Assessing a Job to Match it With a Person

Many companies provide great role assessment tools. While the specifics of the assessment results and report formats may vary, most will follow a process similar to what I describe in the next article.

I happen to use the DISC Model of Human Behavior. I use a collection of resources in my work applying the model. Many of the resources I use were developed by Personality Insights in Atlanta, Georgia. In addition, I have developed some of my own resources for this work.

As I work with clients in the hiring process, I have also developed a bias. While I strongly advocate the use of the tools to find a better fit between the job and the person, I do not believe in using the assessment process to arbitrarily eliminate people from consideration. For example, I do not think that hiring managers and business owners should automatically eliminate from consideration anyone without a "perfect" personality profile-job profile match. I do believe that using the results of a personality profile can offer valuable insights about long-term fit and compatibility with other team members when considering two or three different people with equivalent experience and core competency match.

Photo courtesy of www.sxc.hu

1. Define the core competencies.

Core competencies for a position include special skills, work behaviors, and attitudes that you would like to see in the person filling this role. Some of this work is subjective. As much as possible, use objective descriptions for what you want to see in the person you hire. For example, you could say "they have a track record of interacting well with many people" rather than "they are likeable."

2. Define the working environment.

Will the person in this role work alone much of the time, or will they interact with a large number of people? Does the position require big-picture or detailed planning? Do you want the person to move quickly to action or do you want them to carefully consider their actions? You will seldom find a person comfortable with both ends of these extremes. Carefully consider which of the extremes is most important to you.

3. Who will interact with this person?

Will the person in this role interact more with high-level positions, peers, or subordinates? Is their interaction more within the organization or external? Do they need to initiate conversation, or do people come to them? Again, few people feel totally comfortable in all of these situations. Identify the highest probability interaction, and look for a person comfortable with that.

4. Have 3-5 people complete a role assessment.

Everyone looking at the position will have a bias with regard to what they want to see in the person. To balance out these potentially varying perspectives, have several people who interact with or know the position well give input on the role assessment. I suggest something like this: one subordinate, one peer, and the supervisor or manager. For a position with a high degree of outside the organization focus, you might even include a trusted "outsider" (client, consultant, etc.)

5. Create a composite role assessment.

Once you have the different inputs, combine them into a composite assessment of the role. This composite should be better than any single assessment because it will consider many factors that impact the effectiveness of the person in the role.

Final note:

Remember that you are assessing the role responsibilities and the environment the person will work in. You are not assessing a person. When you review resumes and interview candidates for the position, look for people who will feel comfortable in the role over a long period of time. I suggest that you use a personality/behavioral style assessment to look for a good fit.