary advantage of such a model is that when the organization restructures, we don’t have to redo all themodels.  We simply edit the content, then create a new job map to establish the standards for each new role.  The job map shows what level of competency a particular job will use for each of the dimensions. 

While this model does not include as much content as I am used to writing for a model, I will say that it challenges you to make sure that you write succintly and that you cover the key points.  The thing the writer must avoid, however, is the inclusion of examples. While users like those, they can cause a model to get out of date very quickly.  Examples might be better handled elsewhere, such as in performance rating guidelines or behaviorally anchored rating scales.

I suppose as we do some more analysis of the data to see what the actual correlation of demonstrating competency versus performance results, we will be able to see if the old way works better, or whether there really is no difference using this approach.  I’ll keep you posted.

Advice for Job Seekers

Tough times out there for job hunters and I am more than sympathetic.  Ted told me yesterday that the economy is really driven on consumer purchasing.  When people are not afraid, they spend, whether they have the money or not.   This is because they believe that tomorrow will be a better day.  Today, most people are wondering about that one and many are worried that things will be so different that they won’t be able to survive.

As a caveat, I personally believe that the US government should allow people to collect a paycheck in a job and augment that with partial unemployment payments to yield a higher, livable wage, to encourage people to get working again.  Most of the entrepreneurs in the job market have taken a couple of part-time or full time minimum wage jobs to yield the same results.  To my mind, I would rather see 2 people working, rather than one person trying to make ends meet by working a 16-hour day.

Further, it is not a good practice to have someone say “I make more on unemployment than I would if I worked,” and thereby cut out the incentive to find a job.  All this does is encourage long-term collection of unemployment benefits and fails to get money into people’s hands so that they can start spending again.  Remember Ted’s perspective on the consumer spending economy?

Let’s talk about how to position yourself to find a meaningful job, hopefully better than 2 part-time or full-time filler jobs.  Even if you are applying for an hourly position, you should put your resume together.  This is a handy document to reference if you are required to fill out an application, since all the information is right there on a sheet of paper.  Also, it makes a great impression on your potential employer when you bring along your resume. 

So, to put your best foot forward, take some time to visit MS Office on the web and download a resume template that suits your style.  Accurately fill in the blanks with your education, background, prior work experience and job objectives.  DO NOT go over 2 pages in explaining what you have done on your resume. 

Also, I recommend that you include only the last 10 years of experience and work information by employer.  If your experience is older than 10 years, you probably are not prepared to qualify for your old job today.  If you want to include this information, under your last employer bullet on the resume, put a general statement, such as this one for an engineer  “prior employment – experience in leading an engineering team in process improvement, experience managing rolling process team in a manufacturing environment, experience in retail sales.”

1. Proof read and spell check your resume.  Use clean paper and do not have any white-outs or erasures.  Do not prepare your resume as you eat your lunch and spill food on it.  All of these things get your resume pushed to the bottom of the circular file.
2. Your resume is your first impression to your future employer.  In the job objective section, tell why you think you would be a good prospect for the employer.  What are the contributions you will bring to the employer? A couple good sentences are all you need.  It’s not about you…it’s about them… 
3. In searching for companies to submit your nice new resume to, identify key words that appear in their description of the job, particularly as it relates to qualifications.  Be sure to incorporate those key words within your resume, since most companies use key word searches to pick out resumes from the thousands they receive.
4. Search for jobs that you qualify for.  This doesn’t mean you have to get a job like the one you used to have at all.  It just means that you need to be able to qualify for the position, based on your past experiences and educational background.  If the job posting says 4-year degree required and you don’t have a 4-year degree, submitting your resume will most likely get you screened out immediately.  Apply for the jobs in which the background and requirements match your qualifications.  With all the new legislation surrounding the internet tracking of candidates, companies today shouldn’t be considering candidates who do not meet their posted job requirements.
5. Be open minded.  The world is changing and things aren’t like they used to be. Unless you are engaged in a job where there are plenty of openings, think outside the box by going to various job search sites and putting in critical skills you have and searching that way, rather than by job title.  Then read all about these available jobs and apply for those that interest you.
6. Attend training or skills improvement classes.  By showing that you are actively preparing for a new role, your employer will see that you have the initiative they just might value in a new employee.

