Recruitment process - how does benchmarking help?

The recruitment process, more often than not results in a subjective opinion made by the hiring manager. Laura Kartus, MD of Assessments Online comments: "when applying for a job, a candidate typically will present the 'best' picture, saying what you want to hear, wearing their best attire and all in all, creating a perfect picture. This however, in not what a recruitment decision should be based upon - fortunately, subjective decisions can be a thing of the past given that we now have the technology required to determine one fundamental question - can the candidate do the job".

The Prevue Assessment does just this - By identifying the key criteria required to do a particular job, a benchmark can be created. This benchmark is based upon a number of different traits which when hiring, can be used to match potential candidates against.

Often employers are only focused on their top performers, however, developing a benchmark for their bottom performers can be just as beneficial.

Take a moment and reflect upon your workforce. What if you took a look at your existing employee base and divided them into three distinct groups:

Top Performers TOP PERFORMERS YOU WISH YOU COULD CLONE

Average Performers NOT IDEAL BUT CAN BE DEVELOPED

Under Performers THE GROUP YOU WISH YOU HADN'T HIRED

Now - ask one question in relation to this grouping: What is your objective in the recruitment process?

I expect that, like majority of employers, your answer will be - to hire somebody in the top third = your top performers. This would sound like the logical answer however, the likelihood of always finding someone that suitable is rather slim. I would argue that you should give equal time to insuring that you never again hire somebody in the bottom third.

Think about it - I expect that you, like most managers, are quite prepared to coach and develop the people in the middle group, but do not have the time or inclination to developing people who were a bad recruitment decision to begin with. Therefore, identifying the common characteristics people in this sector share, will assist you in future recruitment decisions.

The benchmarking process is identical to that of creating a top performer profile - Start by identifying who the people are who have not succeeded in this job. By assessing them, Prevue will develop a concurrent benchmark based on the key criteria you in the future, wish to avoid. In all likelihood you will identify several common themes of behaviour. Now, armed with this insight, you can add new dimensions to your decision making around applicant suitability by adding critical zones (red zones) to your Prevue benchmark.

You will now be armed with information on those variances from the benchmark that you can't live with. So - when you have less than an ideal fit (70 %) to the desired benchmark, you now make a decision based on the criteria you under circumstances are able to live with.

Prevue enables you to tweak benchmarks as positions & people change - don't be content with the first benchmark you create. Re-define the benchmark as the position changes and evolves over time. You're be amazed at how accurate your hiring process will become, eliminating guesswork thereby making accurate recruitment decisions.

Laura Kartus