This free, fun survey is designed for dog and cats.  It was created by the principals of our talent assessment partner, Target Training International.

To take the survey and receive a report on your pet, go to Pets Talk Back, select GET STARTED and complete the five minute questionnaire. You will receive a link to your four page report that includes communication tips and general statements about your pet’s preferences.

Since I’ve worked with TTI for years, I trust them to keep my email address private.

ENJOY!

In a seminar session led by Alan Kaplan of Masuda Funai, Alan asked for a show of hands for how many used LinkedIn to vet candidates. To my surprise, less than half the audience raised their hands. Then I learned why.

Alan advised the audience NOT to view the LinkedIn profiles of candidates if you seek to minimize the risk of potential litigation for discriminatory hiring practices. He cited an example where a candidate’s LinkedIn profile listed affiliations with either ethnic or religious orientated LinkedIn Groups.

See No Potential Evil

He noted that a candidate who applies and feels he or she was denied employment on the basis of their ethnic or religious association could have grounds for filing suit.  So to play it safe, they recommend that not viewing candidate profiles.

An Alternative

What CAN be done is to use an outside recruiter to find candidates and instruct the recruiter not to share information that would be legally inappropriate.

Or, Take Your Chances

It is not illegal to view the LinkedIn profile of a candidate.  Just understand that, when you do, you increase the risk of legal action. So I’m simply sharing a qualified legal opinion that recommends against the practice.  You need weigh the risks as with any business decision.  And I suspect the folks at LinkedIn might be concerned about all of this as it was founded first and foremost as a recruiting tool.

1. Competition for customers
2. Competition for the talent needed to attract, serve and maintain those customers.

Some attrition is natural in both arenas. Significant defection in either area will adversely affect the other. Because this is a briefing, let’s examine one element of defection: employees who voluntarily leave and why.

The July issue of Workplace Solutions Magazine published a list of the top reasons people leave their jobs. (Note: these are listed in no particular order)

What Are You Hearing?

Of these five reasons, which one do you hear most frequently? I am willing to wager that it is the last one on the list, “More money.” Why? The authors of the book Play To Your Strengths provide some insight about a potential flaw in the exit interviewing process they call the Say-Do Trap. Just as political pollsters face challenges with the accuracy of their responses, the same is true for exit interviewers. What employees say is not always what drives their behavior. Exiting employees who prefer not to burn bridges may be saying that they have found a position for more money. But that answer often masks the real issue. Compensation is a socially acceptable reason to leave and it typically will not be challenged. The exiting employee can easily avoid having a potentially uncomfortable conversation about the real reasons that led them to seek a happier workplace. While their search may have coincidentally resulted in higher pay, the reality may be that they would have been content to work for less money just to escape a bad situation.

There’s Something Else About Mary

Here’s a hypothetical scenario about “Mary”. Mary tells her exit interviewer that she got “more money” elsewhere while her real reason for departure is that her manager is a condescending, incompetent idiot. Mary is one of several in her department who have recently left for that same stated reason, more money.  To address this defection problem uncovered by socially correct exit interview responses, what does management do?  They decide it’s time to raise the department pay scale. So, not only has the exit interview failed to get to the root cause of the problem, misinformed management’s remedy results in an unnecessary increase in overhead. They succeed in slowing down turnover by creating a barrier to exiting in the form of combat pay that is not easily exceeded. But what happens to productivity in this manager’s combat zone of a department?  The company now pays more for less output.  

Take it to the bank…
Whether your dealing with the departure of either your external or internal customers, it’s about more than money. There’s always something else. In either case, it’s about the overall value proposition of your offering.  In either case, examine your information gathering process to determine if your boat has sprung a leak. 

In the interest of learning more about this investment, let’s explore an often neglected, misused and underutilized tool, the job description.

Job Description Defined

A job description is detailed analysis and definition of a job; all the duties, responsibilities, and conditions required in the performance of a particular job.

OK, but why bother?

If your job descriptions are merely a list of activities, qualifications and generic responsibilities, I’m guessing that your performance reviews are a frustrating exercise for both the managers and their subordinates. Perhaps a waste of time and resources?

Every job should have a purpose: an expectation for achievements that result from that list of tasks included on most job descriptions. How effective are we at communicating them. But all to often, the goals and desired achievements are undefined. We communicate the what and how of a position with little mention of the why. If you want star performances, wouldn’t it make sense to define, in measurable terms, what star performance should look like?

Quick Quiz

Do your Job/Position Descriptions…

• exist at all?
• exist for reasons other than to satisfy compliance requirements or to justify terminations?
• play a functional role in recruiting and developing potential high achievers?
• strategic plan?provide the basis for meaningful, ongoing performance reviews?describe the role that the job plays in the pursuit of the organization’s strategic plan?provide criteria to answer the question: “What should I do first?”
• list the key measurable achievements that the person is accountable for?

How many items apply to you? The fewer that do, the more more likely you’re squandering that investment that, for most, is 36% of your sales!

In the absence of meaningful job descriptions with mutually understood accountabilities, you are more likely to have a lot of well intentioned, busy people who struggle to make decisions and don’t get much accomplished

Seeking to develop peak performers?

Improving your Job Descriptions and performance review process are a good place to start improving your return on human capital.

Another piece of The Performance Puzzle is to assure that you have the right people in the right jobs. For that, I recommend exploring a process called Job Benchmarking. By combining computer science with behavioral science, you gain unprecedented insight for promotion and hiring decisions. It reduces your risk of a bad hire and predicts areas for improvement where even successful candidates will struggle.