Next time, let’s talk about the interview process.  I’ll share some good advice on how to present yourself to make a good, positive and memorable impression on your potential employer.

Acing the Interview

Yesterday I discussed some ideas for getting yourself noticed within the job search process.  Hopefully, your approach to job hunting has been expanded a bit so that you are looking at some opportunities you might not have thought about before.  Getting a new job is a job in itself.  Be sure to devote six to eight hours a day toward this activity.  Realistically, this is the only way you will be successful in any reasonable amount of time.  A lot of folks I talk to feel that if they send out 50 resumes a week and look on line a couple days, then that will be sufficient to get them hired.  I don’t believe that will do it these days.  You need to be aggressive in your search and make this your mission, the goal being a new job that suits your skills and abilities and enables you to collect a reasonable paycheck.

For the purposes of your job search, you might also wish to set up a new email account.  They are free, you know, so go to Yahoo, Hot Mail or G Mail and get yourself an account with your actual name in it.  Potential employers may not think you are serious about your job search if you are using something like Rotobunny@yahoo.com.

Remember that the earlier you respond to an ad, the more likely someone will note your interest and information.  While it is not a good practice, those of us who do hiring are trying to fill the position as soon as we can with a qualified person so that we can keep the workforce fully staffed and take the stress off the rest of the remaining people who are probably already overworked.  Also, as a second strategy, look at jobs that have been posted for more than 30 days.  This means that the company is struggling to find someone and they may be more likely to consider you, should you have a little less than enough experience, providing you have most of the basic qualifications.

Let’s say you finally get a call for an interview.  If this is a phone interview, I strongly suggest that you set some time aside for yourself to complete the interview and find a land-line phone or an area where your cell phone is very responsive.  Trying to do an interview while your children are trying to get your attention, you are driving your car and the signal is not consistent, the CD player, television or someone’s games are roaring in the background, tells your potential employer that you probably aren’t really interested in the job.  This is a sure way to shorten your interview time.  If a potential employer calls you and wishes to do the interview immediately and you find yourself in the environment described above, tell the person you would be happy to do the interview with them and ask for an appropriate time in the next day or so.  If the person is insistent, then you probably don’t want to work there anyway.

During your interview, whether this is by phone or in person, here are a couple of things to remember:

• Answer questions honestly.  If you lie, and the employer finds out, you will probably lose the job immediately.  This is true for your work history, your background, what you have done in prior roles, whether you were a manager or not, and your high school or college degree.  People are checking references these days and will uncover your dishonesty.
• Be positive in your tone and attitude.  Nobody wants to hire someone else’s problems.  Employers really don’t want to hear about your jerky boss, how you hated your last job and why, the people you worked with, the lowsy pay, etc.  Think about the good things you learned, even if this is a tough lesson, and put a positive spin on your experiences. 
• Keep your answers clear and complete.  Don’t ramble on and on.  I know you are probably nervous, but just listen and answer the question.  Some recruiting firms tell you to prepare your pat answers and to apply them if they are even remotely linked to the question.  Those of us who interview see this tactic as an attempt by an unqualified applicant to get our attention.  If you don’t have the actual experience you are asked about, admit this and try to think of a related experience that would be similar and describe this.
• Don’t step across the line of professionism and tell jokes, share intimate information, talk about your family, make outrageous comments, discuss the country clubs you belong to, or organizations you belong to (unless this is a public service organization where you gained some of your leadership skills), or try to be too friendly.   Cordial and open is good.  You also won’t get the job by pretending to know someone you don’t know.  I will call that person to ask them what they think of you.
• Be prepared for your interview. Have your dates of employment ready, your manager’s name and contact information and other key data, so that if the interviewer asks you for this, you can share it right away.  The fact that you are prepared goes a long way in the interview.

