The most valuable asset any employer has are his employees!
When recruiting, it is not only important to make sure that the candidate possesses the required qualifications and experience, but also whether he or she has the ability to match the broader work environment. Misjudgment of how the person fits into the job and organisation as a whole usually ends up being a very costly experience for the company.
There are three major areas in which the prospect employee’s compatibility needs to be verified:
· The first and most obvious one are his/her Qualifications. This particular one is quite easy to asses, as the person either does or does not have the required qualifications.
· The second one is the level of the Experience the candidate brings and how that experience matches the requirements of the job. It is a much broader area than qualifications, but usually during the course of the interviewing stages, it is possible for the employer to get a good sense of that.
· The third, and most often overlooked area, is the Personal Compatibility of the candidate with not only the job itself, but also the broader environment. For example, a factory worker working on an assembly line manufacturing medical products later used in surgery, as a part of his Personal Compatibility Profile would certainly need to have great attention to detail. On another hand, a
general manager with the same attention to detail will end up slowing down the delivery of projects within his organisation, constantly dwelling on details, not focusing enough on the ‘big picture’, hence not moving the company forward in the right direction.
Every employer recognizes the importance of having a clear understanding of whether the ideal candidate for that particular post needs to:
• be able to work as a part of a team
• be an effective communicator
• be able to make decisions under pressure
• have the ability to delegate responsibilities to others
Not many employers look at the candidate’s profile from the point of view of personal values and preferences. Hence not time during the interview stage is spent on identifying whether the candidate is an introvert or extravert, whether he/she has a personal preference for working with people, systems or idea, to what extend are they self-referential as opposed to seeking validation from others, to what extent do they need to weigh all options before making a decision as opposed to being able to go with their first impulse, but most importantly, what do they value in terms of life and career the most!
Why would it matter to any employer what personal values their candidate has?
If the top three values the person has are: 1)family, 2) friends, 3) freedom, and the job he/she is applying for requires long hours as opposed to the regular ‘9-5 job’, short-term the person might be able to go against what matters to them the most, but long term, regardless of the financial package and other incentives, the focus on family, friends and the sense of personal freedom will
take over. Either the person will leave or their performance will be undermined.
In both cases, the company ends up losing money long-term.
In a similar manner, a people’s person (top career value – working with people) expected to spend eight hours a day in a room on their own, regardless of their education and experience, despite their true desire to make this job work, over a time will decline in their performance level.
Employers often do not realise that personal preferences (of which a big part are personal
values) will always eventually become the driving force behind an employee’s performance.
With the use of an effective profiling system it is possible to create a realistic summary of the candidate’s Personal Compatibility in relation to the job they are applying for, creating a long-term win-win situation for both the company and the potential employee.
Complimentary 30min Business/Personal Coaching Session