Increase Your Likelihood of Success: Defining A Role Before You Search
By Chris Kedwell
So much effort is placed on interviewing and assessing to find the right candidate from the masses, but with a bit more thought and effort up front, an organization can dramatically increase their odds of finding the best person. In our experience, too many employers rush to prepare a job posting so they can start interviewing, only to find that during the interview process itself, their thoughts are being shaped on what they are really looking for.
Nowhere is this truer than with loosely defined jobs, where employers attempt to lure employees with a promise to “create your own role” with “no boundaries” and “unlimited upside.” If a candidate does create their own role, the results can be unexpected and not ultimately be what is required by the organization to do the work it requires.
A Loose Job Definition Results in Unqualified Candidates
More often than not, such positions are borne out of organizational passivity, lack of focus and lack of management time masquerading as flexibility. If the hard work of getting key internal stakeholders aligned around the roles and responsibilities of new positions has not been done, the organization can end up sending mixed messages to candidates, and will ultimately fail in its attempt to attract the best candidates. This results in unnecessary financial expense and loss of time.
This failure can have dramatic consequences, because often these jobs represent all the work that is not obvious, and subsequently that work will not get done well enough or fast enough to satisfy a company’s needs.
Here is a quick guide to defining newly created positions and avoiding hiring mistakes:
- Mind The Gaps
- Keep a running tab of your organization’s unmet needs, work not getting done, and gaps in the skill sets at key levels within your organization. Decide what level of responsibility you are looking to fill, what title you would like to give to the role, and what core functions you will measure this employee on. Remember, that which cannot be defined cannot be achieved.
- Define requirements for job success and cultural fit, not just a job description
- Job roles with moving targets are a turn-off for many employees. Candidates want control over their destiny and want to know the critical success factors they are being measured on. Candidates are also looking for a sense of belonging through cultural fit, opportunities for advancement and daily challenges.
- Ask Yourself:
- What type of person will have amazing success in this role given the tasks, the team dynamic, the work environment, and the areas of organizational dysfunction?
- Over the next year, what changes or improvements do you hope to see the person own or lead? What type of person will be most successful at making these changes happen?
- Given the relative strengths and weaknesses of existing team members, what type of person is needed to help the team get to the next higher level of performance? What skills and experiences does the team need?
- What type of person will best challenge you and help push your department forward?
- Look Outside
- How are other similar organizations structured and what realignments are required in your organization to take it to the next level; what are the roles that are required to be put into place to ensure the desired structure is properly supported?
- Align key stakeholders
- Internal key stakeholders often have differing view points of what the actual job is, and what roles and responsibilities it entails. This lack of alignment within an organization means that interviewing can be ineffective.
- A properly detailed job description becomes a discussion document between stakeholders so that a common understanding and therefore agreement can be reached.
- To ensure a quick hire, before you go-to-market with a role make sure all key stakeholders within your organization agree on the defined roles and responsibilities.
- Make sure that you look carefully at who the stakeholders are and be sure not to exclude junior staff who will work directly with the new hire. Besides getting valuable input from them on the requirements for the position, you will appeal to their desire to be heard and have their opinions valued.
- Be sure your external stakeholders (e.g. the Board of Directors or in some cases key clients) are informed and aligned as well. Typically external stakeholders only want input on senior hires and up front discussions with them will ensure that you look for and find the right candidate.
- Inform The Marketplace
- Take the role to market through internal postings, job boards, and your recruiting firm.
- Avoid internal stress and potential conflict by ensuring qualified internal candidates get a fair shot at new positions. Many companies have a stated policy on looking at internal candidates first to fill an open position and this makes sense as internal candidates will be already immersed in the culture of your organization.
Planning Generates Hiring Success
It should come as no surprise that mission critical jobs can be some of the hardest to staff. However, companies that do not wish to perform the hard work of clearly defining their needs often wind up with unfilled roles, or worse, the wrong people in the wrong jobs. Those organizations that undertake the effort to find the gaps and generate discussion and internal consensus around their needs are much likelier to not only know what they want, but to get it.
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As Director, Chris Kedwell works in partnership with some of the brightest minds in Project Management and Web Analtyics.
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