Having used Job Benchmarking, I would never make a key hiring or promotion decision without it.

>>> More on Job Benchmarking >>>

In recent years, I’ve been asked to expand my writing skills by authoring job postings for a variety of key positions. My recruitment writing skills have needed to evolve. I first honed them in the days when our only option was newspaper classifieds that charged by the line. With that billing structure, efficient help wanted ads communicated just enough about the job situation through abbreviations and acronyms to allow ad readers break the code. Then came internet solutions.

With internet job board board and all-you-can-write rates, the restrictions on quantity have disappeared. Still the objectives are the same: attract and qualify. How do work within the current rules work to achieve these two objectives?

Attraction: Are you conveying a job or an opportunity?

Inspired job seekers want to be part of a happening organization. And if you’re not attracting them, who’s left? It’s the less than inspired. So assuming you want to attract the former, I recommend that you open your ad with properly positioning your organization as a place they can proudly contribute. Positively describe your organization. Tell who you are now in your industry and market segments. What is your reputation? Your vision?  Describe where you’re going. The purpose of the opening is to pique the interest of talented prospects so they’ll want explore helping you get there.

Qualification: How do you thin out the herd?

With easy one-click apply features for job board applicants, comes the aforementioned herd. That stampede of unqualified responses that can bury your inbox. What’s a screener to do? I recommend that you require your applicants to do more than that single click and provide some hoops for them to jump through. Consider stating in your post that no applicants will be considered without submitting a cover letter addressing how they fit the exacting attributes and qualifications you have listed. Then stick to that rule. If your applicant isn’t willing to both follow instructions and go the extra mile now, what makes you believe they will when they’re hired? Those who don’t will disqualify themselves.

1. Can you do the job?
2. Will you love the job?
3. Can we tolerate working with you?

While these are critical categories, the interview is only one of three sources for insight for answering these questions. And the interview should account for only 1/3 of your insight on a candidate. The chart below illustrates all three sources of insight and their degree of importance.

Beyond The Interview…

Who can dispute the value of those three questions?  Surely not me. That said, what if you could go beyond the interview process and assess qualified candidates to gain detailed understanding of a candidate’s…

1. Skills and Capacities they are inclined to use when they do the job: Their “WHAT”
2. Passions and Motivators: Their “WHY”
   
3. Behavioral Style they will exhibit in doing the job: Their “HOW”

When interviewing finalists, assessment insight enables more specific interview questions around a candidate’s can, will and how.  And, with a deeper understanding of your candidates how, what and why, your decisions are significantly more informed and less biased.

Due Diligence

Interviewing should provide one third of your talent decision insight. Assessments another third. Since candidates have been known to embellish and or misrepresent their credentials, background and reference checks provide the other 33% of of the insight needed to make an informed decision.

For More…

For more on Talent Assessments and Job Benchmarking that go beyond the interview to gain insight into the how, what and why of both the job and the candidates, I invite you to:

• Browse Executive Talent Assessments
• Read If The Job Talk Could Talk
• Link to the Forbes article that inspired this post.

The benchmarking and assessment process promises to provide 33% more insight. While this is significant for making informed decisions, expecting more is over-optimistic.  Faulty decisions are usually a result of placing too much faith in the assessment and not placing equal emphasis in the other 2/3 of the needed insight.

Three Sources of Talent Decision Insight

1. The Resume and Background Check
2. The Job Interview(s)
3. Job Benchmark & Candidate Talent Assessment

Each of these three element should be weighted equally.  Any of these can be impressive to the point of seduction. Or in our eagerness to reach the finish line and put our new talent to work, we can cheat the process and overlook the importance all three components. We can be wowed by…

• The interview
• The talent assessment
• The  impressive resume credentials and/or references

Between the seductive “wow” factor and our eagerness to fill the position, we take shortcuts. These shortcuts typically prove the axiom: haste make waste.

If you’ve done the math for your actual cost of a hiring miscue, you will be more inclined to avoid potentially costly shortcuts.

Do…

• Answer honestly
• Read and follow the instructions carefully.  Haste makes waste.
• Remember that when you’re asked to complete the survey, the potential employer believes you are qualified enough to make an investment in learning more about you.
• Understand that this is an assessment and not a “test” like you would take in school where there is a passing or failing grade.

Don’t…

• Try to guess what answers are expected.  You are more likely to portray yourself as a more conflicted person than who you really are.
• Try to over-think your answers. Assuming you’ve carefully read the question, your first impression is likely the best choice
• Believe that the system can not detect if you’re attempting to beat it.  You’re likely playing roulette with your job opportunity. The odds are stacked against you.
• Attempt to complete the survey if you are especially stressed or anxious. Wait until you are in a normal or relaxed state of mind

I admit that as a talent evaluator, my desire is to the most accurate insight possible for talent decision making.  That said, I’ve found that people who try to beat the system by portraying themselves as someone else are setting themselves up for failure in several ways.

• By attempting to be all things to all people, you will likely appear to be personally conflicted and thereby hinder your attractiveness.
• The assessment results will likely used to identify your potential challenges.  If you’re somehow successful in landing the job despite skewed input, you will not benefit from the on-boarding benefits and coaching opportunities that your assessment will provide.
• You are potentially setting yourself up for job failure. Do you really want to pursue a position where you are a poor fit?

Throughout your career you will continue to learn that honesty is the best policy.  And it applies to taking talent assessment surveys as much as anywhere else.

A Career Is A Terrible Thing To Waste

Whether you attempt to skew an assessment or over embellish your resume, you may gain short term term success. But what is the long term cost when the truth surfaces. It always does, eventually.