Chapter 3
Sorting the Good from the Not So Good
In This Chapter
Understanding how selection criteria can guide your decision
Opening up the field of suitable candidates before narrowing your choices
Applying strong interview techniques to uncover the applicant’s better qualities
Considering delicate subjects when choosing an employee
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
W ith sincere apologies to William Shakespeare, imagine if each time you decided to employ a person, the ideal employee appeared upon a nearby balcony, to light up your life like a brilliant dawn sun. A slightly less fanciful, far less romantic but certainly more practical strategy is to use more than one means to promote your job and then create a short list of potential candidates from which to select your best employee. The task is not difficult but it does require a bit of organisation — and in this chapter I take you through the full process.
A short list of candidates is of little use unless you have a clear idea of the qualities you desire in your ideal employee and can assess the capability of potential employees. Establishing selection criteria based on a person’s skill, knowledge, attitude, experience and qualifications enables you to sort through the short list, guides your selection procedure and, ultimately, helps determine who you employ. This chapter also covers a multi-pronged approach to interview technique and assessment methods, providing the best way to find the right person for the job.
Being Prepared with Key Selection Criteria
The decision to employ your ideal employee is a big one. So don’t make the choice on a whim, a feeling, a hunch . . . okay, you get the picture. Two fundamental tasks can help you select the best person for the job. The first task is outlining selection criteria that describe the skills, qualities, knowledge, experience and ability required to successfully perform the job — these criteria provide a template against which you may assess every candidate.
The second task is preparing a system, or scorecard, to objectively rate the candidates and so decide which one is most suitable for the job.
These two tasks are fundamental to a successful recruitment procedure and must be completed before you interview prospective employees. If you apply these two recruitment tools, you can quickly work out who to interview and, ultimately, who to employ.
Selection criteria versus the job description
A common mistake with employers is confusing the job description with the criteria used to select employees. Both are necessary but serve different purposes.
The job description lists the primary objectives, duties, responsibilities, authority and accountability of the role within the business’s organisational structure. (Refer to Chapter 2 for more information on job descriptions.)
The job description is all about what the employee will be doing. The selection criteria are all about capability to do the job.
When selecting people to interview, and therefore potential employees, decide which key criteria to use, listing each measure under the following five key themes:
- Ability: The enduring capability of a person.
- Experience: The cumulative body of personal knowledge, understanding, connection, empathy, behaviours and learned skills.
- Knowledge: The factual or procedural information that the person must have to perform the job.
- Qualities: The personal traits, characteristics and attributes that a person brings to the performance of a job such as honesty, determination, friendliness and integrity.
- Skill: A person’s proficiency at performing a task; often referred to as competency.
These themes are important to the development not only of the selection criteria but also your job advertisement. A multi-dimensional approach to the selection of your ideal candidate is more likely to lead to a better fit and an enduring employment relationship.
Figure 3-1 provides a simple form that works through each of the five selection criteria themes for a motor mechanic position. Figure 3-2 shows you the related job advertisement.
The information in the second column of Figure 3-1 describes the particular nature or type of knowledge, skills, qualities, ability and experience that Fred is searching for in an employee. This in turn informs the particular criteria he will use to select the best motor mechanic for the job. You can create a similar form to that shown in Figure 3-1 for your own job position, using the descriptions you add to Column 3 for your selection criteria.
Using a scorecard
A scorecard is a useful tool you can use to assess candidates when deciding who to employ. Used together with selection criteria, this scorecard will help you rank potential employees on your short list (see the section ‘Creating a short list of suitable candidates’ later in this chapter).
Rating systems
The scorecard should be simple and relevant. It must reliably measure the level of the candidates’ capability, knowledge, experience, skills and qualities.
The selection criteria usually give you clues as to what is appropriate to include in the scorecard. For example, you could take the following approach:
Knowledge, or mandatory qualifications:
YES- NO
- Not yet completed
Qualities:
- Evident
- Not evident
Skills:
On a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 indicating highly proficient and 1 being not proficient, rate the candidate: ________.
Experience:
On a scale of 1 to 5 whereby 1 equals insufficient experience and 5 equals very experienced, rate the applicant: ________.
Ability:
Using a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best, measure according to how highly you rate the person’s known enduring capability: _______.
Weightings
You should weight each criterion on your scorecard according to relative importance in the performance of the job. For example, proficiency in the skills required to perform the job may be four times more important than experience. The qualities of a person may be half as important as the formal knowledge and the person’s general ability in the applicable field. Thus the final selection criteria scorecard may look something like the one filled out in Figure 3-3.
