The Right Match

By Dinah Daniels

The scenario is familiar to human resources professionals, hiring managers and CIOs. A job opening occurs in an organization, and a file drawer full of r¿m¿is pulled open to start the arduous task of finding the right candidate.

If the company is on its toes, a written job description may exist, giving the human resources department a road map to the educational background, job experience, skills and qualifications the ideal candidate should possess.

However, if HR proceeds with interviewing candidates before performing one critical internal assessment, a potential hire who looks great on paper may, in fact, be the wrong person for the job.

First, the HR department should interview the job before interviewing the job candidates in an effort to define a job profile. This profile should include information about key result areas, critical connections in the company, behaviors, values and education, and experience required to perform the job.

Creating a job profile can provide an organization with far more useful information than a written job description. While a job description states the functions of a specific job and the education, background and skills required to perform it, a job profile illustrates how the job fits into the context of the company. It profiles the key people in the organization with whom the person holding the job will interact. It looks at values and how the job impacts the entire organization, as well as specific, measurable outcomes of job performance.

With the creation of a job profile for a given position, a company connects that position to the entire organization in a meaningful way, something that is particularly relevant for IS positions. Creating a job profile requires human resources professionals, line managers and department supervisors to work together to establish a consistent understanding of how a job should be filled and the type of person who should fill it.

Traditionally, the interview and selection process is viewed as a chore that happens in isolation from everything else in a company. But with the creation of a job profile, which uses input from everyone who is affected in an organization, the decision makers are able to take a more comprehensive view.

The second critical step in the interviewing and selection process is building a candidate profile. Based on the job profile, the candidate profile will give the hiring managers a clear picture of the person needed for the job before they meet a single candidate.