Originally published by Lou Adler on LinkedIn: Achieving "Q" - The Superfecta of Hiring
I just saw another Gallup report lamenting about the high level of dissatisfaction of the U.S. workforce and blaming most of the problem on hiring managers. I suspect the problem is worldwide.
I don’t agree with their strengths-based solution, however. As far as I’m concerned there’s a much simpler approach: throw away skills-based job descriptions and have hiring managers prepare performance-based job descriptions before ever hiring another person. A performance-based job description defines the work that needs to be done as a series of performance objectives, not an endless list of skills, experiences and competencies.
Making this shift is necessary if you want to arrive at point “Q” shown in Peter Yu’s cool graph. This is the optimum hiring decision where cost is reasonable, quality is highest, time to fill is short, interview accuracy is about perfect and the job is a great move for the candidate. “Q” represents the superfecta of hiring where everybody wins: the hiring manager, the candidate, the recruiter and the company.
Once the performance-based job description has been prepared to get to “Q” you next need to classify job seekers into one of these four buckets:
The known: People you know personally.
As long as the job is similar, interviewing accuracy will be high and time to fill fast for people you know who are available. However, they might not be the best people for the job. These people frequently get hired for the wrong reasons; typically the pressure to fill the job is more important than their ability to excel in it.
The semi-known: People who are well-known by people who are well-known to you.
In networking terms these second degree connections are called “weak connections.” This is the sweet spot for top talent. By asking people whom you know, “Who are the best people you know doing (describe the real job)?” you’ll find a few great people. Of course, you’ll need to recruit these people since it’s unlikely they’ll be actively looking for a new job. However, if you can hire these people in a timely fashion AND they find the job a true career move, achieving “Q” is highly likely.
The less well-known: People who are well-known by someone you could get to know.
By connecting to co-workers in your company whom you don’t know, you’ll be able to tap into a huge source of top talent. For example, to find top engineers connect with product marketing managers working in a related field. Using LinkedIn Recruiter you can then search on their connections to “cherry pick” some ideal prospects. Then ask the product managers to qualify the person and ask if the person would find the job a career move. If so, contact and recruit these people. This adds some time to the process but they represent a great pool of talent for achieving “Q.”