If your interview is in person,  here are some other things to think about.  Please be sure to show up on time.  Do not bring your children or friends.  With security the way it is today, most employers will have nowhere to put these folks while you are having your interview and will not appreciate that you need assistance in handling your personal life responsibilities.  Sorry, but that is how it is.  Join a job-search networking group to find someone who can share babysitting with you so that you can go to your interviews unaccompanied.

Dress for success.  I know this probably seems dumb to some of you Gen Xers and Yers, but the reality is that people make impressions about you in the first 40 seconds of the interaction.  If you show up in ripped jeans, chomping on bubble gum (and blowing bubbles), green hair, piercings all the way down your ears or wherever, needing a shave, dirty and smelling of alchol or smoke, we are probably not going to give you much credence. 

Now, before you share your outrage, let’s establish the guidelines.  You don’t need fancy clothes, but you do need to be clean and conservatively dressed.  If you need a wardrobe fix, consignment and second hand shops are a big help.  You can generally find something to wear there for your interviews for under $10.  And, if you share your story with the staff at the thrift shop, they will probably help you out for free.  You probably only need 1 outfit for now. Go home with your outfit and wash or home dry-clean it, press it, and wear it.

If your hands sweat, as many people’s do, put antipersperant on them before your interview.  This will help a lot and give you the confidence you need.  Have a tissue with you just in case you sneeze or spill something.  Most interviewers will offer coffee or water.  If you aren’t the nervous type, go ahead and accept the offer.  If you are the nervous type and you think you might spill it or be distracted by the drink, forego the experience and thank the offerer.

Do not ask what the pay rate is for the job at this point.  If you get this far in the interview process, most employers are prepared to offer the going rate for the position.  You can find out what people are being paid in similar jobs by visiting Salary.com and entering in the information there for free.  Remember that smaller employers will pay less than larger corporations generally.  Negotiate salary when you are offered the job.

At the end of your interview, be sure to thank the interviewer and express your interest or lack of interest in the position.  After you go home, send a short note or email thanking the person and re-expressing your interest in the job.  This step, while you may find it annoying, shows that you are a professional and that you really would like to be hired.  It will also help you to be elevated in the pecking order of the pack of applicants, since these days, people are generally pretty rude and demanding.

I hope these ideas will help you in your job search and good luck!  Next time, I will talk about what the hiring process looks like from the employers point of view so that you can understand why it takes so long to hear back at times.

Please give us your feedback!

The Power of the Positive Perspective

I have been reading too much negative press lately about everything. While I don’t believe in putting my head in the sand about the issues, I still think that hope is one of the most powerful behaviors we can demonstrate. Whether it is the stock market, the job outlook, the business environment or financial needs, by remaining positive you have a far better chance of weathering the storm and coming out on the other side with your personal well-being intact. I think people need to start looking at the bright side of matters and be a bit more positive about the world in general.

Look at it this way, Walmart is up in retail sales. Hyundai is holding its own in car sales, the stock market I believe is almost finished with its slump. My guess is 6500 is the bottom, but this is simply based on my own feelings about things and no insider knowledge. Selectively, there may be some really good buys out there for someone who has a bit of time to watch things recover.

