Jean M. Phillips and Stanley M. Gully have their doctorates in human resources and are professors of human resource management at Rutgers University. They are the coauthors of Strategic Staffing. They both live in Annandale, New Jersey.

Assessing External Job Candidates

Staffing Strategically Series

By Jean M. Phillips, Stanley M. Gully

Society For Human Resource Management

Copyright © 2009 Phillips, Gully, and Associates
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-58644-160-9

Contents

Introduction,
External Assessment Goals,
External Assessment Methods,
Multiple Methods,
Reducing Adverse Impact,
Assessment Plans,
Summary,
Endnotes,
Index,
Acknowledgments,
About the Authors,
Additional SHRM-Published Books,

CHAPTER 1

External Assessment Goals

The primary goal of assessing job candidates is to identify the job candidates who will be the best hires in terms of meeting the organization's staffing goals, which usually include high job performance and enhanced business strategy execution. Identifying the job candidates who would be the worst hires is also important, as not hiring poor performers can be even more important and valuable than hiring good performers. There are a variety of other important goals organizations have when assessing external job candidates, and we discuss several of them next.

Maximizing Fit

Why are some very talented people considered undesirable hires despite their high level of skill? The answer lies in the many ways in which people need to fit with an employment opportunity to be a successful match. One goal of assessment is to maximize the degree to which the person fits the organization, workgroup, and job. We next describe each of these dimensions of fit in greater detail.

Person-Job Fit

Person-job fit is the fit between a person's abilities and the demands of the job, and the fit between a person's desires and motivations and the attributes and rewards of a job. Effective staffing enhances the degree to which an employee meets a job's requirements and the degree to which the job meets the individual's needs. Because the most important staffing outcome is usually the new hire's job performance, person-job fit is the primary focus of most staffing efforts. From the organization's perspective, if it has an opening for an accountant, if the new hire is not an effective accountant, then the staffing effort cannot be considered successful, regardless of how many other positive staffing outcomes are achieved. In organizations that are growing rapidly, the scope of any job expands quickly. To prepare for this, Google tries to hire people who are "overqualified" for the position they are being recruited for, who can handle the expanding job duties, and who are likely to be promoted multiple times.

From the applicant's perspective, if the job does not meet his or her financial, career, lifestyle, and other needs, then the match also is not ideal. An individual motivated by commissions and individually-based merit pay is not likely to be a good fit with a job based on teamwork and group rewards. Similarly, an individual who does not enjoy working with people should not be placed in a customer service position. It is not only important to consider the fit between an individual's talents and the job requirements, but also the fit between an individual's motivations and the rewards offered by the job. Research suggests that personjob fit leads to higher job performance, satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intent to stay with the company.

Person-Group Fit

In addition to the fit between the recruit and the nature of the work, the fit between the recruit and his or her potential work team and supervisor is also important. Person-group fit (or person-team fit) is the match between an individual and his or her workgroup, including supervisor. Good person-group fit means that an individual fits with the goals, work styles, and skills of co-workers. Person-group fit recognizes that, in many jobs, interpersonal interactions with group members and teammates are important in getting the work done. Employees must be able to work effectively with their workgroup or teammates. Person -group fit leads to improved job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intent to stay with the company.

Because teamwork, communication, and interpersonal competencies can be as critical to team performance as team members' ability to perform core job duties, person-group fit can be particularly important when hiring for team-oriented work environments. At Men's Wearhouse, CEO George Zimmer rewards team selling because shoppers want to have a positive total store experience. The company takes team selling so seriously that it even terminated one of its most successful salespeople because he focused only on his own sales figures. After firing the salesperson, the store's total sales volume increased significantly. Individual characteristics such as personal goals that are consistent with those of the group, and skills that complement those of the rest of the members, are particularly important to assess in environments in which work is done in groups.

Person-Organization Fit

Person-organization fit is the fit between an individual's values, beliefs, and personality and the values, norms, and culture of the organization. The strength of this fit influences important organizational outcomes including job performance, retention, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Although it has little to no impact on meeting job requirements, research has found that person-organization fit can positively influence employee attitudes and the citizenship behaviors that people exhibit beyond their job requirements, such as helping others or talking positively about the firm.

