5 Things to Evaluate for When You Hire
Statistics suggest that 60% of getting hired is just getting an interview with you. From that point, the field needs to narrow based upon criteria that you establish for evaluating and assessing candidates for their qualifications and suitability for your group and company.
What should you look for?
1. Skills competency. Each position has a certain number of baseline skills that qualify someone for being hired. For example, a liquor company asked me to locate someone who be involved with wood procurement. This is the professional way of describing someone whose job is buy the wood from which casks are made to age their product.
They required someone with a degree in forestry who had purchased certain types of woods before in a certain industry. They had determined that a particular set of skills and experiences would qualify someone for the job.
But as we identified 20 or so people who had comparable skills, we started to evaluaten some of the additional criteria that would help them be successful.
2. Self confidence. The job seeker with confidence and competence will help them step securely into the job and, through their very presence, create trust in others that will help smooth their transition into a job. They may not know any more than someone lacking confidence but the group or team of colleagues will believe that they have less reason to worry about the person.
3. Chemistry. How will this person fit with the team? Will they dominate? Inspire? Shrink in their presence? Do they seem like a bull in a china shop in a field of lambs (or the reverse)? Have you had them meet their future colleagues and then sought out their opinions? Have you spoken with your staff about how they would evaluate someone for the job working next to them? You, as the officer, will have a different view of what will make someone successful than a soldier will. The soldier will view the person from a tactical perspective—is this someone I’d be willing to go into battle with and trust that they’ll watch my back. Have you asked them what they would look for in a person for a job?
4. Charisma. Charisma is self-confidence cubed. It is the quality that makes someone magnetic and helps them to stand out from the pack. Bill Clinton had it. Ronald Reagan had it. Here were two men on complete opposite sides of the political spectrum. America loved them both and followed them wherever fate took them. They ay not have always agreed with their choices but they were willing to follow their lead. Is their something in the candiate’s presence that attracts you and others . . . or repels them.
5. Personal leadership. This is the question of character. Are you able to trust someone sufficiently because you believe you can rely upon them? Can you trust their judgment sufficiently because they have been tested by fire?
Everyone knows that they need to hire someone qualified by virtue of sills to do a particular job. But it’s important to consider other variables when you evaluate and assess people
Jeff Altman
Concepts in Staffing
jeffaltman@cisny.com
© 2006 all rights reserved.
Jeff Altman, Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, has successfully assisted many corporations identify leaders and staff in technology, accounting, finance, sales, marketing and other disciplines as employees or consultants since 1971. He is a certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.
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