• Don’t include criteria that can’t be objectively assessed, such as a good sense of humour

• Don’t overstate the requirements of the job. This may result in suitable candidates being put off or in appointing an over-qualified candidate who then becomes frustrated in the job and moves on. Giving candidates an accurate impression of what is required of them can improve staff retention

-~-

• DO make clear the relative importance of requirements that are essential and desirable and be able to justify them

• DO make clear the importance of any biographical information you request such as educational attainment and validity of certificates (ie those from abroad)

• DO have the person specification checked by someone else, preferably someone responsible for equal opportunities, to remove any personal preferences

• DO review the person specification(s) over time for potential revisions

• DO be explicit about what is required and why

Related articles by Zemanta

• Under-qualified, overqualified… what’s a candidate to do? (careermoves.cjwriting.com)

Have you ever employed someone who really didn’t get on with the rest of the team? Or someone whose integrity wasn’t what you thought it was? Or someone who needed hands-on management to deliver when you thought they could work on their own initiative?

If you have, you are not alone. These mistakes however, can be very costly and may even damage not only your reputation but your team as well. Perhaps next time you might like to think about using some formal testing and psychometric assessment during the recruitment and selection process.

When used by competent and appropriately qualified individuals, the best thing about properly developed psychometric tests and questionnaires is that they lead to better judgements and are therefore more likely to be more valid than decisions made by other means.

In broad terms, psychometric tests are a relatively economic, quick and simple way of understanding an individual’s unique behaviours, style, and approach to work life as well as identifying their core motivations, strengths and other traits. All essential qualities that are required in today’s competitive job markets.

I like to use different tests for different purposes – I do not believe that there is one test that is suitable for all. Tests can be done before or at the time of the interview, but should not be used as the sole method of candidate selection. Keep in mind that such tests could also be unlawful if they discriminate against candidates of a particular race, sex or age or who have a disability. Suitable tests should therefore only be used if they are well designed and relevant to the job.

For example alongside personality questionnaires and analysis, you will want to check out the potential of the candidate joining your company. Now, if you’ve already got a robust job description and person specification, you’ll know and understand what level of skills and attributes you will be looking for. So, for an administrative post you might be looking at completing an on-line 15FQ+ questionnaire with reasoning tests; for a senior manager the WAVE Professional together with the Professional Aptitude tests.

These tests are relatively quick for the candidates to complete. One of the shortest is only 10 minutes long. Costs will vary of course depending on the amount of candidates, tests and level of services you need.

Interpretation of the results however is fundamental. Upon completion, reports are generated and sent to the qualified administrator who will give feedback not only to the candidate but also to you as the potential employer. Interpreted with skill the results can help you:

• Drill beneath the surface to find out what someone is really like.

• Decide which qualities will be most important in the new person joining your team.

• Check compatibility and prevent potential issues from becoming major problems by sharing the applicant’s profile with their manager. (In this way the investment from psychometrics can roll forward from recruitment into development and management.)

• Help individuals to understand themselves and others better. (If compared with the job role, gaps can be defined and discussed. You can then use the profile to plot progress towards a training goal.)

• Acquire the language of “people-understanding”

One of my favourite psychometric tools is the Four Groups 4G questionnaire which I’ve used successfully in not only recruitment but also for team building and talent management. The completed and complex reports give an overall picture of compatibility, work styles and communication amongst team members and their leaders. It’s been invaluable in resolving issues and building relationships.

A company’s success depends upon its people.

Psychometrics can help build that success by getting the right people in the right roles, by helping them to understand themselves and others, and by enabling the company to build a better, clearer vision, drawing on the strengths of all its people. Used by employers for successful recruitment & selection and management & team development, the long-term cost benefits are considerable: including reduced costs of recruitment, lower staff turnover, less under-performance and minimal mis-deployment of staff resulting in increased profits, better staff retention and raised morale.

With over 18 years of experience using a wide range of psychometric tools, I’d love to be able to give you more information on assessments, recruitment & selection, management & team development and to help you avoid costly personnel mistakes; so please contact me.

