Imagine that you’ve just won the Mega-Lottery for $200 million and have decided to build your dream house. You’re not quite sure how it should look, or even how big it should be. It should definitely be big, though. And you know that your dream house should have a really awesome kitchen. State-of-the-art appliances, a huge center island, and lots of cabinet space. Oh, and also a double-bowl sink.
And the master bedroom should be huge! With a gigantic walk-in closet. No, two gigantic walk-in closets. And a steam shower with five spray nozzles.
And man, wouldn’t it be great if the basement had a home theater system in it? With bucket chairs and a popcorn machine?
Hurriedly, you write all of these items down on a yellow-pad. Armed with this information, you hire a construction crew to start building your house. They ask you for blue prints. “Nah,” you say. “Just start building it. Make it BIG. And give me all of the stuff here on the list.”
A good habit to get into
That house example is clearly ridiculous. But every day, entrepreneurs and managers around the country decide to launch into a recruiting effort lacking a Job Profile. “Just find me a sales guy with software experience,” they’ll say to their recruiter. Or, “I need an accountant with a CPA who knows how to do cost accounting.”
When you start recruiting without developing a well-crafted Job Profile, you’re building your dream house without first drafting blueprints. And you shouldn’t be surprised when you end up with an employee that, at some point, causes you to wonder what in the heck you were thinking when you hired them.
If you’re sitting there thinking, “Big deal. I know how to write a job description,” then I have news for you. A Job Profile is much more than the typical job description that you’re used to writing.
Take a moment to dig out the last job description that you used to fill an open position in your company. Does it list requirements like “Good interpersonal communication skills” and “works well with others in a team environment”? Does it list educational requirements like “Bachelor’s Degree required, Advanced Degree a plus”? Does it rattle off ambiguous activities like “make cold calls” or “develop new relationships with prospects.” Or, better yet, “provide excellent customer service”? How about the perennial favorite, “Must have at least [x] years of experience in either [Y] role or in the [Z] industry.”
Chances are that you’ve answered “yep, it sure does” to one of those questions. And you know what? It’s ok. For some inexplicable reasons, managers are rarely ever trained how to write good job descriptions. It’s the exception that an entrepreneur or manager ever have access to truly top-notch coaching on this topic. What most managers do is “give it their best shot” and write a job description that describes the basic outlien of the job duties, and typically describes 90% of everyone in the potential candidate pool…good and bad performers alike.
I mean, who doesn’t want someone who works well with others? You don’t see job descriptions that say, “Will consider people who act like a**holes.”
We’re going to discuss the first steps you should take to write a really solid Job Profile. “So,” you ask, “…what’s a Job Profile?” Great question.
A Job Profile is a document that describes the business reason for the position, and the results that must be achieved by the new employee during their first 12 months on the job in order for them to be considered successful in their new role.
Creating a Job Profile in the Ionix Hiring System begins with asking the question, “Why am creating this new position?” This is what we call the ”Position Background,” and your answer should contain the following information:
- What is the primary business driver that justifies this position in my company?
- Is this a new position, or a replacement or modification of an existing role?
- If someone was in this role before, what factors led to their success or lack thereof?
Once you’ve defined the Position Background and are comfortable with your answers, it’s time to move to the next step, which we call “Defining Success.” Here we ask the question, “Looking out 12 months, what things will this person would have had to accomplish in order for me to consider them successful in this role? The answers should be specific, metrics and/or numbers-based, and be devoid of any subjective criteria.
For a sales role, these may be outcomes such as:
- Generate $500,000 in revenue from new clients
- Follow up on all marketing leads within 24 hours of receipt, and obtain a close rate 30%
- Expand existing territory from $150,000 to $250,000 within first 12 months of employment
For a Controller role, some examples are:
- Reduce Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) to under 50 days within first 6 months of employment
- Build a 12-month cash flow projection tool within first 3 months of employment
- Migrate company from Quickbooks to Netsuite by December of 20xx.
The theme here is specificity. We want to communicate the requirements of the job by using the desired the end result as a starting point. We can then use these criteria throughout the interview process to find out if a particular candidate has ever delivered results that are similar to the results that we’re looking for in the open role. We want to avoid ambiguous requirements like, “initiate new client relationships” (ok, how many?) or “deliver excellent customer service” (as measured by…?). If you’re finding that you don’t have the foggiest idea what metrics to use ….DON’T HIRE ANYONE YET. Better to stop the process, think it through, and proceed after you know what the end result should be.
It’s a powerful approach, and it works.
[...] for a job will be successful in the role that you have defined. Assuming you’ve completed an accurate job profile, and that you’ve used a telephone screen to arrive at the pool of candidates still in the [...]
October 1st, 2008 at