The War for Talent

6.4 - Effective Selection and Placement Strategies

L E A R N I N G O B J E C T I V E S

1. Explain why a good job description benefits the employer and the applicant.

2. Describe how company culture can be used in selecting new employees.

3. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of personnel testing.

4. Describe some considerations in international staffing and placement

Selecting the right employees and placing them in the right positions within the

company is a key HR function and is vital to a company’s success. Companies should

devote as much care and attention to this “soft” issue as they do to financial planning

because errors will have financial impact and adverse effects on a company’s strategy.

Job-Description Best Practices

Walt has a problem. He works as a manager in a medium-sized company and considers

himself fortunate that the organizational chart allows him a full-time administrative

assistant (AA). However, in the two years Walt has been in his job, five people have held

this AA job. The most recent AA, who resigned after four weeks, told Walt that she had

not known what the job would involve. “I don’t do numbers, I’m not an accountant,” she

said. “If you want someone to add up figures and do calculations all day, you should say

so in the job description. Besides, I didn’t realize how long and stressful my commute

would be—the traffic between here and my house is murder!”

Taken aback, Walt contacted the company’s HR department to clarify the job

description for the AA position. What he learned was that the description made

available to applicants was, indeed, inadequate in a number of ways. Chances are that

frequent turnover in this AA position is draining Walt’s company of resources that could

be used for much more constructive purposes.

An accurate and complete job description is a powerful SHRM tool that costs little to

produce and can save a bundle in reduced turnover. While the realistic description may

discourage some applicants (for example, those who lack an affinity for calculations

might not bother to apply for Walt’s AA position), those who follow through with the

application process are much more likely to be satisfied with the job once hired. In

addition to summarizing what the worker will actually be doing all day, here are some

additional suggestions for writing an effective job description:

• List the job requirements in bullet form so that job seekers can scan the posting

quickly.

• Use common industry terms, which speak to knowledgeable job seekers.

• Avoid organization-specific terms and acronyms, which would confuse job

seekers.

• Use meaningful job titles (not the internal job codes of the organization).

• Use key words taken from the list of common search terms (to maximize the

chance that a job posting appears on a job seeker’s search).

• Include information about the organization, such as a short summary and links to

more detailed information.

• Highlight special intangibles and unusual benefits of the job and workplace (e.g.,

flextime, travel, etc.).

• Specify the job’s location (and nearest large city) and provide links to local

community pages (to entice job seekers with quality-of-life information).

Tailoring Recruitment to Match Company Culture

Managers who hire well don’t just hire for skills or academic background; they ask about

the potential employee’s philosophy on life or how the candidate likes to spend free

time. These questions help the manager assess whether the cultural fit is right. A

company in which all work is done in teams needs team players, not just “A” students.

Ask questions like, “Do you have a personal mission statement? If not, what would it be

if you wrote one today?” Pfeffer, J. (1998). The human equation. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. to identify

potential hires’ preferences.

At Google, for example, job candidates are asked questions like, “If you could change the

world using Google’s resources, what would you build?” Slater, C. (2008, March). The faces and

voices of Google. Fast Company, 37–45. Google wants employees who will think and act

on a grand scale, employees who will take on the challenges of their jobs, whatever their

job may be. Take Josef DeSimone, Google’s executive chef. DeSimone, who’s worked

everywhere from family-style restaurants to Michelin-caliber ones, was amazed to learn

that Google had 17 cafes for its employees. “Nobody changes the menu daily on this

scale,” he says. “It’s unheard of.” When he was hired, DeSimone realized, “Wow, you

hire a guy who’s an expert in food and let him run with it! You don’t get in his way or

micromanage.” Slater, C. (2008, March). Josef DeSimone—executive chef. Fast Company, 46–48. Google applies

this approach to all positions and lets employees run with the challenge.

Traditionally, companies have built a competitive advantage by focusing on what they

have—structural advantages such as economies of scale, a well-established brand, or

dominance in certain market segments. Companies such as Southwest Airlines, by

contrast, see its people as their advantage: “Our fares can be matched; our airplanes and

routes can be copied. But we pride ourselves on our customer service,” said Sherry

Phelps, director of corporate employment. That’s why Southwest looks for candidates

who generate enthusiasm and leans toward extraverted personalities. Bruce, A. (1997, March).

