Structuring Job Requisitions to Yield the Highest Caliber Candidate What information is important?

August 15th, 2013

Most companies structure their job descriptions to identify perfection. They want to find the right person possessing deep experience, every possible skill, and a god-like track record. This creates three fundamental problems

1)      Makes it very difficult to find qualified candidates because they are evaluated against the job description

2)      Makes a pool of candidates very difficult to build as candidates aren’t evaluated on what they are expected to get done, but to a skills based ideal

3)      High-caliber, top-performing candidates get frustrated as they don’t have the experience required, but know they can do the job.

We have to expect that these same high-caliber, top-performing candidates are capable of learning new skills. The importance comes in validating their performance and caliber.

In starting with the ideal, the job description creator isn’t starting with the end in mind and that is a necessity to hire the “best available candidate in the market”. The Goal has three pieces: make the position fillable, make it possible to have a pool of candidates to recruit and select from, and make it marketable to the top-performing, passive candidates.

To start, redo the format of the job requisition and make it a “Performance Profile”. First, identify the responsibilities of the role, next determine what success looks like if the selected candidate meets/exceeds expectations, articulate the accomplishments that need to happen in the next 12 months, and recognize the challenges / hurdles the role and culture present. By looking at a position from this view, it is much easier to back into the track record, experience, competencies, and motivations a candidate must possess to excel in performance.

Instead of creating a job requisition that focuses on an unnecessary number of required skills, an unwarranted number of years experience, and an unrealistic track record, focus on what needs to get done and the experience necessary to make it happen. After that, it’s all about the caliber of candidates selected, a much more important decision. Once the decision comes down to a core group of high caliber candidates, add additional competencies that increase value and are of benefit to the candidate’s ramp up time.

This process is guaranteed to clean up the identification process, and the interview process (selection process) can be leveraged to find the highest caliber candidates that will fit and excel.

At Honer & Associates, we have specialized in IT talent acquisition for over 30 years.  We understand the steps needed to create a performance profile that can attract high-caliber, top-performing candidates.  Assisting companies in acquiring A-level talent that fuels growth, prosperity and “doing more with less” is our trademark.  To discuss this topic or others necessary to hiring quality talent, feel free to contact us at your convenience.