Getting under the skin of a candidate in an interview to figure out if they can really do what they say they can do is an on-going challenge. IKEA seems to have a novel approach to interviews!
Whilst you are having a giggle, it might surprise you to learn that giving a candidate an “IKEA test” will reveal several things about their underlying motivations and working style.
The candidates who are going to love this challenge are likely to have an Options pattern. They don’t need a fixed starting point (as in no instruction manual to follow!) and they love thinking outside the box. If that’s what you want in your new employee, then this is a possible interview test to give them.
On the downside, you might find that they might never finish the chair building task as they might get distracted by all the possibilities and options available to them to put the chair together!
The candidates who are going to find this task really testing, are likely to have a Procedures pattern. They like to have a starting point, with a manual or step by step guide to follow. This is because they are motivated to follow processes rather than invent them.
If you think the “IKEA test” is a bit extreme and poses a health and safety risk, don’t despair! There are much simpler ways of understanding what makes your candidates tick in the interview by just listening to their language patterns or carrying out a LAB Profile.
The Language and Behavioural (LAB) Profile allows you as the interviewer to understand how people make decisions and what is important to them. Starting with the job specification, you are able to analyse what motivations you need people to have to carry out the tasks you need them to do. Then all you need to do is listen out for the corresponding language patterns because the way we speak tells the listener how we are motivated in 14 different ways in a specific context – without a hammer and nail in sight! How beneficial do you think that would be in your business?
To find out more, you can download information on Talent Management using the LAB Profile here or chat to Katherine Wiid who works with organisations to get the best out of their employees. She can be contacted on 01780 484910 or www.recrion.co.uk.
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When Reid Hoffman started LinkedIn a decade ago, he wanted it to be a platform to put employers in touch with the best talent available.
It has been an exciting and painful journey, but at last LinkedIn seems to have found it's niche and remained credible in the 21st century race for social networking supremacy.
LinkedIn is about to post it's first quarter results. If you are interested in sourcing talent on social media, you may find this summary from Next Web on LinkedIn's three talent solution products helpful.
Recrion is a specialist in career and talent management, and works with organisations to streamline their recruitment and retain and motivate their employees. For more information contact us on +44 (0)1780 484910 or visit www.recrion.co.uk
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The long awaited spring of 2013 has arrived and with it good news from a recent BBC report that UK hiring plans are at a 19 month high in the UK. Reading this report raises the questions:
- What does an increase in hiring and recruitment mean in your business?
- Are you ready for the interview and recruitment process?
- Are you planning a spring clean of your hiring processes and thinking about improving your talent management strategy?
If you are interested to know what the trends in hiring and retaining talent are in 2013, take a look at this short video clip.
Recrion is a specialist in career and talent management, and works with organisations to streamline their recruitment and retain and motivate their employees. For more information contact us on +44 (0)1780 484910 or visit www.recrion.co.uk
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Courtesy of Harry Lichtman
Have you heard of the term VUCA? (pronounced voo – ka). It is a great ex-military inspired acronym that sounds like a form of witchcraft when you say it out loud!
VUCA describes the unpredictable and chaotic business, economic, and environmental upheavals that we are experiencing not just in the UK, but globally. But what does VUCA stand for?
Volatility – where things change fast with no predictable trend or repeatable pattern
Uncertainty – frequent major “disruptive” changes - preparing for “what will come next” is extremely difficult
Complexity — where there are numerous difficult-to-understand causes and effects involved in a problem
Ambiguity – where the “who, what, where, when, how, and why” behind the causes are hazy with the potential for misinterpretation.
- The extensive use of social tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to find talent. Revenue numbers released on 7 February 2013 show LinkedIn brought in more total revenue for the year than did Monster and its fourth-quarter recruitment revenue alone was 90% above the same quarter in 2011.
- The building of in-house Executive Search capability – the likes of Microsoft are snapping up headhunters to work for them in-house. The potential savings in search fees and the ability to be pro-active in the search for top talent makes an internal approach look very attractive in most cases.
- The use of psychological assessment tools such as LAB Profile to uncover much more about a candidate's ability to respond to stress and deal with change than the traditional skills and competencies approach. Skills need to be learned and have a long lead time, whereas motivations are innate and predict how a candidate is likely to perform at work.
To your talent management success in a VUCA world!
Recrion is a specialist in career and talent management, and works with organisations to streamline their recruitment and retain and motivate their employees. For more information contact us on +44 (0)1780 484910 or visit www.recrion.co.uk
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It was interesting to read the recent thoughts of Hays Chief Executive, Alistair Cox, who expressed his concern at the imbalanced picture of the world’s labour forces.
The newly-launched Hays Global Skills Index 2012 has suggested that there is ‘a fundamental mismatch between the skills needed, and the ability of systems (such as education systems) to balance that’.
Of particular interest was the statistic that 80% of UK employers reported “some sort of problem” in recruiting the skilled talent they needed.
Employing the right talent can be a tricky business. But does the blame lie solely with education systems that aren’t delivering the skills needed to balance the world’s workforce?
