2. Formulate each competence very specifically.
Be clear about each competency description and what it includes. Avoid pompous titles that allow many interpretations.
Here is an example from our personnel profiling training. The participants were asked a question: «What are the qualities that a sales manager should have?» In general, the participants answers were as follows: communication skills, stress resistance, loyalty to the company, expertness, organizational skills, responsibility, clear speech and diction, learning ability, ability to listen and identify clients needs, skills for reaching the decision-maker, client-focused approach.
The participants were offered to give detailed description to each competency. And it turned out that different people meant by this or that competence completely different things.
Explanation of competence depends on the specific position a candidate is applying for (car sales manager at the car dealership, sales manager for incoming calls, customer service manager, etc.). Lets look at how to decipher each of these competencies.
Communication skills. Deciphering this competence may include both similar and completely different traits. For example, the ability to persuade, listen, identify needs; desire to communicate, well-bred speech, politeness, clear diction, persuasiveness, eloquence.
If requirements to the candidate include all above, but in fact he will be using only 23 characteristics, it will groundlessly make the profile more burdensome. Thus, you complexify your work, but thats not all. If you specify redundant skills, this may cause low employee motivation.
Imagine the candidate for the position wants to communicate with new people, and he was given a block of client management where he cannot realize his plans. The candidate was expecting the position would give him a chance to use his strengths, but faced with the fact that his «trumps» are not in demand.
Suppose you recruit a person for the position of sales manager for incoming bids and an active sales manager. In both cases, sociability is paramount. But what exactly is included in the concept of sociability? In the case of an active sales manager, this is a desire to communicate, eloquence and the ability to convince. The sales manager for incoming calls processes applications, therefore the ability to persuade and the desire to communicate is not so important, but the ability to identify needs and well-bred, polite speech is a must.
It can be as follows: the candidate claims to be a sales manager, he loves and knows how to communicate, but his speech is not quite clear and competent, he does not pronounce a couple of letters and lisps a little. But the way he gives information is extraordinary! He does it expressively, he motivates and gets people interested. And this is more important than competent speech and clear diction.
So when compiling a profile, it is necessary to understand what particular position the candidate is applying for and what skills are really important.
Stress resistance. How can we understand that a person is stress resistant? Stress resistance implies patience, flexibility and the ability to quickly respond to different situations, which is develop through practice. The experience speaks about stress resistance. Sometimes some twenty years old guys come for an intervew and they say: «My strong quality is stress resistance!» Immediately the question arises: «When and how did you manage to understand that you are stress resistant?».
Loyalty. Talking about loyalty we also mean performance and manageability. To verify this, put the candidate to the task that must be performed before he comes to the interview. See whether the task was accomplished, whether the candidate asked questions, whether there were any attempts to shirk responsibility or shift performance of the task to another time.
Similarities of the candidates values and the already established team of the company can also be seen as loyalty. We had a customer who wanted to recruit a lawyer. The customer was flexible to the available opportunities, so to say. And one of the questions for the candidate sounded as follows: «How do you feel about the fact that sometimes you have to maneuver in the existing legislation to achieve the goals of the employer?». The candidate replied: «I will not do things that I consider to be wrong». A good specialist, but did not meet the case.
Expertness. Expertness is not only experience, it is knowledge of the product and the existing market. It is also the appropriate level of education and skills in a particular area. But the expertness of the antiques seller and the expertness of the car sales manager are completely different. In the first case narrow, specific knowledge of the product is paramount. And by the way, this knowledge is not necessarily acquired in the process of receiving a formal education. In the second case, it is the experience and understanding of what, why and who to sell to. Here knowing every detail of the components of the car is not the crucial point.
Planning skills. Lets see what is it about. The ability to plan and strictly follow a plan is not the same thing. There are people who are focused on results, but there are also procedural people who are focused on the process (more on this in the chapters on metaprograms). There are people who are able to plan out every hour of their lives and strive to follow the plan in everything. A chance that a procedural person will constantly look for new ways to sell a product is greatly reduced. If the position implies the desire to search for non-standard solutions, approaches to difficult customers, then the procedural person will not cope.
Lets recall a good phrase: «Plans are useless, planning is priceless.» What is important is the planning process itself and the possibility of adjusting the plan along the way and not just following the established plan.
Responsibility. What do we refer to this competence? The desire to see things through to the end. Orientation for results. Performance. How can one measure it while communicating with a candidate? Responsibility is often associated with «FROM» motivation; this can also be added to the profile of the position. However, for the manager the «FROM» motivation is a minus.
Learning ability. Learning often does not imply experience. In general, the younger a candidate is, the more capable he is to learn.
Client-focused approach. We advise to specify this competence at the level of actions: to love working with people, to prioritize the clients interests and take them into account while making decisions. Attitude to people, and in particular, to clients, is partly revealed at the stage of the conversation with the candidate.
Abilities to reach the decision maker. In general, this competence is quite clear. It is the experience that a candidate has in this matter is important.
3. The profile shall include priorities.
It is not enough to give detailed description of the competence characteristics, it is important to do something else with all the listed competencies as well.
Suppose you have ten competencies in the form of specific characteristics that are preferable for a candidate. It is unlikely that your position profile will have the same importance ratio for each feature. Some competencies are more essential for you than others. Accordingly, the profile should prioritize and indicate that you personally consider paramount. What is more important, the ability to listen or the ability to convince? Competent speech or charisma? The ability to speak politely is useful, but is it so significant compared to the ability to convince?