I read Perfect Score = Perfect Job? a few days ago on Forbes.com and am catching up to comment on it now. It is a good read with many excellent points in support of assessments. I previously posted about an article that discussed the ability of candidates to refuse to take the assessments. This article goes a long ways in articulating the purpose and results of effective, validated assessments.

…the process benefits both sides by matching the employer’s needs with the candidate’s skills and interests.

To put a sharper point on it, assessments measure the candidate’s skills, aptitudes, style and motivations to the specific needs of the position for which they are applying. Again, I cannot understand why a candidate would not want to discover if their abilities are a strong fit for this position. A desire to avoid that discovery seems quite disingenuous to me.

The article descends into a theoretical discussion due to the misguided focus on one particular word:

But this raises a few basic questions: What is personality? Can it be measured? If so, can it be reduced to a score? Does personality relate to job performance? If so, how?

The short answer is: Who knows? But many employers find such testing helpful and use it as one part of the hiring process.

Assessments that focus solely upon personality are quite limited in their results. Our focus is directed towards communication which speaks to personality in a limited scope. However, no one will argue that communication is not important in the workplace. Communication style does relate directly to job performance. We measure a candidate’s communication style but weight it as the least of our different assessments (hence its placement above the water line in our assessment graphic).

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Stepping Into the Role of a First-Time Manager (link is gone) is a quick read article with practical advice for employees making their foray into management. My first foray into management left me with many bruises as I did not follow one of the suggestions in this article. I attempted to change many things in a short amount of time. My approach led to some significant changes but it triggered many management meetings with the other departments. Let’s just say those were quite candid meetings.

Much of our focus is on hiring, but we have another side to our business where we assess existing teams. In some ways, this work is more satisfying. We get to know the team members and we get to assist the manager in producing a development plan for each employee. This approach is focused on communication which is the first piece of successful management.

From the article:

“If you treat your staff with respect through communication, you will be more effective as a leader. Leading is not about daily control and direction. It’s about vision and being able to share that vision with others. It’s about being persuasive and making others feel included in setting and owning the stakes.”

Sales & Marketing Management comes through in timely fashion with some statistics from the Ken Blanchard Companies’ survey regarding successful (and unsuccessful) management:

* 43 percent of those in the survey said communications skills are the most critical to those in leadership roles; 41 percent said poor communication is a leader’s most common mistake.

* 27 percent cited over- or undersupervising as a problem for leaders.

* 15 percent identified empathy and emotional intelligence as a key factor for leadership success.

* Top failures by leaders include: failure to provide appropriate feedback, praise, or redirection; failure to listen; failure to set clear goals and objectives; failure to train and develop people.

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Not kidding. Salary.com has a listing of time wasted at work broken out by all 50 states. I’m not sure what to make of it, but I did find this fact interesting:

4. Wisconsin 2.8 hrs avg wasted salary wasted: $23.8 billion

33. Minnesota 1.9 hrs avg wasted salary wasted: $11.8 billion

I will reserve comment since we have customers in Wisconsin.

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From a recent SHRM survey and article titled “Businesses slow to help employees at the gas pump” (membership required): of 380 companies surveyed from April 25th to May 1st of this year, few companies are actively moving to assist their employees with rising gas prices. In fact, 86% indicated that they were doing nothing. Here is a break down of the top initiatives for those companies reaching out:

• 20% are increasing the mileage limit
• 8% are offering public transportation discounts, up from 7% in 2005
• 8.4% organize carpools, up from 5.3% in 2005
• 7.1% offer telecommuting, up from 4.4% in 2005

As you can see, only a small percentage of companies today are actually taking advantage of the technology available to offer telecommuting to their employees. However, the trend is clearly increasing and I expect will accelerate even more this year. More and more candidates are inquirying about positions they are applying for and if telecommuting is an option – even on a part-time basis. Is your company offering a telecommuting option and, if so, are you promoting that option in your hiring activities?

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What If Employers Want You to Take a Personality Test? is a stretch of an article from monster.com. Surely it is written to generations X and Y and falls under the category “Work/Life Balance.” (see our new article released this week regarding this topic). The author advocates a position of questioning the assessment process to the point of respectfully declining to take the test.

In all fairness to the author, he does state that theoretically a candidate could decline but that approach is not realistically a strong position for getting the job. First off, “personality test” is a fat phrase – it can encompass a broad array of assessments. This could mean as simplistic as a Myers-Briggs test all the way up to a full interview with an industrial psychologist. Nonetheless, personality tests are only part of a succssful assessment package.