Finding and Selecting Applications
The job advertisement is online and in the newspaper. The note is in the shop window. You have told everyone you know that you’re looking for a person to work in your business, and the recruitment agent has circulated the job description. Now you can just sit back and watch the job applications pour in . . . right? Unfortunately, wrong.
Thinking that you can attract an extensive list of suitable candidates from which to select your ideal employee just by relying on advertisements and word of mouth is a nice idea. However, that rarely happens in real life. Don’t be discouraged if very few people express interest. However, you can improve your chances of attracting a good list of candidates from which to select your ideal employee with the strategies outlined in the following sections.
Opening up the field of candidates
You have three avenues for attracting interest in your job:
- People who you already know. This includes family, friends and people already employed in the business who may want to perform another role, as well as people who have been referred to you by family and friends.
- Unsolicited applicants. People who have expressed an interest in working in your business quite independently from a job advertisement. It doesn’t matter how long ago such people approached you — they may still be interested.
- Candidates who provide written applications. This is the group who respond to the advertisement. Consider applicants who provide a current resume and address the job selection criteria. Disregard those applicants who don’t do this. If people haven’t taken the time to update their employment history or address the actual job, they aren’t worth employing in your business.
Employing friends, family members and even friends of family and friends can be fraught with the kinds of difficulties that you wouldn’t normally encounter with people you’re not connected to. You also face the risk of fracturing personal relationships that you value highly. (Keep in mind the old joke where a man has recently broken up with a girlfriend who is the sister of his best mate. His other mate consoles him as he reflects with sadness on the end of the great times. ‘Yeah,’ he concludes ‘I’ll really miss my best mate’!)
However, benefits also exist that aren’t necessarily evident where employees don’t have a personal interest in the success of the business and their part in it. Small business is personal business and so keeping it that way through the people you employ can be worthwhile. Make a few enquiries about the friends or family members and, if you like what you hear, invite them to provide you with a written resume.
Your group of unsolicited applicants can be a really interesting category, and can include people you might mistakenly ignore unless a job is immediately available when the person enquires. People may have written to you, telephoned or visited your business over the past six months. If they have made the effort to learn about your business and have shown the initiative to approach you for work, don’t ignore them. They may possess the sort of qualities that you are looking for in an employee.
If you like people when you meet them, or when they’re making an unsolicited application, make a note of their names and phone numbers, and ask them to send you a resume for future reference.
The third category of people, those who make a written application, may include some gems but be wary. They may be motivated solely by
- A desire to get away from their current employer
- The job’s location
- The need to find a job (any job)
- Finding working hours that suit their lifestyle
And then you have the people who are genuinely interested in the job and your business. You can call them all potential employees.
Creating a short list of suitable candidates
You wouldn’t date every person who asked you out to dinner, would you? (Please say no!) So it’s not sensible to seriously consider every person who expresses interest in a job you’re advertising. The same principle applies to finding and deciding on a suitable employee.
From your groups of potential employees (refer to the preceding section) eliminate those people who don’t satisfy the essential selection criteria. Essential criteria are the qualities that the successful candidate must possess. For example, if you need a hairdresser, you wouldn’t consider a beautician or unqualified shop assistant. Likewise a delivery driver without a driver’s licence or a food and beverage attendant without a certificate of competency in responsible serving of alcohol isn’t worth considering unless you’re prepared to pay for training.
Once you’ve eliminated those who don’t meet the essential criteria, re-order the remaining candidates according to those who best address the selection criteria. For example, you may value people who are able to work to deadlines or are self-motivated. The resumes provided will include some hints about people’s prior experience and education, which should give you an idea about whether or not they are likely to possess the qualities you seek.
If you’re assessing the list of applicants who responded to the job advertisement (that is, the ones you don’t know), you could telephone them and ask a series of questions to get a better feel for their capability (see the sidebar ‘Short list filtering questions’ for more).
Try to identify those people who want to work with you because they’re a good fit for your business — not because it simply suits them. Ideally, consider seriously no more than five candidates.
If you use a professional recruiter, this person will filter the applicants according to your criteria and ask particular questions similar to those listed in the sidebar ‘Short list filtering questions’.
Providing feedback
Even if they didn’t quite make the cut, recognising the people who made the effort to express interest in your business is important, and is good business practice. Create a simple template that both acknowledges that you have received a person’s application and thanks them for the effort. Unsuccessful applicants will appreciate the gesture and will be more likely to accept your decision graciously and pass on the goodwill to others who may be interested in your business.