Despite the potential overlap between person-job and person -organization fit, research suggests that people may experience differing degrees of fit with the job and with the organization. For example, it is possible to be very good at one's job yet not feel like a good fit with the company. Conversely, it is possible to like one's employer but not be very good at one's job. Some organizational values and norms important for person-organization fit include integrity, fairness, work ethic, competitiveness, cooperativeness, and compassion for fellow employees and customers.

How can person-organization fit be maximized? One good way is to identify those applicant qualifications, competencies, and traits that relate to the organization's strategy, values, and processes. Individuals whose work styles are inconsistent with the organization's culture, business strategy, and work processes are not likely to be as successful as individuals who are good fits in these ways. For example, even if Juan is technically well qualified as a biomedical researcher, if he avoids risk, is indecisive, and tends to ruminate over a decision, he may be unsuccessful in an innovative, fast-paced, and forward-looking organization.

A new hire must be able and willing to adapt to the company by learning, negotiating, enacting, and maintaining the behaviors appropriate to the company's environment. To successfully adapt, new hires must be open-minded, have sufficient information about organizational expectations and standards (and their own performance in light of those standards), and the ability to learn new behaviors and habits (e.g., low anxiety, high self-esteem, good time and stress management skills, no conflicting external obligations, etc.).

It is important to note that hiring for any type of fit does not mean hiring those whom we are most comfortable with, which can lead to dysfunctional stereotyping and discriminating against those different from ourselves who may offer a great deal to the success of the firm. One company that assesses and selects employees based on their fit with the organization and its core values is Johnson & Johnson (J&J). J&J's credo clearly spells out J&J's values: customer well-being, employee well-being, community well-being, and shareholder well -being, in that order. J&J recruits, hires, and evaluates employees against its credo, which is central to J&J's organizational culture. Ralph Larsen, J&J's chairman and CEO, attributes the majority of J&J's success to its core values.

In addition to having a reputation for treating employees well, Starbucks is known for its social responsibility initiatives, including outreach programs into communities both where stores operate and where its coffee is grown. Dave Pace, executive vice president for Partner Resources, Starbucks, explains, "We do it because it's the right thing to do. But from my perspective it's also a terrific recruiting and retention tool." By living its values and mission statement, Starbucks is able to attract people who share its values.

Person-Vocation Fit

Person-vocation fit is the fit between a person's interests, abilities, values, and personality and his or her chosen occupation, regardless of the person's employer. Worker adjustment and satisfaction are greater when their occupational environment meets their needs. For example, a social individual who dislikes detail work and working with numbers would be a poor fit with the accounting vocation.

Although individuals usually choose a vocation long before applying to an organization, understanding person-vocation fit can still be useful in staffing. Companies that would like to develop their own future leaders, or smaller organizations that need employees to fill more than one role, may be able to use applicants' vocational interests in determining whether they would be a good fit with the organization's future needs. Retaining valued employees might be easier if an organization can match their interests with a variety of career opportunities within the company. Some people pursue two or more different vocations over the course of their careers because they have diverse interests or because they become bored working in the same career for a long period. Organizations may better retain these valued career changers by understanding their vocational preferences and designing career tracks or career changes for them that place them in new roles in the organization over time that are consistent with their vocational interests and aptitudes. If successful, valued employees who would otherwise be likely to leave the organization to pursue a different type of vocation may be able to pursue multiple vocations without leaving the company.

Table 1 summarizes these four different types of fit.

Complementary and Supplementary Fit

There are two ways people can fit in to an organization or workgroup. Complementary fit occurs when a person adds something that is missing in the organization or workgroup by being different from the others, typically by having different skills or expertise. A research and development organization seeks complementary fit, for example, when it seeks scientists with new backgrounds and skills to work with existing scientists to develop a new line of products. As J.J. Allaire, founder, chairman, and executive VP of Products at Allaire Corporation, said, "It's tempting not to hire people who compensate for your weaknesses — because you don't want to admit that you have any. But ... you've got to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your entire group and hire accordingly."

Supplementary fit occurs when a person has characteristics that are similar to those that already exist in the organization. Supplementary fit can be important when a firm needs to replace a departing customer service representative with another person who can perform the job similarly to the other customer service representatives. In this case, the organization wants to hire customer service representatives with similar skills and characteristics.

Both complementary and supplementary fit are important as together they help to ensure that new hires will fit in with the workgroup and organization but also bring new skills and perspectives that will enhance the performance of the workgroup and organization.

