Do selection procedures work?

I used to have a dis­like for the rig­or­ous selec­tion pro­ce­dures that some com­pa­nies use in hir­ing new staff. I’d thought that they pre­vented me from select­ing a can­di­date I knew was the best fit for the posi­tion if they inter­viewed poorly. I con­sid­ered them an unwel­come intru­sion into the hir­ing process. Then some­thing happened.

I realised that, although I would select can­di­dates based on who will help meet organ­i­sa­tional goals, per­haps oth­ers wouldn’t. If I was allowed to decide based on other cri­te­ria not addressed in an inter­view, any­body could do so – per­haps mali­ciously or nepotistically.

But that’s not the true rev­e­la­tion. My even more impor­tant real­i­sa­tion is that the process can work. The prob­lem is the cri­te­ria we use for selec­tion. If we know a can­di­date is the best can­di­date for the job, but some­body else meets the cri­te­ria bet­ter, the cri­te­ria are wrong.

Select­ing the cor­rect per­son doesn’t start with the hir­ing process. It starts way back with job design. The focus needs to be on con­vert­ing the things we know about the posi­tion and it’s ideal can­di­date into writ­ten words that a per­son can be eval­u­ated against.