Go to www.dummies.com/go/hrsmallbusinessau for a sample acknowledgement letter template for unsuccessful job applicants.
Interviewing Techniques 101
Most small-business employers prefer to interview prospective employees using the traditional technique of face-to-face question and answer. However, university researchers have consistently found that this method (on its own) is the least reliable indicator of how suitable the person will be once employed. When you interview your shortlist of candidates, you should make sure this isn’t the only method that you use to decide who gets the job. Instead, learn something about your candidates by engaging them in a conversation and asking the right questions. The following sections show you how.
The engaging interviewer
A useful interview technique is to engage the person in a conversation whereby you learn something about your candidate and he learns something about you and your business. This technique stands in contrast to the traditional question and answer session that most job interviews tend to follow.
Nothing is wrong with asking people about themselves. You can and should ask applicants to talk about their lives. What interests them? What do they do outside of work? What movies and TV shows do they like? Do they play sport or read books? How about bungee jumping? The objective is to relax the interviewees and converse so that they reveal a little bit of themselves to you. This won’t happen if the interview is conducted like a quiz.
When talking with your candidates, highlight items, key words and phrases from their resumes. Candidates will have included them on purpose so you may as well ask about them. Words and phrases in the resume can then act as prompts for conversation starters. For example, young people usually list their school and some of the activities they engaged in during that part of their life. Asking them to talk about the school, and the associated teachers, friends and activities may reveal aspects such as their level of maturity, how well socialised they are, and attitudes to authority.
Although engaging candidates in conversations about their lives is acceptable, you must be careful not to overstep the boundaries of good manners and socially acceptable topics of conversation. The general rule is to let them do the talking. If the person talks in a sexually suggestive manner or tells an obscene joke, don’t join in!
Where the person has listed an interest in politics or religious groups, asking them about those activities is acceptable insofar as they bear upon the selection criteria and nature of the job. However, this isn’t an open invitation to promote your own personal political views and attitude to religion.
Stay away from conversations about personal appearance unless a direct relevance exists to the job. Telling someone she looks really great in that short skirt isn’t acceptable. An explanation of the dress code of your business is acceptable.
A bit like speed dating: Asking the right questions
You and the candidate have one opportunity to impress each other. Yes, that’s correct: You need to impress the applicant as well. The best candidate is one who’s quietly assessing you and your business as the interview unfolds. Don’t ask those same old boring and predictable questions most people have been asked many times before, such as
- Where do you see yourself in five years time?
- What are your good and bad qualities?
- How would you handle a difficult customer?
Applicants simply give you the answers they think you want to hear, so you don’t learn anything true about the person. Also, the good applicants are probably quietly crossing you off their list of preferred employers at this point and mentally moving on to the next interview they have lined up with one of your competitors.
You haven’t got all day to interview people and you can find out answers to the preceding questions using other selection methods. So use the time that you do have usefully.
Try these steps when interviewing:
- Thank the interviewee for taking the time to express an interest in your business.
- Talk about your business, your mission, your values and why this business is so important to you.
- Explain how and where this job fits within your grand plan for a successful business.
- Invite the interviewee to talk about herself. This should occupy most of the interview.
- Move on to the key selection criteria only when you have taken the time to get to know your candidate.
- Ask for referees to attest to the resume.
- Offer the candidate an opportunity to ask questions of you.
A job interview should last no more than 30 to 45 minutes. If you’re well organised, you should be able to learn enough about potential employees in that time to decide whether they’re suitable for your business.
Really useful assessment tools
A person’s skill, knowledge and experience in the fields applicable to the job are generally a matter of fact. You don’t need to spend time asking questions about stuff that you can more reliably verify through other means.
For example, your potential employee can either make a double decaf latte with skinny milk and a hint of nutmeg or not. Ask candidates to demonstrate their skills to you. Likewise with cutting hair, serving tables, pouring drinks, cleaning cars, driving vans, answering phones and greeting customers or any other activity that requires the proficient application of a set of skills or application of knowledge. Professional, managerial and trades-qualified competence can usually be verified by providing you with current registration, accreditation and proof of qualifications.
You can also ask previous employers, referees and even do your own research on candidates’ history using the internet. You can learn a lot about the person by searching social media but make sure you understand the context of every bit of information. A personally embarrassing picture on the internet is not necessarily an indicator of conduct during employment.
Table 3-1 shows areas of competency, knowledge and experience and the assessment tools that you can apply to obtain the most valid and reliable results that will inform your recruitment decision.
