Better, Faster Recruitment Decisions with Competency Frameworks

​In one of our last education pieces we looked at ‘Which Assessments Should You Use’but when understanding assessment data, the data only helps you make faster or better decisions if you are clear on what you measuring. Like any decision, if you have not established the best outcome it is hard to evaluate your options.

This is where competency frameworks come to help you. When using a competency framework you can quickly and easily compare two (or more) candidates based on their potential for demonstrating each competency!

Why Use Competencies?

Competencies provide you with a common way to identify and communicate the behaviours and knowledge required for successful job performance. When they key behaviours are identified you can more effectively:

• Set clear expectations for employees

• Engage in succession planning

• Identify skill and capability gaps in teams and individuals

• Coach employees

• Identify and evaluate poor and top performers

• Recruit the required talent for your organisation 

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Hold Up, What is a Competency?

A competency is the collection of behaviours someone requires to be able to perform a job role well. For example we may recognise that for someone to be successful in a role they need to ‘Consult with Others’ but without defining the behaviours that consulting with others would involve, it becomes difficult to give clarity or meaning to the recommendation that “you need to consult more”.

Instead in the below example we may define what we mean by ‘Consults with Others’ with the behaviours on the right hand side.

How Do I Pick A Competency?

So when it comes to using assessment with competencies – work backwards. Start by identifying the competencies you require from someone to perform the job well. To do this you might:

• Think about the challenges someone might have in their role, e.g analysing data

• Think about what are the behaviours that someone might need to demonstrate if they are effectively analysing data. Here is an example below:

• Complete this task for some of the key challenges or tasks someone may have in their role on a consistent basis

Alternatively, you may engage an established competency library or consultancy to develop a competency library for you. For example, at Chandler Macleod we have a library of 60 competencies which our clients select from to develop their reports, develop performance frameworks and help guide their leadership development.

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I Have Picked My Competencies: Now What?

Now that you have selected competencies (you may have picked 5-6 key behaviours needs to be successful in the role) you can use psychometric assessment to measure or understand these competencies.

In our article ‘Assessing for Potential: Why Use Psychometric Assessment in Your Hiring Process?,we established that someone’s personality or ability influences the way they behave. And today we have established that how someone behaves impacts how a competency is demonstrated.

So now you are in a position to think about the different personality dimensions that would help you understand a candidate’s skill in demonstrating a behaviour or competency.

Is There A Shortcut?

Creating competency frameworks and conducting job analysis takes time and you may choose to engage a consultancy such as Chandler Macleod or to develop a framework for you, or pick from an established library.

When you select from our competency library it makes the delivery of psychometric assessment efficient. We connect the personality data to the competency for you and it looks like this.

As you can see. When laid our clearly competencies and psychometric assessment allows you to quickly identify whether you have the right candidate or not and how strong their potential is in each competency.

Clear data based on what you are looking for to help you make better and faster recruitment decisions. If you are starting a recruitment process without understanding what you need it is very hard to evaluate your candidate options or make a decision at all.

Competencies can seem boring, but be critical to your organisation success and your ability to make fast effective hiring decisions. If you would like to learn about our Competency Framework or need someone to design one for you, reach out to understand more on 1300 664 305 or at cmpienquiries@chandlermacleod.com.