I just returned from a trip to Egypt. It was a wonderful experience, both to be glad that I got to go there (I can cross seeing the pyramids off my bucket list now), and also having the opportunity to see another part of the world which is so very different from our own. Here’s what I learned:

1. Whenever you travel, take along a kid.  When you see the world thru a child’s eyes, you see so much more than you would if you looked through your own eyes.  My granddaughter thought the pyramids were really neat!  She shared so many things she noticed that I never would have seen.  And what good questions she asks!
2. Don’t forget to ride the camels.  We all had a lot of wonderment about how this would be and I can tell you, it was probably the best part of our trip.  You can ride camels in the Canary Islands, in Egypt and in Australia.  If you get the chance, go for it.
3. Now I know why we need to get rid of plastic in the environment.  In Egypt, the waterways are literally clogged with non-biodegradable bottles and packaging.  It is such a problem there that it creates dams in the canals and water delivery systems.  I am not using plastic any more.  Now that’s a positive thing!
4. In some areas, it is good to have security along.  Because we really don’t know much about other world cultures, you need to pay attention and be cautious without being fearful.  If you take planned excursions, rather than trying to save $10 by doing the trip yourself, you probably will be glad you did.  This was true for us at the pyramids in Egypt.
5. Be a traveller, not a tourist. I learned this one from the excursion director on our NCL ship.  A traveller doesn’t judge, but rather observes and accepts the differences between what we have at home and what we find in other countries.  We have nothing as old as what we saw on our trip in Rome, Athens or Egypt. 
6. It is a really good time to travel, since most people are not.  The volume is down and so are the prices.  Take a look at Vacationstogo.com to see how inexpensively you can go places you have always wanted to visit.

Not a very business-like column today, but nonetheless, the main message is to stay positive and look for the bright side in your life.  If you do, you will be a lot happier, even though some things might not be going your way just now.

Is the Downturn Opportunity for Businesses?

Let’s add another positive point for the opportunities that arise when the economy is in a downturn.  For those of you company owners/managers who have job openings, and this will happen as a result of normal turnover, people moving around to position themselves more favorably in a new role, and for a variety of other reasons, the downturn in the economy can be a real opportunity to enhance the quality of your staff.

I recently read that the “real” number for unemployment is somewhere around 12.5% ,if you include all the people who have given up on finding a job, those who don’t enroll to collect unemployment, and those whose unemployment has run out, or those who work part-time and who cannot apply for unemployment.  As an employer, there really are some very good people out there looking for work.  This is a time when a good selection process can really help you find someone who will in fact do well for you for the long-term.  You have the time to look into the background of the candidate, you have the time to conduct several interviews, because you aren’t worried that someone else may snatch the candidate up, and you have time to have several people interview the candidate.  By taking your time, you can spread your net far enough to attract people who might not have looked at your open position a year ago because your company was too big, too small, too far away, or didn’t really fit their bill of expectations at that moment.  These days, people will often consider most any job if it means it is a viable position where the pay is steady and the expectation is that the job will last for awhile.

Follow the best practices of hiring when advertising your open position.  Use a job search engine, such as CareerBuilder, Monster or for hourly positions, Snag-A-Job.  Most services cost around $250 for 90 days, but given that a newspaper ad will cost you about the same, this is a better way to get a lot of interest in the job. 

Second, be sure to describe the job and the background you will be requiring of each qualified candidate.   Do they need prior experience? A degree, knowledge or certifications?  Be sure to describe what the environment is like as well.  Add your logo and your website so that people can visit and find out more about your company.

Third, review every applicant you receive and call each person whose information meets your requirements.  Schedule your interviews and talk with each candidate.  It is a good idea to have more than one person interview your candidates.  Then, compare impressions to select the best person.

Today, you will find that there are many people who are over-qualified for the job applying for the position.  Be up front with your applicants and let them know what the going rate is for the work.  If the candidate believes they should be paid more, it is your decision to negotiate higher, but I advise against that.  In my mind, you should be able to find someone who will be willing to do the job at the fair rate.  While this perspective might sound a bit harsh to some folks, there are a lot of very able people out there who will be willing to take the job and be paid fairly to do the work required.  For employers, you just need to find them and offer them the chance!

Identifying the Metrics Related to Success

We are working on several projects right now to help clients identify which metrics  relate directly to success, which factors can predict whether an individual might have problems on-boarding successfully, and whether the demonstration of the factors described within competency models in fact are statistically related to higher performance.  All of this work we find very interesting, since it offers the opportunity to prove that it is possible to measure the relationship between key performance outcomes and particular behaviors, while in other cases, we think there are relationships, but in fact there are not.

