It’s every boss’s goal: Hire the right person for the job. To achieve this goal, you need to put more time and energy into a job analysis. With this tool, you can match an applicant’s skills and qualifications to those of the opening you are trying to fill.
Let’s imagine you’re hiring telephone service representatives to take orders on incoming toll-free lines. Here’s how a job analysis helps in your hiring decision:
- Identify job tasks. These are the actual duties that make up the job. Don’t just list them. Identify how much time employees give to each task, and specify performance standards for each task. For example: “Telephone sales representatives spend more than 90 percent of their shifts taking phone orders. Normally, our representatives fill an average of 24 orders per hour.”
- Isolate success factors. These are the skills, knowledge, abilities and behaviours essential to successful performance. The best way to single out these factors? Ask star employees and their supervisors to list them and then include the factors in the job analysis. For example: Telephone sales representatives must handle stress well. They like interacting with others and have good sales skills. They’re courteous, good communicators and make customers feel at ease.
- Rate the importance of success factors. Ask employees to list in order of importance each of the factors they identified as essential to the job. For example: (1) Courteous manners. (2) Good communication skills. (3) Like interacting with others. (4) Ability to handle stress. (5) Good sales skills.
- Draft interview questions. Directly tie these questions to the important success factors and job tasks. For example: “How have your communication skills helped you explain a difficult or unpopular concept to someone else?” “Tell me about a stressful job you’ve had and how you dealt with the pressure.” “Telephone sales representatives sit at the same station for up to eight hours a day. How do you feel about this job requirement?”
- Always ask open-ended, rather than closed questions. Closed questions are generally answered “yes” or “no.” For example: “Did you like this article?” On the other hand, open-ended questions anticipate a thorough response. For example: “How does this article help you make better hiring decisions?”