Southwest: Back to the FUNdamentals. HR Focus, 74(3), 11; Freiberg, K., & Freiberg, J. (2003). Nuts! Southwest Airlines’s crazy

recipe for business and personal success. Austin, TX: Bard; Hallowell, R. (1996, Winter). Southwest Airlines: A case study linking

employee needs satisfaction and organizational capabilities to competitive advantage. Human Resource Management, 35(4), 513–

529; Heskett J. L., & Hallowell, R. (1993). Southwest Airlines—1993 (A). Harvard Business School Case; Southwest Airlines’ Herb

Kelleher: Unorthodoxy at work. (1995, January). Management Review, 2–9; LaBarre, P. (1996, February 5). Lighten up! Blurring

the line between fun and work not only humanizes organizations but strengthens the bottom line. Industry Week, 245(3), 53–67;

Labich, K. (1994, May 2). Is Herb Kelleher America’s best CEO? Fortune, 44–45; and McNerney, D. J. (1996 August). Employee

motivation: creating a motivated workforce. HR Focus, 73(8), 1; Tomkins, R. (1996, November 11). HR: The seriously funny

airline. Financial Times (33137), 14, A1–A5.

Southwest hires for attitude. Flight attendants have been known to sing the safety

instructions, and pilots tell jokes over the public address system.

Southwest Airlines makes clear right from the start the kind of people it wants to hire.

For example, recruitment ads showed Southwest founder Herb Kelleher dressed as Elvis

and read: “Work in a Place Where Elvis Has Been Spotted…The qualifications? It helps

to be outgoing. Maybe even a bit off-center. And be prepared to stay awhile. After all, we

have the lowest employee turnover rate in the industry.” People may scoff or question

why Southwest indulges in such showy activities or wonder how an airline can treat its

jobs so lightly. Phelps answers, “We do take our work seriously. It’s ourselves that we

don’t.” People who don’t have a humane, can-do attitude are fired. Southwest has a

probationary period during which it determines the compatibility of new hires with the

culture. People may be excellent performers, but if they don’t match the culture, they are

let go. As Southwest’s founder Kelleher once said, “People will write me and complain,

‘Hey, I got terminated or put on probation for purely subjective reasons.’ And I’ll say,

‘Right! Those are the important reasons.’”

In many states, employees are covered under what is known as the at-will employment

doctrine. At-will employment is a doctrine of American law that defines an employment

relationship in which either party can break the relationship with no liability, provided

there was no express contract for a definite term governing the employment relationship

and that the employer does not belong to a collective bargaining unit (i.e., a

union).Rothstein, M. A., Knapp, Andria S., & Liebman, Lance. (1987). Cases and materials on employment law (p. 738). New

York: Foundation Press. However, there are legal restrictions on how purely subjective the

reasons for firing can be. For instance, if the organization has written hiring and firing

procedures and does not follow them in selective cases, then those cases might give rise

to claims of wrongful termination. Similarly, in situations where termination is clearly

systematic, for example, based on age, race, religion, and so on, wrongful termination

can be claimed.

Tools and Methods: Interviewing and Testing

To make good selection and placement decisions, you need information about the job

candidate. Two time-tested methods to get that information are testing and

interviewing.

A detailed interview begins by asking the candidate to describe his work history and

then getting as much background on his most recent position (or the position most

similar the open position). Ask about the candidate’s responsibilities and major

accomplishments. Then, ask in-depth questions about specific job situations.

Called situational interviews, these types of interviews can focus on past experience or

future situations. For example, experienced-based questions are “Tell me about a major

initiative you developed and the steps you used to get it adopted.” Or, “Describe a

problem you had with someone and how you handled it.” In contrast, future-oriented

situation interview questions ask candidates to describe how they would handle a future

hypothetical situation, such as: “Suppose you came up with a faster way to do a task, but

your team was reluctant to make the change. What would you do in that situation?”