Table 3-1 Areas of Competency, Knowledge and Experience
Criteria |
Assessment Technique |
Usefulness Meter |
Attitude |
Behavioural-based interview where candidate is invited to recount real life situations such as responding to difficult customers and problem solving. Social media such as Facebook can provide a useful window into the general attitudes and lifestyle of the person. |
Is a more reliable predictor of future behaviour than hypothetical scenario style questioning. Social media is not always accessible and should not be viewed by stealth. Ask permission to view it. Don’t be offended if politely refused. |
Qualifications |
Certificate, diploma, degree, masters, doctorate, trades certificate (as relevant) |
Mandatory for some jobs and easily verifiable by checking with the institution that issued the qualification. |
Experience |
Public records, previous employer, referees |
The past is not necessarily an indicator of the future but is probably as good an indicator as you have available. |
Capability |
Referees can attest to candidates’ capability but the best test is to have them demonstrate their proficiency in one or more tasks relevant to the job. |
Very useful; complements the interview procedure to provide a well-rounded assessment. |
Cognitive ability |
Numeracy, literacy, comprehension and abstract reasoning tests. |
Very old-fashioned but nevertheless provide valid results where such ability is an important criteria to successfully perform the job. |
Personality |
Psychological tests such as Myer Briggs Type Indicator can reveal personality traits such as whether the person is an extravert, emotionally stable, agreeable, conscientious and inquisitive. |
The jury is out on whether such testing provides valid and reliable indications of how a person will behave on the job. May not be worth the expenditure. |
Don’t go there! Topics to avoid
In this age of politically correct behaviour, you may feel hesitant to ask potential employees some very personal questions, even where they may be relevant to the performance of the job. Certainly many topics exist that you must not probe, and those matters are more thoroughly discussed in Chapter 12. However, you may venture into many personal topics — and probably should enquire about these topics — before you select the right person for the job.
Asking a personal question of a potential employee during the course of an interview or assessment is generally okay if the question is relevant to the performance of the job and the environment in which the job is performed. It’s what you do with the answer that may get you into trouble — that is, not offering a job because of the personal attributes may be contrary to the law if you don’t pay proper attention to the inherent requirements of the job and the practicality of making adjustments to the work environment.
Personal attributes
A person mustn’t be discriminated against in the offering of employment where the reason is based on personal attributes or traits such as age, race, colour, sex, religion, nationality, pregnancy, marital status, physical or mental disability, national extraction, political opinion or social origin. In some circumstances, discriminating on the basis of the person’s criminal record is also unlawful.
Therefore, you should avoid any questioning and assessment of a potential employee on these traits unless you have a genuine occupational requirement for a person to have a particular attribute to perform the work or where a person’s attribute would prevent them from performing the inherent requirements of the job.
Exceptions to the rule
The genuine occupational requirement exemption is generally limited to personal traits such as sex, race and disability and applies in specific circumstances — where you have a need, for example, to ensure authenticity in a theatrical performance and in relation to public decency. Jobs in public toilets or changing room attendants in public baths or pools are further examples.
Anti-discrimination laws recognise that it may sometimes be difficult to accommodate a person in a business where the person’s disability means that he can’t perform the inherent requirements of the job, or requires services or facilities in order to perform the fundamental requirements of the job that impose an unreasonable burden or hardship on the employer.
The inherent requirements of the job are the fundamental aspects of a job that the person must be able to perform in order to satisfy the essential objective of the job. For example, a delivery driver must be capable of acquiring a driver’s licence and be physically able to see and perform all of the functions necessary to drive a vehicle. A person whose job is to answer the telephone, converse with customers and greet and direct visitors to the business in English must be sufficiently capable of communicating in this language.
Although the definition of inherent requirements isn’t necessarily associated with the operational requirements of the business, the exemption would usually apply in circumstances consistent with the operational requirements of a business. For instance, a person who has young children or a dependent grandparent who requires daily care may not be able to meet the inherent requirements of a commercial sales job. Frequent travel may be both an operational imperative and fundamental requirement for the performance of the role, and this would entitle you as an employer to refuse that person the job because of the inability to meet the requirements.
Be aware that the inherent requirements of the job exemption only apply where the required facilities, adjustments or services that would enable the person to perform the job would impose an unreasonable burden or hardship on the business. Each particular circumstance must be considered on its merits. General exemptions don’t apply.
Reasonable adjustments to the workplace
Some disabilities may be obvious so don’t be shy to ask about them — you’re obliged to consider whether the person could be employed (all other things being equal) were you to make reasonable adjustments to the workplace to accommodate the disability.
