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Recruitment & Retention

A Foundational Role

Lisa Rummler

Job candidates aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be, which can make life difficult for recruiters and hiring managers. Someone who seems great on paper and aces a job interview might end up going through the motions on the job and clashing with co-workers in the process.

There are ways to minimize hiring risks, however.

“It’s critical for an organization to first understand what it’s looking for because, as with any destination, if you’re going off in the wrong direction, you’ll get to the wrong place real fast,” said Manny Avramidis, American Management Association senior vice president for global human resources. “A mistake organizations make is that they go out there without first thinking through the actual job itself and what’s important to an organization from a fit perspective.

“Once that foundation has been established, an organization is ready to do a search. A challenge an organization faces is it never establishes a foundation — they just go out there and say, ‘I need a marketing professional,’ and they don’t tie it in to the other pillars, if you will, that are important to make sure the person will fit into the organization.”

To establish that foundation, Avramidis said hiring professionals ought to ask certain questions such as:

• Does the organization have identified corporate values?
• What are the core competencies most jobs would expect?
• Is it clear into what absolute role the job candidate will fit? Does that align with the corporate vision?

And once a candidate enters the interview phase of a job application, the tables should turn — Avramidis recommended that a job applicant have the opportunity to ask questions, not just of the interviewer but of potential co-workers and other people in the company.

In doing so, individuals can better gauge how they could fit in at the organization, and the hiring manager or other HR professionals also can determine their fit, using the individuals’ questions and whom they ask to speak to as indicators.

Another tactic during the interview process, Avramidis said, is to ask candidates open-ended questions. This eliminates the chance that individuals will give tailored answers.

“Today, most candidates search your Web site to the point that they know as much as you do about your organization before they come in. You have to find questions they can’t find answers to on the Web site,” he said. “For instance, if you have a candidate in front of you, and you say, ‘Describe your ideal boss,’ and they say, ‘My ideal boss is someone who just leaves me alone, who calls me once a week and asks me how things are going.’ Yet you know within the organization, your management style is somewhere along the lines of constant communication, constant recognition, daily or frequent meetings and so forth, that person doesn’t fit.”

Avramidis said one of the most critical open-ended questions to ask candidates is where they see themselves in two to three years.

“If the person is someone who’s coming in who is going to realize their potential by taking on bigger responsibility, and they expect within two years to be, say, three levels above where they are coming in, and you know your organization is not going to have that opportunity for them, you’re almost destined for failure,” he said. “Or, within 18 months or maybe a year, that person is looking for another job.”