Assessing External Job Candidates

By Stanley M. Gully and Jean M. Phillips

A practical resource, this reference for HR professionals, line-managers, hiring managers, and business leaders and consultants presents a discussion of different external assessment methods and their strengths and weaknesses. Identifying the primary goal of assessing an external candidate as finding a person who fits the job specificationsas well as screening out the people who will likely be poor performersthis handbook offers techniques for evaluating a hire’s fit with the organization, group, and supervisor and their ability to execute the company’s business strategy. Well-researched and fully documented, this manual explores how to hire employees outside of the company when internal staffing methods are not effective.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Society For Human Resource Management
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781586442958

Book preview

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information regarding the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that neither the publisher nor the author is engaged in rendering legal or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent, licensed professional should be sought. The federal and state laws discussed in this book are subject to frequent revision and interpretation by amendments or judicial revisions that may significantly affect employer or employee rights and obligations. Readers are encouraged to seek legal counsel regarding specific policies and practices in their organizations.

This book is published by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM®). The interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations in this book are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publishers.

Copyright © 2009 Phillips, Gully, and Associates. All rights reserved.

This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Society for Human Resource Management, 1800 Duke Street, Alexandria, VA 22314.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) is the world’s largest association devoted to human resource management. Representing more than 250,000 members in over 140 countries, the Society serves the needs of HR professionals and advances the interests of the HR profession. Founded in 1948, SHRM has more than 575 affiliated chapters within the United States and subsidiary offices in China and India. Visit SHRM Online at www.shrm.org.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Phillips, Jean, 1969-

Assessing external job candidates / Jean M. Phillips, Stanley M. Gully.

p. cm. — (Staffing strategically series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-58644-160-9

1. Employee selection. 2. Personnel management. 3. Employees—Recruiting. I. Gully, Stanley Morris. II. Title.

HF5549.5.S38P489 2009

658.3’112—dc22

2009036851

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

09-0474

Staffing Strategically Series

ASSESSING EXTERNAL JOB CANDIDATES

ASSESSING INTERNAL JOB CANDIDATES

THE LEGAL CONTEXT OF STAFFING

STAFFING FORECASTING AND PLANNING

STAFFING TO SUPPORT BUSINESS STRATEGY

Contents

Introduction

External Assessment Goals

External Assessment Methods

Multiple Methods

Reducing Adverse Impact

Assessment Plans

Summary

Endnotes

Index

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Additional SHRM-Published Books

Introduction

Assessing the degree to which job candidates possess the required qualifications and characteristics to perform the job well is a critical part of staffing strategically.¹ Even if a firm’s applicant pool contains some potentially great hires, if the firm’s assessment system can’t identify them, then they will not become employees. The goal of assessment is to identify the job candidates who would make good hires, and to screen out people who would make poor hires. A poor assessment system is little better than picking job applicants at random and giving them job offers. A well-designed assessment system can increase the number of good hires and reduce the number of bad hires an organization makes.

What difference does this make to organizations? For jobs in which there is a meaningful performance difference between high and low performers, identifying and hiring the best candidates can dramatically increase productivity and performance, and contribute directly to the company’s bottom line. Consider computer programmers—the performance of star programmers can be eight to 10 times greater than the performance of average programmers.² In some cases, such as sales or research and development, low performers can even cost the company money. Quality candidate assessment can also enhance the performance of an organization’s stock in the stock market. A survey by a large consulting firm found that a strong staffing function led to greater shareholder return. In particular, companies that had a clear idea of whom they wanted to hire and that judged applicants against clear criteria outperformed companies with weaker staffing functions.³

Depending on their business strategy and competitive advantage, as well as their talent philosophy and culture, different companies value different employee characteristics for similar jobs. For example, a discount retail store such as Wal-Mart that relies on low cost and high efficiency may look for efficiency-oriented candidates whom it could hire at a relatively low cost. A high-end retail store such as Tiffany’s that pursues a strategy based on high-quality customer service may prefer to hire candidates who excel at customer relations and interpersonal skills, even if a higher salary is required to hire them. The choice of which candidates to hire should be based on who is likely to experience the greatest job success and who can best meet the overall hiring goals for the position, including job success, promotability, fit with the company’s culture, the cost of the total rewards package, and so on.

Apache Corporation, an independent oil company, has outperformed its peers by cultivating a culture supporting fast decision-making and risk-taking. Because new hires are important in maintaining this culture, Apache looks for external candidates who have shown initiative in getting projects done at other companies.⁴ The core competencies telecommunications giant AT&T considers most important to success in applicants include planning, organization, interpersonal effectiveness, decision-making, and problem analysis.⁵ Yahoo! looks for really smart, passionate people who have conviction, courage, and a willingness to take some risk.⁶ And Microsoft, which can receive more than 40,000 resumes a month, is only interested in hiring top talent with the skills to fulfill the core competencies of the position being filled and who have long-term potential as well.⁷

In addition to identifying the job candidates who best fit the job, the assessment system should also evaluate candidates’ fit with the organization’s culture and business strategy. This allows a firm to identify the job candidates best able to perform the open job and best able to help the company execute its business strategy and enhance its competitive advantage. A candidate who meets a job’s technical requirements—but is also risk averse and not creative—may be a bad hire for a company pursuing an innovation strategy.

If a company wants to give employees a lot of independence and discretion, it is only by designing rigorous assessment processes that employees can later have this freedom.⁸ Employees need to be selected on the basis of their work attitudes, self-leadership, and judgment to be given latitude in how they do their work. Although companies’ primary hiring goal is usually job performance, some companies, including Silicon Graphics, subscribe to the philosophy that what people know is less important than who they are. These firms believe that the primary goal of assessment is to find people with the right mind-set, attitude, and personal attributes.

Assessment methods tend to become more complex the more critical a job is to the firm and the more complex the required competencies are. If a job is difficult to do well, then it is even more important to recruit strategically, assess job candidates carefully, and choose new hires wisely.

Different assessment methods are useful for assessing different job candidate characteristics. In this book, we first discuss the different types of goals that exist for external candidate assessment, and then describe a variety of commonly used assessment methods and their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, we discuss ways of evaluating external assessment methods.

Assessing External Job Candidates is not intended as a legal reference