As a veteran executive recruiter – with an earlier hands-on career in my area of specialization – it’s tempting to reach a point where you think you’ve seen or know it all. Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. At the end of the day, the most comprehensive oral interview processes across organization levels, diligent 360-degree reference checking and even predictive psychological assessments can’t give you the whole picture.
More and more, we’re advising clients to include a job simulation piece in the candidate evaluation process. While you can’t re-create every aspect of the work environment and job content, you can construct a representative experience that will help the candidate as well as the hiring organization assess whether this will really be a match “on the ground.” Too often recruiters (present company included) get so caught up in the HR jargon of our job descriptions and integrating interview feedback from multiple sources that we move away from the basic question: can this candidate really do — and does he or she want to do — the job at hand?
Because we recruit communication professionals, measuring on-the-spot writing skills is one example of this, asking all candidates in the process, for instance, to complete a timed exercise illustrating how they might respond to a particular client challenge. Administered effectively, this type of exercise can demonstrate not only core written communication competency but how an individual approaches and prioritizes issues – the thought process.
And there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to simulation, even in the same field. When one of our clients, a management consulting firm, was hiring a senior vice president and national practice leader for one of its key service lines, the simulation was a business plan presented to the organization’s leadership team. Through this process, the candidate learned quite a bit about how the executive team asks questions, integrates feedback and communicates with each other. Seven years later this individual is with the firm and has grown the practice significantly.
In another instance, we suggested to a client who was on the fence about hiring a finalist candidate that this individual spend another day in the office, not interviewing but shadowing the hiring manager in representative meetings. As a direct result, both the candidate and the client decided this was not the right fit, and saved everyone a lot of time, money and heartache in the process.
Job simulation exercises may not work for every hiring process but it’s worth thinking through whether this additional piece can add predictive value for both parties.
By Janet Long