Lynn Tulip Chartered MCIPD, PgDip Guidance & Assessment

HR & Career Management Consultant

http://assessment4potential.tel/

• people who listen
• people who answer questions with examples
• people who come prepared
• people who appear confident

Also remember during discussions (and in your letters) employers look again at people who can:

• Cut costs
• Get it done more quickly
• Avoid potential problems
• Improve appearance
• Organise it
• Increase sales/profits/turnover
• Use old things in a new way
• Provide more information
• Cut down time
• Reduce the risks
• Meet deadlines easily
• Cut staff costs
• Develop staff performance
• Turn round a bad situation
• Introduce new systems
• Improve teamwork and relationships

1) Ensure a robust job description/person specification is in place; you can’t recruit without this basic document.

2) Develop a job advert and best place to advertise – on the net, local paper, specialist journal – the role and the target market decides this

3) Develop a structured interview process – decide who is on panel, what will you say about the company and job, questions, ability test (or even an assessment day if it’s a senior manager or graduate position)

4) Short-list using a grid to avoid discrimination, invite chosen candidates to interview

5) Chose the best candidate on the day and provide a structured induction.

What do I mean by TOPICAL?

• T – Targeted at the specific vacancy, role or sector you are applying for
• O - Ordered and set out in a clear way
• P – Positive; demonstrate your achievements, your skills and your confidence
• I - Informative; gives relevant and reasonable detail
• C – Concise – usually no need for more than 2 A4 pages
• A – Accurate in content, spelling and grammar
• L - Logical; relates to what you want to do and what you are applying for.

The Framework

There are no hard and fast rules however an ideal and simple format to follow is:

Contact Details
Personal Statement  (optional)
Skills (optional)
Employment History
Education and Training
Interests and Hobbies (optional)
Additional Information (optional)

1. Contact Details - these MUST be clear and complete.  Remember to include your full name, postal address, at least one phone number and an e-mail address.  [It's worth setting up an e-mail account to ensure that your address is suitable for potential employers to contact you - hotlips69@mailservice.com is not appropriate!]
2. Personal Statement – A maximum of three sentences summing up who you are, what you can do and what you are looking for
3. Skills section – this gives you the opportunity of summarising transferable, sector specific and perhaps alternative or voluntary skills.  You might want to add an Achievement section here to summarise your accomplishments.
4. Employment History - list your most recent job role and employer first.  Ensure that the dates are included and relevant information about what you can do/what you did do are listed.  Quantify the statements.  Potential employers want to know what you can do for them.
5. Education and Training – list in reverse chronological order all relevant training, qualifications and if appropriate; school exam results.
6. Interests & Hobbies – depending on the role you are applying for depends on how much you want to include.  Risk averse employers do not want to read that potential employees spend their recreational time participating in high risk activities.  However intellectual, cultural activities are usually acceptable to mention – but be prepared to answer questions on them.
7. Additional information – you may wish to include details of your right to work, ability to drive and anything else that might support your application favourably.  You are not obliged to include your date of birth or your marital status.

Your CV is a sales pitch that tells a potential employer that your skills match their job criteria. It only has one purpose – to get you an interview. It has to be clear, concise, look good and sell your achievements.  A trained eye will take around 20 seconds to scan your CV. You must make an immediate impact because a potential employer may not get past the first half page.

Reduce your whole life down to just 2 pages, and make it 100% better!

If you would like more information, please contact Lynn

It’s 2010 – a sigh of relief that we’ve got here.

2009 has been a challenging year for many of us, and despite the recession, lawmakers continue to update and later legislation which affects businesses employing people.

Why not try our quiz and check you’re fully up-to-date?

Questions

In memoriam

1.  What statutory rules affecting employment rights died in April 2009?

Births

2.  What new arrival joined the employment law world in April, the latest in a long and distinguished line?

3.  What new rules affecting those working with children and vulnerable adults came into force on 12^th October – but without their central database?

Honours

4.  Which bearded businessman was elevated to the House of Lords this year – and hired as enterprise car?

Paying the price

5.  Who hired an illegal housekeeper – and paid the penalty?

Moving on up

6.  What amount did a week’s pay for redundancy purposes increase to in October?

7.  What can employers in the restaurant and other service sectors no longer use towards paying the National Minimum Wage?

8.  What, since April, is 28 days or 5.6 weeks?

9.  Who, apart from parents of children under 5, disabled children under 18, and carers of people over 18, can since 6^th April request flexible working arrangements?

