The Right Fit

When properly applied, the use of valid and reliable assessment instruments will help make better selection decisions.

By Suri Menon

In a study conducted by the consulting firm Accenture, nearly 80 per cent of the respondents (483 senior executives from firms worldwide) said that attracting and retaining talent is their most important people management challenge. Similarly, Gallup's consulting experience shows that most organizations typically underestimate the adverse impact of hiring people who are not the "right fit."

The question of what predicts performance has been the subject of scientific inquiry for over a century now. Time and again, it has been seen that even if an applicant is a top professional within a particular area of expertise, it does not necessarily mean that this individual will be a good performer in the particular role within a specific organization. However, there is ample evidence to support the view that a structured selection process can definitely reduce the risks of employee dissatisfaction, poor performance and turnover. Any effective selection process must address the techniques and methods to assess and evaluate these factors, with reference to the position.

The Selection Process: A robust selection process will have the following clearly defined activities:

1. Methods of attracting and sourcing candidates
2. A clear and realistic competency profile of the job/position
3. Application pre-screening methods/software
4. Assessment methodologies (GD, Tests, Assessment Center etc)
5. Interview panel for structured interviews.
6. Valid scoring methods
7. Reference checks (Credentialisation)

There is sufficient research evidence to show that recruiters make subjective evaluations of job applicants unless they are provided with a systematic way to process the information. To increase your success ratio and reduce the risks associated with selection, any effective selection process must be able to come out with a realistic picture of a candidate. Will the candidate fit with the position, your culture, your employees, and your organizational values? You need sufficient information from a never-too-exact process to make an informed decision. In a recent article on executive selection, Ms. Roseanne Blaumhart said that an effective selection process must provide answers to the following questions:

1. Is the candidate capable of handling both current and future job challenges?
2. Under what conditions does the candidate perform to his/her greatest potential?
3. In what situations does the candidate not perform optimally?
4. What are the candidate's values and do they align with those of the organization?
5. Will the candidate fit in with the existing culture?
6. What are the two or three most critical developmental needs of the candidate?
7. How do the candidate's skills fit with those of the other senior executives or team members?
8. Can skills that will never be strengths for the candidate, be substituted by other team members?

Getting Them To Your Doorstep

As can be seen, the selection process starts well before you seek applicants to fill a position. First and foremost, the recruiter needs to have a thorough understanding of the job requirements. This comes after completing a structured job analysis to arrive at the profile of the person best suited to do the job. This profile will include the knowledge, skills, behavioural and culture-specific perspectives the person must possess or have a propensity to possess.

Given the profile of the person you want, would the organization be able to attract the right applicant pool? Targeting potential applicants to your organization is an exercise in itself. If you have successfully passed this hurdle, the applicant pool has to be screened, based on critical entry criteria. At this stage, education, experience and a generic demographic profile can help you bring down the numbers to a manageable limit. This process can be automated and the time saved can be considerable. Software programs are available today (like the 'Resume Manager') to do this job.

However, where the numbers are smaller, individual scrutiny of applications is recommended. It might be worthwhile noting that research from Personnel Today indicates that 12 per cent of people admit to lying on their resumes and about one-third of them are designed to mislead. Resumes can be falsified, interviews biased, and references highly opinionated or incomplete. If all this is true, even to a lesser extent, the next phase of the selection process - Assessment - assumes greater importance.

The Job Profile

Having the best applicant pool is of little use if your selection techniques fail to, within a reasonable degree of certainty, predict future job performance in the position. The issue is one of assessing and evaluating people who have all the right ingredients to succeed on the job. Dr Robert K Smith has opined that there are three factors that define success or failure on the job

1. Skills and abilities
2. Motivation and desire
3. Closeness of "fit" Between job demands and employee psychological characteristics

The literature on performance prediction suggests that three selection techniques tend to achieve highest predictive power (criterion validity):

• Assessment Centers
• Cognitive Ability Tests, and
• Bbiographical information from the resume. (Dean, Russel & Muschinsky, 1999).

Various studies have also shown that a professionally developed test instrument that is validated against objective performance standards will significantly "out-predict" all other selection techniques. There is a wide choice of strategies and tools available to do 'selection assessment'. Assessment techniques can range from being simplistic to complex, depending upon the resources (people, time and money) an organization is willing to invest in the selection process.

I have attempted to figuratively explain the Time/Cost Vs Reliability of information of some well-known selection techniques. (Figure 1)

Figure-1: SELECTION: TIME/COST VS INFORMATION

In Figure 2 (below), a comparative chart explains the relative attributes of various assessment techniques with respect to their ease of use from the point of cost, practicality, acceptability and validity.

Organizational psychologists have conducted a wide variety of research studies to evaluate scientifically developed assessments and compare them with more traditional selection procedures such as interviews, group discussions and resume evaluations. This research has consistently shown that scientifically developed assessments are substantially more accurate than other selection procedures in predicting the job behaviour of applicants. When you consider the time and energy invested in selecting, training, managing, and replacing an unsuccessful employee (not to mention the legal wrangles), it is easy to appreciate the benefits of using a scientifically developed assessment. These benefits can best be realized when the test is successfully integrated with other selection procedures and human resource systems.

Furthermore, the effectiveness of an assessment programme greatly depends on the appropriateness and consistency of administration, interpretation and usage. Those willing to spend a little 'extra' time to get the right fit will need to have an abundance of patience and a very robust selection process. Suffice to say that the most accurate selection processes rely on multiple selection procedures.

Final Decision:

A few strategies are discussed here. To arrive at a selection decision, the company can provide a pre-set benchmark for shortlisting and/or selection (usually based on pilot assessments of internal employees). Candidates must meet a minimum predetermined benchmark on each assessment in order to continue to the next step in the selection process. The flip side is that there is no best method to arrive at the "correct" benchmark. This is a sequential approach where the "funnel" keeps reducing as the assessment process continues.

This strategy makes sense when you are evaluating characteristics wherein a certain minimum level is required regardless of any other qualifications. For example, call center agents must have good spoken communication skills regardless of other capabilities, which may be accorded lesser weightage in the overall assessment process. This strategy is also useful when the number of applicants is large. Another strategy is to collate all the information (from the assessment process) and consider it in totality. A high score on one attribute may be compensated by a low score on another. For example, a high score on technical knowledge/skills may compensate for lack of experience for a junior level position. You can create "selection bands" i.e., the range of scores within which "best performing" candidates fall. You could also rank the applicants, based on the performance on various assessments. A combination of both strategies can also be deployed.

When properly applied, the use of valid and reliable assessment instruments will help make better selection decisions. Additionally, by using multiple assessment tools as part of an assessment programme, you can more fully assess the skills and capabilities of people, while reducing the effects of errors associated with any one tool on your decision making. Absolute certainty or zero risk in selection is a rarity, and any organization can only move towards perfecting its selection processes. Some time back a professor in a Human Resource course remarked, "It remains somewhat humbling to inform a lay audience that "we just recently have been able to conclude that smart people do better on the job, though we aren't really sure why!". Thankfully today, assessment techniques and technologies have certainly come a long way beyond the doubts the professor expressed.

(Mr Suri Menon is Vice President, Consulting and Development, Eduquity.)