A recent article from FORTUNE made a great case for better reference checking:
"Some of the best companies in the U.S. have failed, very publicly, to rigorously check references on CEO candidates to ensure that they are the right fit for the company's challenges ahead. Yahoo learned this lesson the hard way last week ..."
"Companies must go beyond superficial referencing to determine what a candidate can contribute and how he or she aligns with the future imperatives and culture of the company. But unlike referencing for other senior executive positions, referencing for CEO contenders is tricky because in many cases the person up for the job has never been a CEO before."f the best companies in the U.S. have failed, very publicly, to rigorously check references on CEO candidates to ensure that they are the right fit for the company's challenges ahead. Yahoo learned this lesson the hard way last week..."
" When GlaxoSmithKline was planning for the departure of CEO Jean-Pierre Garnier in 2008, it supplemented its customary assessment with 14 interviews with internal executives who had worked directly or indirectly with all three internal CEO candidates. The questions were designed to assess the suitability for the CEO position, and feedback was shared with Garnier and the board. Now-CEO, Andrew Witty, while not the obvious choice at the time, emerged as a much better candidate than his competitors."
Full article here.
More on better reference checking: here.
Often when you consider a candidate for a new job or an employee for a promotion you consider the interaction you had with him or her. If it has been limited and in a specific context (such as one interview), you make up your mind about what you saw. For instance, this is a highly confident but respectful person.
But that is only one perspective, and often people who worked with the individual have a different view. That is what we convey at Checkster with simple charts that put in perspective the rating of all people who interacted with the candidate/employee, either as a colleague or as an interviewer. Often surprises arise and decisions may change.
The best analogy I found recently on this is the perception we have living on earth that our planet is mostly water, until you see another perspective:
This picture shows the size of a sphere that would contain all of Earth's water in comparison to the size of the Earth. The blue sphere sitting on the United States, reaching from about Salt Lake City, Utah to Topeka, Kansas, has a diameter of about 860 miles (about 1,385 kilometers) , with a volume of about 332,500,000 cubic miles (1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers). The sphere includes all the water in the oceans, seas, ice caps, lakes and rivers as well as groundwater, atmospheric water, and even the water in you, your dog, and your tomato plant.
Source: http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/2010/gallery/global-water-volume.html
A 3 min excerpt from an interview of Ken Lane, director of talent acquisition at Cliffs Natural Resources an international mining and natural resources company. A member of the S&P 500 Index, the Company is a major global iron ore producer and a significant producer of high- and low-volatile metallurgical coal.
Ken speaks in this excerpt about their use of Checkster for selection.
Click on the play button below to listen to the excerpt.
To listen to the full interview on Total Picture go here.
Bersin recently released its new Talent Acquisition framework.
Overall, I agree with the central part on how selection is represented here. Selection is the key strategic function of Talent Acquisition. Yet, while traditional reference checking or telephone references are often associated with background check services, automated reference checks, such as Checkster’s checkups are closer to assessments than to criminal checks.
Maybe Bersin should make the distinction between employment verification, which is totally part of background checking, and reference checking which is not really about checking the past but aims at assessing past performance.
Enjoy the complete view:
Full size image here.
John Sullivan wrote an interesting list of "Leading-edge Candidate Screening, Interviewing, and Assessment Practices". Our top 3:
Gamification — Assessment or self-assessment using games on the corporate website — USAF.
Virtual reality simulation — Use a job-simulation tool to assess either college students or professionals — KPMG.
and of course: Crowdsourced references — Use a candidate’s network to assess their background using 360° type reference surveys (i.e. Checkster) — Growing usage.
Full article here.
A 3 min excerpt from an interview of Cheri Hanson, Talent Recruiting Operations Manager at Cargill, a privately held company that employs 142,000 people in 66 countries.
Cheri speaks in this excerpt about their use of Checkster for targeted sourcing.
Click on the play button below to listen to the excerpt.
To listen to the full interview on Total Picture go here.
A recent study helps us to understand the evolution of the hiring process and the most important areas of growth, what are the trends? How do you compare?
Here is how it looks for the steps in the sequence of the hiring process:
1. Candidates apply with a standard form – 82% with slow growth of 5%
2. Automated pre-screening questions – 83% with fast growth at 12%
3. Recruiters review/screen the resume – 95% (most standard step) with a slow growth 5%
4. Recruiters or IVR phone screens – 78% with a good 9% growth
5. Candidates are interviewed (structured) – 91% with a slow growth of 5%
5. References are checked – 90% (3rd most standard step) with a fast growth at 12%
6. Background checks are done – 81% with a good growth at 10%
The other interesting data from this study is that informal social media searched is at 71% with a growth of 24%.
We are pleased the two fastest trends after searching on social media are: inserting pre-screening questions and reference checking. We are especially thrilled to see the growth in reference checking as it shows that the automation of the process and qualitative improvement we provide at Checkster is finally being understood by the talent acquisition departments. It is also why we list two steps 5 in the order of the hiring process, as the automation of the reference checking step often makes organization reference check before the final interviews. See a great example here.
Full research here.
Even though the EEOC disfavors it, a new study found, "Results indicate significant relationships between credit scores and task performance and organizational citizenship behaviors. Using personality data collected from employees, objective credit scores obtained from the Fair Isaac Corporation, and performance data provided by supervisors, we found conscientiousness to be positively related and agreeableness to be negatively related to credit scores."
Good review of the research
here.
The neuroscience of love is a fascinating subject, summarized in this short video from Scientific American below. You can see why we prefer some people and not others. That is exactly why when you interview candidates-even if you don't 'fall' in love with them-you always have preferences, and those will impact your judgment. So what can we do about it?
At Checkster, we know a simple strategy is to make sure diverse people interview candidates and debrief about their experience in an objective fashion. We built an online app, Interview Checkup that optimizes interview debriefs and avoids the social i nfluence trap which can negate the benefit of diverse interviewers. Each interviewer should give their feedback independently or the most vocal person in the room may steer the decision towards a homogeneous group think.
An excerpt from an interview of Tony Bartenetti, SVP and Business Leader of the Nelson Family of Companies.
Nelson has been in business for over 40 years as a company, doing both temporary contract and direct placement. With over 17 branch locations in Northern California it is the largest staffing firm in California and one of the largest nationally. Tony speaks in this excerpt about their Checkster reference check usage as a staffing firm.
Click on the play button below to listen to the excerpt.
To listen to the full interview on Total Picture go here.