Nearly gone

10.  Can employers still lawfully require staff to retire at age 65?

Answers

1.  The Statutory Dispute Resolution procedures were abolished from 6^th April.

For more information, see NatWest’s news story: New rules on discipline and grievance handling now in force (April 2009)

2.  The new ACAS Code of Practice on discipline and grievance handling in the workplace came into force from 6^th April.

3.  The Vetting and Barring Scheme came into force on 12^th October.

4.  Lord (formerly Sir Alan) Sugar was hired by the Government as an “enterprise champion” and was given a seat in the House of Lords in June.  Read more: You’re Hired – Alan Sugar to advise government on business issues (June 2009)

5.  Baroness Scotland – the Attorney General – fell foul of the Home Office’s Civil Penalty Scheme for failing to check the immigration status of a person she hired as a housekeeper.  For more information: Attorney General fined for hiring illegal worker (Oct 2009)

6.  Statutory Redundancy Pay increased to £380 per week in October.  Check details: Redundancy Payments to increase (May 2009)

7.  Since 1^st October, employers can no longer use tips received by staff towards paying them the National Minimum Wage.  Read more: Tips will no longer count towards the National Minimum Wage (May 2009)

8.  Statutory minimum annual holiday entitlement increased to 28 days or 5.6 weeks from April 2009.  More info:  Annual Holiday Entitlement

9.  From April, parents of all children aged under 17 have the right to request flexible working arrangements from their employer.  Further info: The right to request flexible working

10.  Following a recent ruling in the Supreme Court, employers can continue to require employees to retire at age 65, provided they follow the correct procedure.  However, the ruling makes clear that changes to this rule may need to be made.  Read on: Retirement at 65 legal – for now (Oct 2009)

How did you score?

8-10 Well done!  You’ve pretty much kept up to date in a difficult year.  But make sure you look up the answers for the questions that floored you.

5-7 Not bad.  It’s understandable if some changes passed you by in this busy year.  But it is worth doing some homework on getting to grips with the changes you’ve missed.

Under 5 You’ve clearly been very busy “minding the shop” – but you have let some important developments in employment law pass you by.  You may be taking risks by not bringing yourself up to date.  Many of the changes this year are new minimum rights for staff, or things that mean you risk a financial penalty if you don’t comply with them.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Unpaid interns earn their rights (guardian.co.uk)
• HRTrain’s Top Ten Workplace Trends of the Decade (prweb.com)

We’ve done the shifting now it’s onto switching.  What will it be next?

Many of the city professionals are changing direction and using their transferable skills to find alternative employment.  Jack Grimston writes in the Sunday Times that “Bankers, Lawyers and other professionals flooding into schools may soon outnumber new graduates”.  So taking a reduced wage and an alternative lifestyle they are getting themselves back to work.

What will this mean for the schools?  A fresh approach in the class-room or a dull uninspired outlook?  How long before they want to return to their original chosen career?

Whilst reading the Sunday Times, I also picked up on the article on women entrepreneurs. That was a good read

Related articles by Zemanta

• Lipstick Entrepreneurs in The Sunday Times (thenextwomen.com)

The CIPD’s seasonal employment law quiz made me think!  How many employers fail when it comes to compliance and understanding their obligations?  I bet it’s a bigger number than you think.

Related articles by Zemanta

• HRTrain’s Top Ten Workplace Trends of the Decade (prweb.com)
• Your 21st century career will NOT be as an employee (flowingmotion.wordpress.com)

There’s a whole lot of expressions being used now to make sense of changing jobs, being out of work and looking for new opportunities.  Career management has never been more important as now in these recessional and challenging times.

If you find yourself in the situation of career transition then who do you turn to?  Can Job Centre Plus give you the answers and help you need?  Not necessarily.

Sometimes you might just need an independent unbiased person to talk to. Talking can lead to personal discovery; like understanding what your preferences are and where and with whom you want to work.  It’s not only your skills, knowledge and experience that need to be considered when you are searching for work.   Think about what you are interested in, the environment you want to work in, the values and motivations that are important to you too.  All are important if you want to enjoy and be fulfilled at work.

A professional career consultant has resources, expertise and knowledge that can help you get back on track and make sure that whatever gear you are in,  the career change is as smooth as possible.

Yes, there’ll be some HR, top tips and updates and there’ll be some career management strategies and guidance but I’ll also add some links and ideas as the weeks go on.

How to recruit the right people, what’s changing in Employment Law, how to manage a job search, all that and more.

Plus, networking and how an online presence is essential for both employer and employee.