In order to inform and support the success of both your selection and retention processes, you must accurately measure the talent of every candidate and employee in your organization. By accurately measuring talent, you are able to ensure that you successfully match the best talent to the job you hire them for. This way, company managers will be able to know the key factors which will enable them to successfully motivate, manage and develop the talents of each individual.
Moreover, accurate talent measurement also ensures that jobs are performed at superior levels. This is because teams are able to work much more effectively and profitably. Talent measurement will also enable each individual to understand their strengths and challenges, and therefore learn how to best adapt to the work environment.
Accurately measuring talent also ensures that talent is properly identified, developed, and allowed an opportunity to succeed on an ongoing basis.
In order to accurately measure talent, you need to conduct interviews which will truly reveal what you want to know about the particular candidate. For this you will first need to conduct tandem interviewing, as well as include arranged reference calls. Keeping in mind the saying that "the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior", be sure to also ask questions based on the past behavior of the candidate during the interview itself.
During selection, you need to have clarity on the job benchmark and what the position essentially requires. This will enable you to have a comprehensive picture of how the performance of the individual will compare to the job requirements. Such information will enable the recruiter to ensure that there is minimal bias during the selection process; that there is consensus within the company as to what the performance of the candidate will be measured against as they do their job, as well as ensuring that all expectations on the candidate are measured and they are not expected to be superman or superwoman.
In order to ensure that the individual will be able to meet all the benchmarks of the job, you need to measure the following 3 facets of talent:
- Behavior or the behavioral traits of the individual - This involves evaluating how the candidate does their job. In order to evaluate this, you need to factor in various aspects of their job requirements such as whether the job entails data analysis, frequent interaction with other people, as well as the levels of competitiveness that go with that particular position.
- The individual's attributes or core skills - You need to understand what capacities the candidate will bring to the job. In order to find a perfect match, you will need to take into account whether the position requires a capacity for results orientation or accountability for others.
- Motivators and rewards - For this you will need to understand what motivates the candidate, and why they do the job. You therefore need to know beforehand whether the job rewards a passion for ROI or whether it rewards a passion for knowledge.
We have the tools necessary to accurately measure all of these areas for each candidate, employee, and the requirements of these for the job itself.
Written by our associate writer Gary Sorrell - copyright protected worldwide. All rights reserved.
