Assessing External Candidates

Introduction

Companies and businesses require the right personnel to well fit in the respective job positions. The process of vetting or choosing the right applicants to work in the prospect divisions in the workplace can be overwhelming at some point. The task of doing so is one of the most challenging tasks since every company wants to end up hiring qualified personnel who well fits the job requirements. Assessing external candidates is a practical resource that requires hiring managers, human resource professionals as well as consultants to be diverse in choosing the right method and tactics to conduct this task. The two most important factors to consider is checking on the strengths and weaknesses of the presented assessment methods to be applied. The fundamental goal of conducting this assessment is to be able to hire the right personnel for a specific job. The same also help in identifying individuals who have the highest chances of performing poorly in their jobs.

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Assessment Goals

The primary goal of assessing external candidates is to make sure that a company gets the right persons to not only work in their fields but also to help in the execution of the company`s objectives. For this to be possible, various factors are essential to check to achieve the same.

Personal job fitness: Here a firm will check on an individual`s capabilities as well as demands for the specific job. The firm will also check on the person`s desire concerning the job not forgetting to question on his or her principal motivation to feel fit in that position. The most effective recruitment will have clear and high standards set to ensure that an employee will fit the requirements needed (Phillips, 2015). It will also provide that the set job meets the person`s needs. In case an individual is motivated by the wages quoted or by the expected commissions he or she is not fit to work in a team and deliver maximum cooperation. On the other hand, an individual who does not feel free associating with fellow workers is not equipped to serve in a customer service desk.

Person to group fitness: Another important factor to check on is the person`s fitness with the potential team or pool of workers in a firm. In this section, there must be an evaluation of whether he or she will cooperate with co-workers as well as supervisors (Phillips,2015). Here persons must prove themselves fit with the practical skills and styles as well as comply with the goals. If an individual can present these attributes, then there are high chances that he or she will be committed and willing to work for the firm for the most extended period possible.

Persons to organization fitness: In this section, a person`s beliefs, personality, and values, fit with the set culture, values and norms of the company. The highest level of this fitness suggests that an employee`s job satisfaction will also be high as well as commitment and devotion in conducting the responsibilities assigned (Gully& Phillips, 2012). An added value is that if an employee fits into this category, there is a likelihood that he or she will assist fellow employees in areas that are necessary. A person whose has styles that march those of the organization`s business strategy and culture are likely to be more successful than those who do not.

Accurate Assessment

During the assessment process, the higher the criteria, the harder the process will be. In short, if the system wants to achieve top-notch results, then various measures must be employed to ensure that the same happens. The criteria used must be applied to ensure that poor habits and unwanted characters are rooted out in the process (Gully& Phillips, 2012). Hiring people who are good performers will generate various advantages in the firm while hiring bad performers will only lead to losses. To add on to that, when unfit persons are employed to work in high-risk tasks like accountancy, firms might not only incur losses inwards but also create a bad reputation for their customers and other stakeholders. To avoid a scenario like that from happening, the assessment process must be accurate to keep off errors.

Assessment System

An assessment system handles all the assessment work. In simple terms, it the tool used by a firm to assess external candidates for the particular job vacancies. It is good to note that, the more a firm invests in the system, the higher the chances of achieving the desired results. Although to some managers this might not be a factor to consider because of expenses, the same cannot be compared to the benefits that will be reaped in future. This fact is true because the longer good employees stay in an organization, the higher the profits that the firm will get. Good performers will always give maximum output in their work which is to the advantage of the company. The Return on Investment in such a case will be the improved performance in the workplace gotten from the assessment system that yields good workers (Malakate, 2007). However, a significant number of managers are more influenced by the relationship between performance and assessment methods than ROI formulas. Staffing and recruiting should be seen as an investment and not as a cost. The more expensive a system is, the higher the quality of the results.

Stakeholders' Consideration

Another important concept in the assessment process is considering the needs of the prospect stakeholders. For example, it is recommendable to review the steps, duration, and language that the recruiters will be on the external candidates. If not considered, some of these factors might be a burden or stressful to them. A recruiter may feel that making phone calls and enquiring so much from an applicant as a burden (Malakate,2007). Moreover, the use of strict language which he or she is not used to might be difficult, and this might be lead to qualifying the wrong applicants. On the other hand, it might also be unpleasing for applicants if they have to make three or more visits to the company for assessments. Some of these factors must not be too extreme because they even lead to lack of applicants in future.

Screening the Assessment Methods

Cover letters and resumes: One major problem of using resumes and cover letters to assess applicants is that they do not submit the same format and information which makes it hard to make a good comparison (Malakate, 2007). Some applicants may send resumes will a lot of details while others will give the same with minimum details. Also, applicants chose to submit additional information for them to fit in the vacancies they are applying. However, this habit can be eliminated by requiring them to sign an agreement form that if any information is found to be biased, they will be terminated from the process without notice. Also, applicants who submit resumes with minimum details should be requested to provide additional unbiased information in the form of writing or edit their resumes.

Job applications: Every candidate is required to give written documents that entail their type of skills and level of education. Other relevant information may include job experiences and previous companies where he or she had worked before. Firms should consider the of an online application (Phillips, 2015). This method will catalyze the work of recruiters, and it is also fast compared to the formal process. Also, applicants can be contacted and asked to provide relevant information regarding any matter that may arise when going through their applications.

Use of weight application blank: This approach is used to collect and analyze information from present candidates. Here, job experts are needed to give or rate the provided information of an applicant for a specific position. However, it involves a small process where: an employee characteristic is chosen, a prediction is made over the desired employee outcomes, a question evaluation is done, and the score per each applicant decides whether he will be a good performer or not.

Collection of Biographical Information

In simple terms, a collection of biographical data is done through questioning a candidate over his or her interests, training, education, and work experiences. It may also involve examination of specific personal characteristics like preferences and achievement orientation for both teamwork and also on individual levels. The biographical information allows applicants to give additional personal aspects about who they are, their success and experience in occupational and social educational elements (Phillips, 2015). However, in this model, an applicant is restricted to include specific information which is not relevant in the workplace. On the other hand, recruiters are not allowed to fetch for specific irrelevant information from the applicant. This factor is considered to ensure that a candidate is not denied a job position because of issues that are not related to work like religion or race.

Work Samples

A candidate should be requested to perform some sample work that can see which well relates to his place of application. These samples can also include simulations where an applicant is provided with a real task that he or she is supposed to handle in case one is hired. An applicant can also be presented with a scenario in the workplace and requested to act accordingly (Phillips, 2015). These factors can always help to identify the most creative persons as well as those who are familiar with what they have applied for.

Importance of Assessment

Candidate assessment is essential because it enables a firm to be high the best personnel for the right job. For companies that have hired low performers, assessment ensures that such a mistake is not repeated. Also, companies can minimize the cost of training employees now and then which will be to the benefit of the firm. Although the primary goal of hiring qualified personnel to increase productivity, it is good to hire someone who can stick and help a company achieve its objectives.

References

Gully, S. M., & Phillips, J. M. (2012). Assessing external job candidates. Society for Human Resource Management.

Malakate, A., Andriopoulos, C., & Gotsi, M. (2007). Assessing job candidates' creativity: Propositions and future research directions. Creativity and Innovation Management, 16(3), 307-316.

Phillips, J. M., & Gully, S. M. (2015). Strategic Staffing. Hoboken, NJ: Pearson.