In one situation, we found that actual merit payouts are not curvilinearally reflective of performance.  Kind of disturbing, I would say, but understandable when you dig further to find that the  actual payouts are sometimes modified to take into account other factors, such as unique accomplishments, changes in job titles or other rewards perhaps not directly related to higher sales numbers, for example.   The problem I see with this finding is that if we don’t find the linkage to stated performance outcomes, don’t you think that actual performers who are paid under these systems could question the accuracy of their reward?

In the study mentioned above, we also found that there were direct relationships between particular behavioral traits and the tendency to demonstrate high performance.  This information is particularly useful in the selection process when you have a tool, such as the ECI Behavioral Insight, incorporated to help assess a candidate’s potential to demonstrate the trait.

In another study, we found a statistically significant correlation of .05 or better between higher ratings in competency performance dimensions and actual performance.  This means that a well-crafted competency performance system can be used to coach and evaluate performance and that enhancing ratings of competency do increase performance.  Many sales intensive companies have for years paid strictly on the dollars produced and have held their competency ratings on the side as “nice to know abouts”.  This study shows that by developing key competencies, you will increase productivity in sales numbers.

Using metrics to assess performance factors and to identify the factors that emerge in high performers is of critical importance today when all businesses have to do more with less.  The less people you have, the better they had better be able to perform.  And the better your performance metrics need to be in order to reinforce the real behaviors that deliver results.

It is important to note that I am not talking about reach and frequency models of sales management.  I am talking about the demonstration of critical behaviors and their relationship to producing more results.  This is the most important reason competency systems should be instituted…to enable companies to establish the behavioral expectations for performance and to ensure that these expectations will in fact deliver better results.

Prudent Risk Taking and Other Such Terms

Consultants usually have their own jargon that they consistently use to describe various behaviors their clients demonstrate.  Over the years, ECI has devised or adopted several of these terms.  The interesting thing to me is that as we work with clients for the long term, many of them begin to speak in the same terminology.

Here are some of the terms that we have used and that clients have adopted for their internal use.

• Prudent risk taking – this means that people are able to make decisions on the basis of limited information and that they will rely on their intuition or their gut reaction to choose a course of action
• Act with urgency – this means that when opportunities arise, individuals with rise quickly to take advantage of the situation, particularly when their is an obvious gain at stake
• Strong resiliency – this means that people are able to bounce back quickly when things go wrong.  They are able to move forward in the face of setbacks or challenges.
• High energy – this means people have the gas in their personal tanks to drive action consistently throughout the day
• Low urgency – this means that people have less drive than may be needed to achieve success in an organization

So where did these terms come from?  Most are adaptations from the scales within our assessment tool, the ECI Behavioral Insight.  Interestingly enough, as clients begin to utilize metrics, they begin to think in those terms.  Such tools provide an objective benchmark system against which to compare various individuals or groups of individuals within an organization. They become descriptors of the culture and enable team members to understand what good behavior looks like.

In a way, I suppose, this is a compliment to us and our work.  To me, it is a way to know that we have made a positive impact on an organization and perhaps helped people to understand what the cultural expectations are.

Why WOULDN’T You Use a Personality Assessment?

 

Applicants are trained to make good impressions in an interview.  Go to any retail bookstore and you’ll find an entire section of resources dedicated to helping job seekers “sell themselves” to potential employers.  Go to any college and you’ll find courses on how to effectively “ace” an interview.

 

Good performance in an interview setting (including a well written resume) does not always translate to long-term success.  In fact, studies have shown that standard interview techniques are about as effective as flipping a coin.  Additionally, the American Psychological Association states “67% of all job applicants’ resumes contain misrepresentations.”

