An organization with a position to fill can simply “make a hire.” The most successful companies and human resources professionals, however, take their approach to this task to a decidedly higher level: A search for the ideal candidate becomes an opportunity to transform the organizational workforce.
Although technology, automation and outsourcing have reshaped many parts of the workforce, hiring the right individuals and especially the right leaders remains critically important to moving a business forward.
To achieve this, accurately assessing candidates is even more crucial than growing the size of the candidate pool, according to research published in the Harvard Business Review. It determined that using improved assessment measures is three times more profitable than simply enlarging the candidate pool. In fact, a disciplined approach to generating and assessing CEO candidates could result in a company increasing annual profits and its market value by about one-third, the research found.
There are a variety of ways to assess candidates: interviews, surveys, business-simulation exercises, examining personality profiles. Using a variety of complementary methods typically will yield a more dependable assessment, and an efficient HR department or talent consulting company must know when and how to apply each method.
A test measuring functional skills won’t reveal anything about whether a candidate is a fit for the company culture, for instance. Likewise, a personality assessment won’t say much about technical skills. A blend of assessment tools is needed, with each being effective at measuring specific qualifications. A consulting partner specializing in talent can also design a custom assessment solution to help in this area.
A leader must display competency in a number of areas: technical and functional skills, team-building acumen, and interpersonal skills to lead by example, for starters. Overall intelligence and being a cultural fit count as well. Whether an organization is hiring from the outside or strategically laying out succession plans with internal candidates, using an array of assessment methods will best reveal competency levels in these areas.
The accompanying infographic is a guide to how effectively each of several assessment methods can help you measure specific competencies of those individuals in your candidate pool.
This infographic was created by Axiom Consulting Partners