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Multi-stakeholder Job Analysis - Part I

By Lou Adler, February 3, 2009

Here's a basic truism: the further the recruiter is from the hiring manager, the less effective he or she will be in finding top performers. It's pretty obvious that the better you know the hiring manager and the job you're representing, the more insightful and professional you'll be when sourcing, qualifying, and recruiting candidates.

Recruiters who aren't partners or closely aligned with their hiring manager clients regarding real job needs send in too many unqualified candidates and have little influence with them. Collectively, this makes it difficult to close the candidate, overcome basic concerns, and to even get referrals.

The best recruiters are subject matter experts. Part of this is understanding the job from all perspectives. The best recruiters are on top of industry and compensation trends, and they understand the competition and market for the types of people they represent. All of this allows the recruiter to be a consultant to their hiring managers and a career advisor to their candidates. Working off a job description and sending out resumes of candidates the recruiter barely knows to hiring managers the recruiter has never met is the polar opposite of being a top recruiter.

An understanding of real job needs is the prerequisite to becoming a partner and in turn a career advisor. In my opinion the best way to clarify these real job needs is by preparing a performance profile when taking the assignment. A performance profile is not the job description. A job description lists skills and experience requirements. A performance profile lists results, key projects, and performance objectives. Converting traditional job descriptions into performance profiles is fully described in my book, Hire With Your Head (Wiley, 2007), and summarized in this earlier article.

Most hiring managers recognize that having all of the skills and experience listed on a job description doesn't mean the person is going to be successful. But getting the hiring manager to clarify job expectations; describe critical tasks, projects, and challenges; and give you some insight into the employee value proposition requires persistence and confidence. If you're a really good recruiter you'll get the hiring manager to focus more on the performance expectations than the skills and experience when assessing competency. However, this gets more difficult to do the more bureaucratic the organization, or when dealing with any governmental agency or contractor. In these cases a modification to the performance profile is necessary. 

In the non-government world there is a great deal of flexibility in how competency is assessed. In the world of government contracting it doesn't really matter how competent the person is as long as the candidate possesses all of the skills and experiences listed on the job description and has the right clearance. Regardless of what end of the spectrum you're on here, there are plenty of other people who want to add their conditions into the hiring and assessment mix. For the comp person it's to develop appropriate salary ranges. For the attorney it's to ensure compliance with equal employment opportunity regulations. If you're in HR or OD you want to make sure it covers all of the appropriate behaviors described in your competency model. The recruiter wants to use it to attract and convince a worthy person it's a great opportunity. Yet, the person most ignored in the process is the ideal candidate, who doesn't care about most of this stuff. What he or she cares about is the growth opportunity, a chance to make an impact, the chance to learn new skills, work with a great team, be mentored, and receive a competitive comp and benefit package. A multi-stakeholder job analysis brings all of these often conflicting needs together into one common document.

In part II of this article, I include an actual sample of a complete multi-stakeholder job analysis, but some examples will help clarify what this actually means.

Let's start by taking a typical mid-level software developer role requiring 3-5 years of experience using J2ee/Java, .net, XML, SQL, and COTS integration, plus an ability to obtain a government clearance. General responsibilities include taking a lead role in the development of a data management program. A typical ad for this is found on Dice which is pretty boring, emphasizing the "must haves" and a host of other required skills with specific years of experiences listed. Somewhere in the listing will be the company boilerplate describing how great the company is, which sounds just like every other company listed, with the most significant differentiator being the prettier logo. 

The likelihood that a top person will find this ad and go through the rigors of applying is comparable to a needle in the haystack search. Even if a great person with all of these skills finds the job, applies and talks to a recruiter, the chance the person will move forward is problematic. For one thing the candidate is going to ask the screener about the job, the compensation, and why it presents a career opportunity. The screener of course has no clue how to respond other than with some apple pie generic response. Under this scenario the people most likely to proceed are the desperate or underwhelming. But assuming somehow a good person had a bad day and went on an interview, the chances are slim of passing the skills screen, the competency screen, the behavioral screen, the affability test, and the gut feeling cultural quiz – plus, you'd still need to close the deal. In most cases this comes down to a bidding war, since the only differentiator between jobs is the logo and the salary.

Despite this somewhat cynical view, this is not far from reality. Unfortunately, this reality is not consistent with basis common sense. For example:

1. People aren't created equal. Even if a person has all of the skills, some people are better than others, so you need to figure out what separates the top performers from everyone else. Usually it's not the skills and experiences; it's their effort, commitment, and leadership abilities.
   
   
2. Competent people aren't always the most motivated. Just because a person has the skills, it doesn't mean the person is willing to use them as dictated. One of the key drivers for most people is to learn new skills or to apply their skills in new ways.
   
   
3. Skills and experience represent 25-30% of a person's ability to complete the work successfully. Just because someone has the skills it doesn't mean they'll get their work done on time and on budget. It doesn't mean they'll work well with the direct superior. It doesn't mean they'll be able to work in the specific environment, with the specific team, using the specific tools, and making decisions in just the right way.
   
   
4. Rock stars or top performers can do the work with far fewer skills than are listed. Typically the best people are those with fewer skills and less experience, but with more persistence, commitment, vision, potential, and leadership ability. Regulated environments make it hard for these people to even apply. However, even in non-regulated situations these people are excluded by default since job descriptions are both hard to find and emphasize skills rather than opportunities.

A multi-stakeholder job analysis addresses all of these contradictions and begins the transformation process by focusing on a top candidate's needs rather than those of the bureaucrats. For example, for the Java developer job above, the emphasis should be on taking a lead role in the development of a new intelligence gathering system that provides real-time information on the location of all critical military assets based on state-of-the-art GPS locators. This will get a top person jazzed. Rather than say "3-5 years of whatever," say "use your 3-5 years of COTS to rapidly implement a 3-D graphic and media intense GUI." Rather than say "have great team skills and strong communications," say "work on a multi-functional team of top professionals preparing and presenting product requirement documents to senior program managers."

In a multi-stakeholder job analysis all competencies and behaviors are presented as outcomes this way, rather than inputs or in absolute terms. Not only are outcomes easier to assess, but you'll also be able to attract better people in the bargain. While you want to get everyone's input during the first phase of preparing the multi-stakeholder job analysis, the outcomes will begin to clarify everyone's thinking, especially when prioritizing the tasks. Some outcomes are more important than others. This might suggest a different level job, or more focus on certain factors during the interview. With outcomes listed, ads can be written with this more positive emphasis. And even if no one is willing to budge on their requirements, having hiring managers, recruiters, and candidates on the same page will increase the chance of seeing more top people and hiring the best ones.

In Part II of this article, I'll present a more comprehensive version of a multi-stakeholder job analysis for this software developer position. If you'd like to comment on this article, make sure you join my Recruiter's Wall network. Or email me if you want to actually prepare a multi-stakeholder job analysis for one of your open jobs.