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JWI 521 – Week 3 Lecture Notes (1192) Page 1 of 5
JWI 521
Recruit, Develop, Assess, Reward, Retain
Week Three Lecture Notes
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JWI 521 – Week 3 Lecture Notes (1192) Page 2 of 5
HOW TO ASSESS A JOB CANDIDATE
What it Means
Whether hiring from the outside or promoting from within, you should never appraise a candidate
solely based on the experience listed on their resume. It is highly unlikely that your candidate has
ever been in a job with the same goals, challenges, and resources as the open position. When
jobs are unique, intangible traits make the difference between average and outstanding
performance.
So, what can you do to assess your candidates effectively? Follow a strategic approach to hiring,
based on competencies. First, understand the competencies required for the open position. Second,
put together a shortlist with the candidates most likely to have those competencies. Third, create a
set of interview questions that will probe for those specific competencies in each candidate.
Why it Matters
• Appraisal of candidates for hiring or promotion is an important, complex, and
challenging task
• The typical interview process is poorly structured and fails to identify the best
candidates
• Well-structured interviews, based on competencies, will greatly improve your
company’s hires
“Hiring is the most important people function that you have,
and most of us aren’t as good at it as we think.”
Laszlo Bock
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JWI 521 – Week 3 Lecture Notes (1192) Page 3 of 5
HOW TO PREPARE FOR INTERVIEWS
Unfortunately, most interviews are ineffective. The typical job interview is highly unstructured. The
interviewer asks different, unplanned questions of different candidates. There is little advance preparation to
determine what competencies the position requires, what needs to be learned about the candidates to
identify these competencies, and which questions will best elicit this information.
This situation leads to ineffective interviews, which lead to poor hiring decisions, which lead to lower
retention and poorer employee performance. This is a high cost for both failing to adequately analyze the
requirements for the position and not planning in advance to design a consistent and structured interview
process. Structured interviews have been found to be twice as effective as unstructured ones. Structured
interviews are designed based on careful analysis of the relevant competencies, as well as careful thought
about the type of questions that can be used to identify those competencies.
Research shows that two types of structured interview are particularly reliable across a wide variety of jobs.
One is the behavioral interview, which is built around questions aimed at understanding what the candidate
has done in actual situations. The other is the situational interview, which is built around questions that probe
what the candidate would do in hypothetical situations. Both behavioral and situational approaches require
significant preparation, including a detailed plan for each meeting with the candidate. What competencies
will you investigate, and what questions will measure each required competency?
When a candidate has some relevant experience, the behavioral approach is preferable. It focuses on facts
rather than on speculation, and offers an opportunity to probe more deeply into a candidate’s actions and
choices. When the candidate has no relevant experience, the situational interview is often the better
alternative. It can also be effective to use a combination of the two approaches, including some behavioral
questions and some situational questions. Whichever approach is used, it is very important that call
candidates are asked the same set of questions, so that the assessors can make effective comparisons.
Structured interviews are the result of careful planning and disciplined implementation. First, the hiring team
identifies the key competencies required for the position. Then, they create a list of questions that can help
identify whether the candidate has those competencies. Finally, the assessors are ready to ask candidates
about their experiences and behavior in relation to the competencies that are needed for a good hire.
NEVER HIRE ALONE
You may be hiring someone who will be working exclusively for you. Or you may have a clear idea of exactly
the type of person needed for a particular position, and believe you have already found just that person. Or
you may simply be in a hurry to fill the position. But, no matter how quickly you need to fill the position or
how promising a candidate looks, make sure that several people interview every candidate. And listen when
a trusted colleague tells you she has a lingering suspicion that the candidate is not what they seem.
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JWI 521 – Week 3 Lecture Notes (1192) Page 4 of 5
Carefully select the people who will help you interview candidates. Some interviewers are much better than
others. How do you identify your high-caliber assessors? First, given the complexity of the task, you want
people who are familiar with the range of experiences and competencies relevant to the position. Other
attributes common to high-caliber assessors include good listening skills, the ability to decode nonverbal
behavior, and high self-awareness. Finally, the assessor must be strongly motivated to conduct a sound
appraisal and willing to take the time to prepare properly for the task.
USING COMPETENCIES TO CREATE QUESTIONS
The chart below shows how competencies can provide the structure to design an effective interview. The
search in this example is for a marketing director for a consumer goods company. The team identified five
competencies required for the position, as well as some required technical qualifications. The chart below
shows the five competencies, along with some of the questions the assessors developed to measure each
competency.
COMPETENCY SOME QUESTIONS ASKED
Results oriented
• Have you been involved in a business or product launch? What were the specific
steps you took to support the success of the launch?
• Describe the most successful marketing communications project you have led.
How did you measure the results?
Team-centered
leadership
• Describe a time you led a team to be more effective. What did you do? How did
the team and the organization benefit from your actions?
• Describe a time you were asked to lead a particularly challenging team project.
How did you overcome the obstacles you faced?
Strategic thinker
• What are the top three strategic issues that your current company faces?
• Describe a situation in which you have been personally involved in addressing one
of these issues. What actions did you take?
Change agent
• Describe a time when you faced organizational resistance to a project you had to
implement. How did you handle it? Would you handle it any differently now?
• Given our company culture and the changes we need, what specific examples
from your experience demonstrate your ability to perform effectively in this role?
Ability to respond to
deadline pressure
• Describe a time when you made an extraordinary effort to meet a tight deadline.
What were the results?
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JWI 521 – Week 3 Lecture Notes (1192) Page 5 of 5
GETTING THE MOST OUT OF THIS WEEK’S CLASS
As you read the materials and participate in class activities, stay focused on the key learning outcomes for
the week:
• Understand the difference between behavioral and situational interviews
Think about your own experience with interviews, either as a candidate or as an interviewer. Did you
encounter behavioral or situational questions? If so, what skills and competencies did they reveal in
you or the candidate you were interviewing? If not, could such questions have improved the
outcomes of those interviews? Does your HR team make sufficient use of these types of interview
questions? If not, what can be done to address this issue?
• Explore the use of competencies to design structured interviews
In your organization, do job descriptions include a clear set of competencies required for the role?
Does your HR team understand how to use competencies related to an open position to design
structured interviews? Do candidates competing for the same position in your company get asked
the same questions, so that their capabilities can be effectively compared?
• Compare different models to assess job candidates and make hiring decisions
Consider the assessment techniques and interview practices used in your own organization. Is there
a well-defined process for interviewing candidates? How are assessors chosen and trained to
perform the important task of evaluating prospective candidates? Is the process of interviewing and
assessing candidates a team effort? What would it take to develop a new, more structured model of
interviewing in your organization, and how could HR help to make that happen?