Assessing Accurately

Another goal of external assessment systems is that they be valid, or that they accurately identify the candidates who would be the best or worst employees. The wider the spread of talent in an applicant pool, the greater the pressure on the assessment system to weed out the bad fits and identify the good ones.

Another way to express this idea is to think about the possible outcomes of an assessment effort. Candidates can be either hired or not hired. If they are hired, then they will be either good performers or poor performers on the job. As shown in Figure 1, hiring people who become good performers generates true positives. Not hiring people who would have been poor performers produces true negatives. Both of these outcomes are desirable and are goals of the staffing effort. The two possible undesirable outcomes are not hiring people who would have been good performers, or false negatives, or hiring people who perform poorly, generating false positives. No assessment system is perfect, but more valid assessment systems do a better job than less valid ones of identifying both the most and least desirable hires from the pool of job candidates and generating high numbers of true-positive and true -negative hiring outcomes.

In some jobs, one type of error can be more important than the other type. For example, false positives are particularly expensive for high -risk jobs like pilots or surgeons. False negatives, on the other hand, are particularly costly in highly competitive jobs or markets in which losing someone good to a competitor not only weakens a firm's market position but considerably strengthens its competition's. When a top scientist or salesperson chooses to join a competitor, not only does the company not acquire the top talent, its competitor is strengthened. False negatives can also be expensive when a member of a protected class is not hired, sues, and wins a big settlement.

Maximizing Return on Investment

Another important goal is maximizing the firm's return on its investment in the assessment system. Staffing should be thought of as an investment rather than a cost. The greater the return on the investment in an assessment method, the greater the assessment method's value. One assessment method may be slightly superior to another in identifying the best candidates, but if its cost exceeds the gain to the organization of hiring these slightly better candidates, then the cheaper, although less effective, method may be the better choice.

The return on investment from a new assessment method is the sum of the value of improved performance and the savings from avoiding bad hires. The value of improved performance results from subtracting the costs of using an assessment from the economic gain derived from using the assessment compared to randomly selecting candidates. The value of improved job performance resulting from using an assessment method rather than randomly selecting job candidates depends on the number of people hired, how long they stay with the company, job performance improvements resulting from using the assessment method, and the value of the performance improvements. The cost of the assessment method multiplied by the number of people assessed is the cost of using the predictor.

The value of retaining top performers should be recognized. The longer good performers stay with your company, the greater the return on the company's investment in them. Because research has shown that people who have frequently changed jobs in the past are more likely to do so in the future, some companies consider frequent job changes without evidence of professional advancement as a negative factor in their hiring decision. One survey of more than 1,400 chief financial officers found that, for 87 percent of them, the length of time a job candidate has spent with previous employers was an important factor in making hiring decisions. Nonetheless, because so many factors influence job tenure, we advise caution when using candidates' previous job tenure to predict their likely future job tenure.

Generating Positive Stakeholder Reactions

Meeting the needs of different stakeholders in the staffing process is another assessment goal. Recruits, hiring managers, and recruiters should all be satisfied with the processes and outcomes involved in using an assessment method. For example, requiring hiring managers to take three hours out of their busy day to interview each job candidate may meet with resistance, and may not even be possible. Recruiters may feel that doing 20-minute phone interviews to prescreen each job applicant is too burdensome, and applicants may feel that three separate visits for different assessments are excessive. Although an assessment method may be valid and identify the best and worst job candidates, if it does not also meet the needs of the stakeholders using them (and the stakeholders whom it assesses), then it is not as effective as it could be.

An assessment method's speed, usability, and ability to predict job success all influence the ease of getting people in the organization to use it correctly and consistently. Training recruiters and hiring managers in the use of the technique and its benefits, assessing and rewarding them for using it correctly and consistently, and having an assessment system expert available to help when needed can increase the correct and consistent use of new assessment methods.

Supporting the Firm's Business Strategy, Talent Philosophy, and HR Strategy

Strategic staffing supports and enables business strategy execution. McDonald's is a good example. Its business strategy relies on providing customers quality, cleanliness, quick service, and value, and the company works hard at hiring people who want to excel in delivering outstanding service. It tries to recruit and hire the best people, retain them by offering ongoing training relevant to their position, and promote from within to fill management positions.

(Continues...)Excerpted from Assessing External Job Candidates by Jean M. Phillips, Stanley M. Gully. Copyright © 2009 Phillips, Gully, and Associates. Excerpted by permission of Society For Human Resource Management.
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