We recently discussed how relying on the traditional “CV – interview – appointment” approach to hiring represented a huge risk.
Could the talent gap be minimised by focussing in equal measure on the candidates’ values, motivations and attitude – as well as their skills and experience?
“It's difficult to change someone's attitude – so hire for attitude and train for skill.” Richard Branson.
With the way that the world of work is changing, coupled with constant improvements in technology, no one person is going to have all the skills required for a particular job. A degree of training will always be required.
Instead, we need to be thinking about the motivations behind the tasks that employees need to do. An ‘Away From’ person is highly motivated to problem-solve and troubleshoot and can learn the particular skills required to do a support role, for example.
The solution to the skills gap is to start aligning skills with attitudes and motivations because top talent is not good at what they do purely because of their “skills”. If it were simply all about skills, the job could be done by a robot. Behind every physical action a human carries out is an emotion or feeling that either makes them want to do something or not.
Tools based on cognitive science such as the Language & Behavioural Profile can give businesses a real insight into a candidate’s mind-set before they become a part of the company.
Perhaps most importantly, given the Hays report, these tools will establish whether their skills and innate motivations are a close match to the positions they are recruiting for.
The result? A much rosier picture of the current skills and talent within the UK workforce!
Sound Interesting? Why not find out more about LAB and Job Profiling and how it can help your organisation.
Katherine Wiid is a specialist in talent management and motivation pattern recognition. She can be contacted on +44 (0)1780 484910 or via katherine@recrion.co.uk.
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Recruitment Risks
How do you go about hiring new staff for your organisation?
A decade ago, the recruitment procedure pretty much went without saying:
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CVs
Interview Process
Appointment
For many, this tried-and-tested system is still their chosen formula when it comes to hiring new staff.
But with more methods, tools and techniques available to recruiters than ever, more and more organisations are thinking outside the box. And, what’s more, it’s paying off.
People respond differently in job interviews. Nerves have scuppered the chance of many top candidates. Others find it difficult to prove and emphasise their capabilities. Meanwhile, ‘talkers’ tend to succeed and may well charm the interviewer(s), regardless of whether they are the best person for the job.
Relying purely on the CV/interview process is hugely risky and equates to a ‘suck it and see’ approach. It has left many employers, down the line, realising that their new charming employee is actually ill-equipped to cope with their position.
Minimising the Risk
There are a growing number of tools proving increasingly popular with recruiters, as they are seen to minimise the risk of hiring a new employee.
The Language & Behavioural (LAB) Profile is a psycho-linguistic tool that enables us to find out their real motivations and attitudes to their work.
By detecting and analysing someone’s LAB (sub-conscious) patterns, employers are now able to know before hiring someone what sort of working relationship there will be and, most importantly, if the candidate wants to do the job.
Are they in it for the long haul, or are they someone who needs to change job regularly to maximise performance?
Are they pro-active and initiate or reactive and unwilling to take action?
Are they motivated to achieve goals or are they more motivated to avoid problems and move away from issues?
After a 45-minute interview, a LAB profile is able to provide the recruiter with accurate answers to these questions.
Whilst there are plenty of psychometric tools available to recruiters, I have yet to see any that focus on job performance rather than “personality” with a 90% plus accuracy rate of the LAB profile.
By using LAB Profiling, recruiters and line managers are now not only able to ensure they are employing the right person, they are getting an enriched understanding on how to motivate their new employee right from the start.
Most importantly, by using the tools at their disposal, they are minimising the risk and ensuring that they don’t have to repeat the whole recruitment process just months down the line.
Sound Interesting? Why not find out more about LAB and Job Profiling and how it can help your organisation.
Katherine Wiid is a specialist in talent management and motivation pattern recognition. She can be contacted on +44 (0)1780 484910 or via katherine@recrion.co.uk.
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Honesty is the best policy
A job interview can be a strange experience for candidates and hiring managers alike.
While many focus on the nerve-wracking experience of the candidate – trying to sell themselves in a short period of time, whilst coming across as a likeable figure unlikely to ruffle any feathers within the prospective organisation – what is often overlooked is the experience of the interviewer(s). The employer.
If they are taking the process seriously, the hiring manager is also trying to ‘show off’ to their would-be employee. They are trying to show that they have a nice place to work, that they are great people to work for and that the job itself is an interesting and exciting one.
But just like a keen candidate can over-exaggerate their own achievements, this enthusiasm from the employer can lead to a little bit of creative licence when it comes to the job itself. All of which creates an unrealistic impression that can cause a breakdown in the psychological contract between employer and employee.
As we've recently discussed, the cost of hiring and firing someone is – conservatively – 1.5 times a ‘general’ salary and as much as 10 times a senior salary.
So by breaking the psychological contract before the prospective employee has even started, an employer is running the risk of forking out extensive time and money repeating the process.
This means that honesty – from both sides – throughout the application process is absolutely essential. It’s important not to sugar coat the full story of what the role contains.
You may worry that the full truth will cost you your chances of securing a good applicant. But if that person is not committed to the standards of the company, you will lose them at a later stage anyway.
