• 
• Training
• Consulting
• Resources
• Store
• About Us

• » Articles
• › The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent
• › Newsletters

Back to Basics: Understanding Real Job Needs

By Lou Adler, February 5, 2008

As far as I'm concerned, to be a great recruiter you need to understand real job needs. This is the core competency of the best recruiters. I've never met a top 20% recruiter who didn't understand that the real job was not the job description. A job description just lists skills, qualification, experience requirements, and an overview of responsibilities. The real job is what the person does every day: solving problems, making things happen, influencing others, overcoming challenges, making decisions, and getting results consistently. Those recruiters who use the job description to screen candidates are little more than box checkers, missing out on some great people who have comparable but not identical backgrounds.

Read more articles by this author.

Related Topics:

The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Newsletter

Related Articles:

Recruiting Metrics

Winning Despite a Weak Hand

10 Great Tips for Using LinkedIn to Find the Best Passive Candidates on the Planet

In order to expand their candidate pool and attract more top performers good recruiters know they must be able to shift the hiring manager's primary decision criteria away from emphasizing qualifications to emphasizing real job needs--what the person needs to accomplish to be considered successful. They also know that top candidates want a complete understanding of real job needs (both short- and long-term) in order to compare opportunities. When presented properly the growth and challenge your job offers can offset compensation and beat the competition. None of this is possible unless the recruiter, the hiring manager, and everyone on the hiring team understands real job needs.

When recruiters understand these real job needs they are far more credible when discussing the job with candidates, are far more confident when presenting candidates to their hiring manager clients, and are far more productive. Fewer candidates need to be seen, there is far less guesswork involved, and it's much easier to address all candidate and hiring manager concerns.

When hiring managers understand real job needs they naturally focus on a candidate’s ability to meet the performance objectives of the job while minimizing emotional biases. They also come across as far more credible from the top candidate’s perspective, since they’re discussing and evaluating the substance of the job, not the superficialities. This is critical since the job match, current challenges, and future opportunities are the primary criteria top performers use when comparing different job opportunities. (For more on this, here’s an article in this series on the psychology of candidate decision-making.)

When those on the interviewing team understand real job needs they stop using their personal selection criteria to determine candidate competency. Not only does this increase assessment accuracy, it also sends a powerful message to the candidate when everyone is on the same page regarding the job. Top candidates get very concerned about a job when members of the interviewing team describe it differently.

I find it odd that managers are reluctant to work with their recruiters and interviewing team members to agree on real job needs before starting to source and interviewing candidates. Good candidates always ask questions about the real job during the interview, so it needs to be done anyway. Getting everyone on the same page prevents misunderstandings and time-wasters, so any additional up-front time is offset by less time interviewing unqualified or uninterested candidates. Presenting the real job should also be part of the on-boarding process as expectations are clarified and specific requirements are described. As part of the typical performance management system, the new employee’s performance should be compared against targeted performance to determine gaps and developmental needs.

It’s well documented that clarifying expectations up-front will increase job satisfaction and on-the-job performance. (See First, Break All the Rules – What the World’s Best Managers Do Differently for more on this.) On the flip side, the primary reason top people under-perform on the job is that the real job was different than expected. As a minimum, the real job should consist of the 5-6 primary performance objectives, including the major MBOs and some of the critical interim or sub-steps. Collectively, I refer to this prioritized listing of real job needs as a performance profile.

As part of the performance-based interviewing process I recommend, you’ll use these performance objectives as benchmarks looking for gaps and voids in the candidate’s background. As long as the gaps aren’t too great, they then can be presented as growth opportunities for the candidate to consider when comparing your opportunity against others the person is considering. This is a great way to prevent compensation from becoming the primary means of negotiating the offer.

Here is a short summary of how to work with the hiring manager and hiring team when taking the assignment and getting everyone to agree to the real job needs. Once you’ve tried these you’ll want to read these more in-depth articles on how to prepare performance profiles and download a few examples.

Preparing Performance Profiles By Clarifying Real Job Needs

A basic performance objective consists of three parts – an action verb, a task or deliverable, and a time frame. For example, “complete the department budget by March.” Once you have prepared 6-8 performance objectives review them with the hiring team and put them in priority order. Getting agreement here is important. A little arguing isn’t a bad thing. This way – as long as agreement is reached – everyone on the hiring team has a clear understanding of real job needs. This will come across loud and clear to the candidate during the interview. The performance-based interview I recommend involves each interviewer asking candidates to describe significant accomplishments comparable to those described in the performance profile. Digging deep into accomplishments like this is a great way to assess competency, fit, and interest.

Understanding real job needs is an essential component of a hiring process designed to bring in more top performers. As a minimum it allows for a far more accurate assessment of both competency and motivation. In the process it minimizes the impact of bad selection decisions due to emotions and personal biases. Ads describing the performance needs of the job are far more appealing to the fully qualified and they attract other high potential candidates who have comparable, if not identical, experience. When everyone on the selection team understands real job needs, assessment accuracy increases, more top people are seen and hired without compensation being the driving force, and fewer people are brought on who may be competent, but unwilling to do the work really required. It all starts by using a performance profile rather than a job description when sourcing, interviewing, and recruiting candidates.