One topic the author does not address is the hiring process. The EEOC recommends assessments in large part because they are objective – especially in comparison to the one-on-one, in-person interview. Also, companies must maintain a consistent hiring process for all candidates. Any company that runs a process cannot have some candidates completing the assessments and others not taking them. If the assessment is part of the process and a candidate refuses to complete them, technically they have withdrawn themselves from consideration voluntarily.

One last point that is well stated by the author – observing how the company reacts to the candidate’s questioning of the assessments is insightful. One would expect the company to be professional, firm and forthright in their explanation. The author is writing to a candidate audience, but he does not touch on the employer side of this equation. The first question in an employer’s mind will be, “What does this candidate have to hide?”

The hiring process is the stage at which a future employee (candidate) will be most compliant. If they are questioning the process at this phase, what will they be like once they have been an employee for 6 months? Few companies are looking for robotic employees, but noncompliance to established systems must be handled tactfully by a candidate at all times. Companies that use assessments are attempting to find the right fit for the position which not only benefits the company, it benefits the candidate also. I can’t imagine any reasonable candidate would want to accept a position for which their skills, motivations and style are a complete mismatch.

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The online training continues with the CareerJournal.com article Don’t Let Tough Questions Sabotage Your Interview. The author refers to these questions as “stress questions” which is a fair description. The article is a long read so I have compiled the 10 example questions they use:

1. Could you tell me a little about yourself?
2. Why did you leave your previous employer, or why are you leaving your present job?
3. What are your greatest strengths?
4. What are your weaknesses?
5. What type of salary do you have in mind?
6. What do you like most and least about your present job?
7. Are you applying for any other jobs?
8. Why should we hire you?
9. Where do you hope to be in five years?
10. Do you have any questions? Can you think of anything else you’d like to add?

A fairly complete list for sure. Personally, I do not care for #9 since the candidate is most interested in their fit for the current opening. Asking them where they will be in 5 years usually guarantees a stock answer of management in some form or another. I do agree with one line of advice from that section – “describe…what you hope to have accomplished.” That type of answer will be more revealing that the management answer.

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The online training of candidates continues. This time, monster.com offers up Interview Prep Tips which provides a general overview of strategy for a successful interview (from the candidate’s side). If you follow the link for Closing the Interview you will end up here. This complementary article is excellent advice for sales candidates to close an interview strongly. One approach we value is found in bullet #4:

Ask about the next step in the process. It’s important for you to know the next step so you can follow up. Ask for the decision date.

Sound advice…and you would be shocked how infrequently this question occurs among sales candidates.

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Many progressive companies have been offering telecommuting options for years. Now, the concept is becoming more en vogue thanks to rising gas prices. However, another factor has played just as important a role in this transformation – broadband internet in the home.

Here is a quick read article from the Wall Street Journal online that lists the cities most prepared for higher gas prices (and, by default, telecommuting). If your company offers telecommuting options or simply has strong IT capabilities (VPN, Blackberries, etc.), you should be promoting it in your employment activities. Do not underestimate this benefit amongst the younger generation. It is a question we see earlier in the hiring process than ever before.

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Hiring Adjustments for Generations X & Y covers the changes we are seeing in the hiring process based on the up-and-coming generations. The main points in this article flow from our firsthand experience in the hiring process – especially over the past 2 years.

An excerpt:

“Gen X and Y candidates are looking for a “skills path.” They desire to understand what skills are needed to be successful in the position today. The long-term incentive is to understand what skills they will personally develop or acquire within the company. They prefer a horizontal management structure and respond to personal skill development. Titles are out. Responsibilities are in.”

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Part of a salesperson’s role is building rapport with a prospect – it is a vital skill. A salesperson needs to match a prospect’s communication style since people naturally tend to relate to those they perceive to be similar to themselves. This older article from eyesonsales.com from Patricia Fripp, entitled Fat and Skinny Words: Levels of Abstraction throws an important concept into the rapport-building mix.

Not only do salespeople need to adjust their communication style to match the prospect, but also their level of abstraction to match the organization level with whom they are communicating. The author explains her point by using the simple analogy of an automobile. If a salesperson is talking to a high level in the organization, for instance a Vice President, the salesperson could refer to an automobile as a wheeled passenger vehicle or as surface transportation. Generally speaking, Vice Presidents tend to look at big picture concepts and not minute details.

As salespeople move down into the organization, they need to the have their words become “skinnier” (her description). At the end-user level, the automobile would then be described as a red, four door sedan with a V6 engine. The author’s summation of this level of abstraction – “Eventually, you would be talking about a specific car. Those are “skinny” words. They are essential for conveying instructions and solving technical problems.”

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