Make sure you enquire in a manner that’s sensitive and raised in the context of the work environment and job expectations. The question itself isn’t discriminatory. What you do with the information — that is, your decision regarding the employment of this person — is what’s important. Therefore, before you make a decision to either employ or not employ a person who has disclosed personal health information that will affect her capacity to perform the job, ask yourself: ‘Am I able to make any reasonable adjustments to the job or the workplace that would enable the person to perform the role?’
What constitutes a reasonable adjustment has no fixed rules, but may include the installation of a wheelchair ramp, adjustment of the hours of work, or purchase of specialised equipment. What’s required will depend upon the circumstances of the individual person who has applied for a job in your business.
You’re expected to have made a reasonable effort to inform yourself of measures that can be taken to adjust the workplace to accommodate employees with disabilities.
A Fit and Proper Person
When you employee a person, you take on the whole package. In this modern working world you can’t reasonably require employees to leave their family life and other problems at home. Therefore, you’re entitled to know a bit more about candidates than just whether they can perform the selection criteria, before you decide to employ them.
Health issues
Finding a balance between the need to know about prospective employees’ state of health and their right to privacy can be difficult. This information is both personal and sensitive and is subject to national privacy laws. Countered against this is the duty to ensure the health, safety and welfare of all the people who work in your business.
So how can you resolve this conundrum?
Genuine occupational requirements allow you to exclude people who don’t possess attributes specific to the performance of the job or environment in which the job is located or performed (refer to the preceding section for more on this). Therefore, questions on candidates’ state of health may be asked in some circumstances. For example, the fitness level of a personal trainer employed at a gym.
Secondly, you may invite prospective employees to disclose to you any illness, injuries or disability that may inhibit their capacity to perform the job. You can even place a section on an application form for the person to complete before they’re interviewed. However, you must let them know before they fill out the form the purpose of acquiring the information and that it won’t be disclosed to anyone for any other purpose.
Figure 3-4 shows a sample application form with space for answering the question.
Candidates don’t have to disclose personal health information to you (that is, they can choose not to give you any information about their health at all). However, if they choose not to do so, you may take the failure to disclose into account in deciding upon the person that you select for the job.
Criminal record checks
If you really want to know whether a potential employee has been convicted in the past of a criminal offence, you need to adhere to a few rules.
Firstly, denying employment to a person on the basis of her criminal record is acceptable as long as the criminal conviction is for an offence that’s relevant to the nature of the job that you’re advertising. Denying a person a job because he has a criminal record per se is not acceptable.
Discrimination on the grounds of an irrelevant criminal record is unlawful in the Northern Territory and Tasmania, while discrimination on the grounds of a spent conviction (that is, a reasonable period of time has elapsed without further conviction) is unlawful in Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory.
Both the Northern Territory and Tasmanian anti-discrimination laws recognise that the offence for which the person was convicted may, in some circumstances, be directly relevant to the performance of the job and, therefore, the person may be denied the job for that reason. Each of these laws also includes a specific exemption with respect to discrimination in relation to the education, training or care of children.
In both Tasmania and the Northern Territory, a variety of legal remedies are available if a finding of discrimination is made, including issuing an order to not repeat the conduct, to pay compensation or to take specific action such as re-employing a person.
The states other than Tasmania and Western Australia distinguish between ‘unlawful’ discrimination and conduct that carries no real or practical sanction. Explaining what this distinction means would get me into the kind of legal jargon and obfuscation that is beyond the scope of this book.
Even if your business is outside Tasmania, Western Australia, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory, follow this general rule when deciding whether to investigate a person’s criminal record: Check the record if the nature of the job necessitates hiring a person without a criminal record.
Examples of jobs where conducting a criminal history check is worthwhile (and, in some instances, mandatory) are bookkeepers, childcare workers, coaches for children’s sporting teams, and personal care workers for older or disabled persons.
Criminal records are kept by police services in each state and territory in Australia, and you can request a criminal history check with the consent of the person being considered. The police can issue a National Police Certificate that will provide information searched on every database throughout Australia.
If you do receive information from a police check that shows a conviction, you still have an important issue to address before you reach any final conclusion as to the suitability of the person for your business. Is the criminal record relevant to the job that you’re offering? For example, a person convicted of fraud or dishonestly isn’t going to be a suitable bookkeeper for your business. However, a drunk and disorderly offence committed while on schoolies week when the person was 18 years old may not seriously exclude the person from becoming your office cleaner or food and beverage attendant. Every case depends upon the individual circumstances.