<div>Good discussion. Thus far, no further. This is what a seasoned recruiter can make out of the conversation between Jeetun, Rajam and Nakulaa. Inadvertently Nakulas reveals all when she said, “This is a clinical situation, client needs candidate, candidate comes with a personality... understand the client hires a personality finally, not his certificates or baggage.” Many recruiting and head hunting firms are driven by this logic, which is fundamentally wrong and smacks of a lack of depth among our service providers. <br /><br />First, hiring is not a clinical situation. It is a game-changing decision for most organisations, particularly when we are discussing senior management. Second, while each of us do come with a personality, it is behaviour that makes the difference in our on-the-job performance. Personality does influence behaviour, but it is only one among several factors that impact behaviour of employees. Personality is in the DNA of an individual, organisations cannot do much about it. But several behaviours like decision making, driving for results, detail orientation, etc., can be gained from hands-on in the right roles.<br /><br />Third, and perhaps the most fallacious understanding is: personality can be known from the CV and by pursing an apparently intelligent discussion about a person, as seen here. Personality study is a science by itself and there are highly reliable and valid tests crafted using the scientific methodology known as ‘psychometrics’ to figure out a candidate’s personality. Even so, in most Western countries employment laws are strict enough to bar organisations from deciding suitability based on these personality tests. Organisations have to provide evidence to courts of law that particular personality traits like extroversion, resilience, dependability, conscientiousness, optimism, etc., do actually contribute to job success. Only then, in the eyes of law, it is fair to retain or reject based on the outcome of personality tests. <br /><br />So what could have Jeetun done differently? Perhaps, he could have taken a more holistic view of both Arjun and Sudarshan, which would have included not only educational qualifications, work experience and motivational factors, but also competencies or behaviours required for success in the role of CFO at Morro. Work experience and educational factors are the easy part. They are objective and based on facts and so help in easy decision-making. The difficult part — and that is exactly where Jeetun and Rajam are unable to see eye-to-eye — is to decipher what a prospective candidate would be able to actually do and what would satisfy or annoy (motivational factors) a candidate in a new job. <br /><br />To predict what a candidate can actually do, one needs to know the must-have competencies or behaviours that are required for the job. Armed with this information, Jeetun could have taken a competency-based interview of Arjun and Sudarshan and gathered data about their past on-the-job behaviours. The thumb rule is past behaviour predicts future behaviour. <br /><br />Unfortunately, Jeetun was myopic in just investigating Arjun’s job-hopping rather than an entire gamut of behaviours that lead to job success in the role of CFO. For instance, he could have asked “tell me about a time when you had contributed to a ‘make-or-buy decision’ (a critical result area for a CFO) from the perspective of available budget vis-à-vis efficient utilisation of funds?” Such questions would have helped him get much more data about on-the-job behaviour, which would give him more clarity about the strength and areas of development for both. A data-driven analysis would have also helped Vinayak in taking a quick and well-informed call as to who among the two would be appropriate for Morro’s cultural context.<br /> <br />Similar behavioural questions around motivation to stick or move from one company to another would have been much more revealing. Jeetun’s persistence in seeking a direct rationale from Arjun as to the reasons for changing so many jobs could yield only socially desirable answers. No wonder, Jeetun was speculative in his analysis of Arjun as seen in his statements like “He does not seem to be a chap who tries hard”; “I think he has made a lot of poor judgments in his career…”, etc. <br /><br />Needless to say the discussion between Jeetun, Nakulaa and Rajam completely missed out on the competency (behaviour) aspect and, therefore, was technically unsound and from a perspective of outcome, inconclusive. <br /><br />Behavioural interviewing skills are a must for those in the hiring industry. Instead of a personal interview, they can look at the CV and ask relevant behavioural questions to better understand the candidate’s suitability for the job. <br /><br />The author is a senior consultant in the Mumbai office of DDI, a global talent management consulting firm headquartered in Pittsburgh, USA. devashis.rath@ ddiworld.com<br /><br />(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 17-12-2012)</div>