 

That is why so many world class organizations have turned to the use of personality assessments to gain an objective perspective of their applicants’ true potential for the job.  When used correctly, personality assessments can substantially increase the effectiveness of any interview process. 

 

Just like anything else, however, there are good assessments and there are bad assessments.  The trick is to make sure that you find a valid tool that will meet your company’s needs.

 

Quick tips to finding and using the right personality assessment:

 

• Have a clear purpose - Understand what you are trying to achieve through the use of a personality assessment.  For instance, are you looking to reduce tunrover?  Increase new hire productivity?  Find the right “fit” to your culture?  Know in advance.

• Make sure the assessment is valid - Any reputable assessment provider will provide you with a copy of the assessment’s validation study (technical report).  Ask the provider how their tool complies with EEO and OFCCP fair hiring standards.

• Understand your specific requirements - If you are looking to use an assessment to hire outside sales people you probably shouldn’t be looking for a 2-hour, “pen and paper” assessment.  You’d be better off using a 25-minute, online assessment that self-scores!      

• Make sure the assessment measures job-specific criteria - Good assessments can be customized to any position/role within your company through a study of existing staff members.  Remember, always target the system. 

• Beware of pass/fail tests - Personality assessments should be used as a tool in a multi-staged interview process.  A good rule of thumb is to use the information yielded by an assessment for no more than 20% of your hiring decision.   

• Assessment support - How do you need to be supported by the assessment provider?  Do you want telephone feedback support?  Are you looking to be trained?  The best assessments will actually provide you with interview questions to use based on the results. 

• Track results - Using an assessment tool shouldn’t be a “nice to have,” it should produce measurable results for your organization.  Identify key metrics upfront and track the efficacy of the system on an annual basis.

As one of our Fortune 500 client’s recently said, “its not why would you use a personality assessment in your selection process, its why wouldn’t you?”

 

Developing Predictive Selection Criteria

At ECI, we have been devising selection criteria for many years to identify people who will be top performing sales people.  The trick to identifying predictive, reliable criteria is to make sure you have a good linear relationship between the results that top performers deliver and the results that bottom performers deliver.   Top performers deliver better results and bottom performers deliver poorer results, so we pay the good guys lots more than the guys who are less successful.  Sounds logical?  Well, for many companies, it isn’t so simple any more.

In an effort to devise a compensation or rating plan that keeps everyone happy and generates a proper reward for good work, companies often create quite complex formulae to use in tracking the sales rep’s performance to determine final pay outs in compensation.  The most complicated of these will allow for several different factors to figure into the final payout, such as the product mix or territory potential multipliers, along with some complicated additives to offset how the overall corporation performed.  In the better of these, at least there is an equalizing factor that can be reviewed and used that really is linear in demonstrating the comparison of top and bottom performers.

So why not just use the top performing group?  This is a question people ask us all the time.  The reason you can’t just look at the top is that you won’t be able to tell which of the common factors are true of the total population and which are predictive of success for only the top group. Without a better comparative, you are in effect guessing.

One would think that if you work for Company A and are the best sales rep , you will probably take home the biggest check.  But these days, if you work for Company A and are the best performer and live in Podunkia, South Dakota, you might earn 80% of the highest pay rate, because it costs a lot less to live there than it does in San Diego, California.   All of this is part of the complexity that plays into doing a statistical analysis of data in order to identify predictive selection criteria.

So simple is always better.  Sales rank works, providing it is not complicated by combining the results for multiple products, which it often does.  In these cases, we have to take a look at results for each product, then divide the groups by quartiles, then by product to identify commonalities of the highest group v. the lower groups.   What we are really concerned about is not the difference between performer #1 and performer #6, but rather identifying the factors that differentiate performers #1-150 from performers #1207-2509.

By getting the criteria straight first, the resulting models have a much better opportunity to be predictive.   At ECI it is about putting science behind behavioral factors.  Sometimes that endeavor is a bit more complicated than it should be these days.