Published on April 5th, 2023
The prospect of recruiting for an open role is enough to get almost any team excited about their potential new colleague. But their excitement and overloaded schedules in need of relief shouldn’t suggest a departure from strategic hiring.
To ensure the right candidate is chosen for your organization, you need to look further than education and experience.
Articulating what job fit is for your organization can feel like a daunting task. However, consider the resurging pain points your team often navigates, like retention, morale, and work quality.
These key indicators will reveal your job fit factors which can then translate into, how and who you recruit for.
When your team’s talents and traits mesh well with the organization’s goals, they can perform at their highest level. Here’s what you need to know about hiring with that in mind.
1. Identify Traits of Your Top Performers to Reveal Key Performance Indicators
Managers can often list their top performers, but can they also specify what makes their performance great? Equip your leadership team to go beyond gut feel and instead rely on performance analytics to unlock the data behind your results.
Frequently, the key to top performance isn’t one’s ability to craft the best presentation. Instead, the drivers of success may lurk under the surface, making an analytical approach necessary for assessment and action.
Examine the traits and skills of your most valuable employees, logging both hard and soft skills. While technical knowledge is important, it’s often the pairing of hard skills with those like empathy that yield significant results.
Compare your findings across the organization, identifying themes to develop key performance indicators to use in the candidate vetting process.
Work with your human resources leaders to integrate opportunities to assess candidate traits during recruitment.
Personality assessments, surveys, and predetermined interview questions can help obtain this information.
As you narrow your candidate pool, cross reference this information against experience and education to identify the potential best fit.
Establish a protocol that’s both manageable and repeatable, providing training to hiring managers to ensure consistency.
2. Sync New Hires with Existing Colleagues to Create High-Performing, Cohesive Teams
Once you’ve used performance analytics to identify the best potential hires, it’s time to assess team fit.
Alone, a candidate may have achieved job fit, but more often than not, employees work on teams. Sync your new hires with their department and project teams for the best fit between traits and skill sets.
To develop a cohesive team structure made up of the right talent mix, you’ll need to gather data.
Using your performance analytics assessment, compare potential team members and current staff to review team makeup.
Assessments like the DiSC or Predictive Index can add depth to your internal datasets, providing time-tested measurements of work styles.
This additional layer of information can ensure teams have the right mix of collaborators willing to engage in constructive discussions.
Data can also increase team diversity and reduce biases, placing greater importance on results versus other factors.
Instead of defaulting to the same major players, whose work style may be more visible, teams are more equitable.
Used consistently, performance analytics can also influence total organization makeup, prioritizing job fit and results over less impactful factors.
When teams are composed of individuals whose skills and traits complement one another, they can work at their highest level.
3. Match Candidates to Your Culture and Values
Employee culture and organizational values can sometimes feel like buzzwords with little weight behind them.
However, organizations that are serious about intentionally cultivating a meaningful culture can further their efforts by focusing on job fit. Assess candidate fit against your stated culture and values, identifying themes that signal a potential match.
Review your organization’s culture and values statement for discussion points worthy of integrating into recruiting and retention efforts.
Train managers on these topics and use them in regular employee check-ins and performance assessments.
Articulate your goals transparently, inviting the conversation about gaps and how your organization hopes to improve.
You should also update your new employee onboarding process as a way to further communicate your organization’s values.
This full-circle approach can help you deliver on the stated promises made to applicants and increase engagement.
However, onboarding doesn’t end after the last slide deck is delivered. Pair new employees with compatible colleagues as mentors, using data to develop your matches.
Together, they’ll help convey your company culture and provide support during their earliest days on the team.
Integrate Performance Analytics Into Your Talent Management Process
Focusing on job fit isn’t just for recruiting — it’s an essential component of total talent management.
Leaders can integrate performance analytics to expand their organization’s understanding of the intersection of talent, aptitude, and attitude with roles.
When employees have stimulating roles, are provided growth opportunities, and contribute to a larger goal, results follow. And when their colleagues are also working in matched roles, teams can work at their highest level.
Integrate your newfound understanding of job fit amongst your leadership team, developing a new vocabulary focused on performance analytics.
Whether you’re assembling a new project team or revamping your management approach, use data to guide your decisions.
When you do, you’ll enhance the effectiveness of your team, engage employees in your mission, and achieve improved results.
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