Hiring: Navigating the boxless void

People always say “think outside the box,” but when it comes to today’s marketplace, that box was crumpled up and thrown away a long time ago.  

The world around us is constantly evolving, and our relationship to technology changes quickly from one tool to another. We are always integrating something new into our lives and work processes. Design thinking ─ the methodology of approaching situations as opportunities to find solutions, instead of problems to be solved ─ is changing the landscape. It came about as a natural extension of the principles used by engineers to create the technology of the next generation and has been expanded to meet business and social challenges.

What are you doing, within your own organization, to develop that next generation of employee? How are you innovating your recruitment and retention efforts to discover, and harness, the best from those people once you find them? What challenges have you turned into opportunities to continue to raise the bar of excellence, with new blood coming into your organization? Without the box dictating the limits of “how things are done,” you might feel as though you are aimlessly drifting in space.

The banking industry has undergone massive changes in the last few decades, and the business of Human Resources is changing and developing in new and exciting ways as well.

You no longer have to just post a job ad and sit back hoping the right active candidates find you. By mining social media assets, companies can locate passive candidates who aren’t currently looking for a new job, or who may not be familiar with your brand!

The interviewing process itself has gone digital; video conferencing is often a step in the applicant process. Panel interviews have replaced the one on one, so there are more perspectives and voices being heard throughout the hiring process.

Behavioral assessments, like the Omnia Profile, can integrate with a job search engine and help the hiring manager make those decisions about who to move forward, by giving new levels of insight into the candidates.

As intimidating as all this can be for applicants, it can be even more so for the people responsible for making those hiring decisions. There is more data available on applicants than ever before – more ways to reach them and continue to engage with them in every step of their work journey.

As the process becomes more digital, the interactions are also becoming more human.  Technology and process intervention continue to drive HR to where these potential candidates are online, to engage with them, to get to know who they are, and what they want.  Applicants want to know that the company they will be a part of actually cares about these things. They want to be a part of something, as well as feel respected for who they are.

The problem a lot of people face is how to translate that raw collected data into something actually meaningful on the human level, to be able to understand the wants and needs of an applicant.  How can you tell who needs to be motivated by individual vs team rewards? Who takes criticism quite personally? Who doesn’t let it bother them but may not feel a sense of ownership over their work?

This is what is great about a behavioral assessment like the Omnia Profile. It’s a data-driven tool that can map the strengths and challenges of each candidate to help find the best fit between the person and the job duties.  It’s a compass always pointing to inherent truths that help you to navigate the “boxless” void.

The assessment breaks down attributes into four main areas:

• What motivates an individual
• Their preference for social vs analytical tasks
• Preferred pace
• How attentive to detail they are

These four basic areas form the basis of learning about who the candidate is and what they bring to the table.

Someone who prefers to deal with one thing at a time will feel rushed when faced with multi-tasking.  A person who prefers engaging with people will feel stifled in a lonely back office position. You don’t need the same level of detail attention for every position – some will need to see every blade of grass but others will want to look at the whole landscaping plan.

The Omnia Profile can also guide you through the hiring process. Someone who is more extroverted will have a tendency to do better in a panel interview where everyone is asking them questions. Compare that to someone with introverted tendencies, who is going to feel more comfortable with a one-on-one approach such as video conferencing during an interview.  

Understanding these attributes and how they relate to each other within an individual can give you better insight into your candidates, employees, and yourself as a manager.

When using a behavioral assessment, you can more accurately map out the process from candidate to long-term employee. Regardless of what new technological trends may occur, these candidates will still be the same people on the inside.

You can also assess your existing top performers and create benchmarks for which personality attributes excel in each position. Those benchmarks can be used as a guide, not only to recruit the right people, but also to help those already in your organization as they continue to grow professionally.

The Omnia Profile merges technological advances of the industry with an in-depth analysis of what you can do to help each candidate fulfill their potential within the credit union.  It’s a tool that can fully integrate into your decision-making process, to help you further innovate and humanize the process of finding, hiring, and motivating employees.

The box is gone. But you have an ever-expanding toolbox, and a compass, to help you find your way amongst the stars. Enjoy the journey!