In addition to what is asked, it is also important that interviewers understand what they

should not ask, largely because certain questions lead to answers that may be used to

discriminate. There are five particularly sensitive areas. First, the only times you can ask

about age are when it is a requirement of a job duty or you need to determine whether a

work permit is required. Second, it is rarely appropriate or legal to ask questions

regarding race, color, national origin, or gender. Third, although candidates may

volunteer religious or sexually-orientated information in an interview, you still need to

be careful not to discriminate. Ask questions that are relevant to work experience or

qualifications. Fourth, firms cannot discriminate for health or disabilities; you may not

ask about smoking, health-related questions, or disabilities in an interview. Finally, you

may not ask questions about marital status, children, personal life, pregnancy, or arrest

record. These kinds of questions could be tempting to ask if you are interviewing for a

position requiring travel; however, you can only explain the travel requirements and

confirm that the requirements are acceptable.

In addition to interviews, many employers use testing to select and place job applicants.

Any tests given to candidates must be job related and follow guidelines set forth by the

Equal Opportunity Employment Commission to be legal. For the tests to be effective,

they should be developed by reputable psychologists and administered by professionally

qualified personnel who have had training in occupations testing in an industrial

setting. The rationale behind testing is to give the employer more information before

making the selection and placement decision—information vital to assessing how well a

candidate is suited to a particular job. Most preemployment assessment tests measure

thinking styles, behavioral traits, and occupational interests. The results are available

almost immediately after a candidate completes the roughly hour-long questionnaire.

Thinking styles tests can tell the potential employer how fast someone can learn new

things or how well he or she can verbally communicate. Behavioral traits assessments

measure energy level, assertiveness, sociability, manageability, and attitude. For

example, a high sociability score would be a desirable trait for salespeople. Mrosko, T. (2006,

August). The personnel puzzle: Preemployment testing can help your bottom line. Inside Business, 8(8), 60–73.

International Staffing and Placement

In our increasingly global economy, managers need to decide between using expatriates

or hiring locals when staffing international locations. On the surface, this seems a

simple choice between the firm-specific expertise of the expatriate and the cultural

knowledge of the local hire. In reality, companies often fail to consider the high

probability and high cost of expatriates failing to adapt and perform in their

international assignments.

For example, cultural issues can easily create misunderstandings between expatriate

managers and employees, suppliers, customers, and local government officials. At an

estimated cost of $200,000 per failed expatriate, international assignment decisions are

often made too lightly in many companies. The challenge is to overcome the natural

tendency to hire a well-known, corporate insider over an unknown local at the

international site. Here are some indications to use to determine whether an expatriate

or a local hire would be best.

Managers may want to choose an expatriate when:

• Company-specific technology or knowledge is important.

• Confidentiality in the staff position is an issue.

• There is a need for speed (assigning an expatriate is usually faster than hiring a

local).

• Work rules regarding local workers are restrictive.

• The corporate strategy is focused on global integration/

Managers may want to staff the position with a local hire when:

• The need to interact with local customers, suppliers, employees, or officials is

paramount.

• The corporate strategy is focused on multidomestic/market-oriented operations.

• Cost is an issue (expatriates often bring high relocation/travel costs).

• Immigration rules regarding foreign workers are restrictive.

• There are large cultural distances between the host country and candidate

expatriates. Weems, Rebecca E. (1998). Ethnocentric staffing and international assignments: a transaction cost

theory approach. Presentation at the Academy of Management Conference, August 9–12.

K E Y T A K E A W A Y

Effective selection and placement means finding and hiring the right employees for your

organization and then putting them into the jobs for which they are best suited.

Providing an accurate and complete job description is a key step in the selection process.

An important determination is whether the candidate’s personality is a good fit for the

company’s culture. Interviewing is a common selection method. Situational interviews

ask candidates to describe how they handled specific situations in the past (experience-

based situational interviews) and how they would handle hypothetical questions in the

future (future-oriented situational interviews.) Other selection tools include cognitive

tests, personality inventories, and behavioral traits assessments. Specific personalities

may be best suited for positions that require sales, teamwork, or entrepreneurship,

respectively. In our increasingly global economy, managers need to decide between

using expatriates or hiring locals when staffing international locations.

R E F L E C T I O N S

1. What kind of information would you include in a job description?

2. Do you think it is important to hire employees who fit into the company culture? Why or

why not?

3. List questions that you would ask in a future-oriented situational interview.

4. What requirements must personnel tests meet?

5. If you were hiring to fill a position overseas, how would you go about selecting the best

candidate?

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