Which will only lead to more costs – and disruption – for your organisation.
Our free Talent Management report explains why so many businesses get it wrong – and shows just how you can avoid their mistakes. Download it here and see how you can save yourself countless time and money and employ the right person for your organisation.
Katherine Wiid is a specialist in talent management and motivation pattern recognition. She can be contacted on +44 (0)1780 484910 or via katherine@recrion.co.uk
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More cuts on the way
Though a recent (minor) improvement in UK employment figures may have hinted at good news, we shouldn't be under any illusions that further turbulent times could still be on the way.
Recent studies have suggested that a hefty £14 billion’s worth of savings are needed to meet George Osborne's deficit target, after economic growth proved weaker than expected.
The double dip recession has meant that redundancies and changes within organisations have been inevitable, from the big businesses right down to the SMEs.
Fortunately, in the east of England at least, help is now at hand; with a Government-funded scheme providing extensive free career support for those affected by redundancy.
The Skills Support for Redundancy (SSR) Scheme provides free funding for individuals who are at risk of redundancy, applying for internal roles as a result of a restructure or have recently been made redundant.
The Scheme is for individuals who live in Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. It offers:
- Extensive Career Guidance
- Skills Assessment
- A training grant worth £675
- Outplacement workshops to help candidates match and market themselves to new and hidden job opportunities
Outplacement
As well as supporting the individuals affected, the SSR Scheme is also able to offer businesses free outplacement support to ease them through these undoubtedly difficult times.
We understand that any form of structural change can lead to major turbulence and upheaval within an organisation. During these tough economic times, we want to allow you to focus on your strategy, enabling us to ensure that both senior management and employees have access to the best selection of training, coaching, leadership development and professional advice for their individual career needs.
To find out more about our Outplacement services and how they can help your business, click here.
If you are an individual who has recently faced redundancy and are wondering if you’re eligible for free career support, click here.
Recrion is a specialist in talent and career management, which means we are able to work with you in order to ensure you are on the right career path. Contact Katherine Wiid on 01780 484910 or email katherine@recrion.co.uk to find out how we can help you.
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The stigma of depression, schizophrenia, anxiety and the many other words that "label" the 1 in 4 people who have suffered – or will suffer from – mental health disorders at work, are blown away by Stuart Jessup. His epic 2,600 walk round the UK man showed that mental health problems needn’t be a stumbling block to success.
Many HR professionals suspect that stress and mental health issues are the biggest cause of sickness absence in their organisation, despite relatively few employees actually coming forward and disclosing a mental health issue. It's an issue that needs to be talked about, and Stuart Jessup who suffered from depression for many years, is doing just that.
Stuart strode the length and breadth of the UK along with his loyal dog to raise money and awareness for Mental Health Charities, finally completing his 2,600 mile trek in June 2012 having set-off nine months earlier.
Stuart and Poppy
On Tuesday 9 October he is set to share his full incredible story with delegates in an illustrated talk and questions and answers session at the Conference hall at Ida Darwin near Cambridge.
If you would like to mark National Mental Health Day which falls on 10th October this year, do join us. This is an incredible opportunity to hear first-hand how one man and his dog conquered one of the toughest physical and mental challenges imaginable.
The walk raised much-needed funds for SANE and Anxiety UK, and £5 from the £12.50 ticket price to this unmissable event includes a donation to mental health charities. The price also includes refreshments and canapés. Contact Katherine Wiid on 01780 484910 for more information.
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To clone or not to clone
In theory, replacing an outgoing staff member is a fairly easy task.
Look at what their role contains, analyse what they do and employ the person whose skills are the closest match to the outgoing candidate.
Simple.
But while trying to clone a departing member of staff may seem like the right thing to do – particularly if you are losing a valued member of your team – it is can end up proving to be a very costly move for your business.
While the new recruit’s skills and experience may meet your desired requirements, it doesn’t necessarily mean that their attitude or motivation is the same as that of their predecessor.
As we've previously discussed, an individual’s motivation and attitude account for at least 40% of their overall working performance. So to simply hire an individual because they have a similar skill-set to the staff member they are replacing is a dangerous, and potentially costly, move.
Instead, consider the kind of motivations they are likely to need to succeed in the position. Do they need to follow a set process or think outside the box? Do they need to work on their own or be part of a team? How much change do they need to be able to deal with?
Also, think about the role itself. Has it changed since your previous employee joined your organisation? Is it likely to change again? Are the qualities you hired the previous incumbent for the same ones you’d be looking for in their replacement?
When you start to consider the endless list of questions that need answering and realise that hiring an employee isn’t simply about cloning the person they’re replacing, things suddenly aren't so easy.
Our free Talent Management Report will help you to navigate around someone of these tricky issues, save you time and expense and ensure that you hire the right person for your organisation.
Sound interesting? Katherine Wiid is an experienced specialist in talent management and motivation pattern recognition. Call her on +44 (0)1780 484910 or email Katherine@recrion.co.uk to see what she can do for your business.
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