An interesting – if flawed – discussion on hiring competent people. The author falls into the trap of assuming – at least, he appears to assume – that you can use an interview to identify attributes around competence. People can and do lie in interviews. Some people are remarkably competent at doing so. Indeed, he gives a table with the relevant attributes. The lack of evidence in any of these attributes is not itself evidence that the candidate is not sufficiently competent and motivated, merely that there is not the evidence to support it. That is, the lack of evidence is not itself an evidence of a lack.
This reminds me of a training course I ran recently for a client. The introduction carried an objective (good) that the delegates would be competent at the end of the day’s training (bad). Er, no they wouldn’t. Not even close. This is an impossibility because competence has to be measured over a period of time – without evidence of consistent performance, you do not have evidence of competence and an end of course assessment will not provide evidence of competence in itself – merely evidence of some retained knowledge – nor will one day’s training provide sufficient opportunity to achieve competence. The best that I could achieve with my delegates was familiarity with the course material. The person who wrote the objective – like many people who work in large organisations – is used to bandying about the word competence without understanding what it means. Which, frankly, is evidence to me of incompetence… Ahem…
Of course, if they are interested, I could always do some consultancy with them on the matter of competence management, but I’m not entirely convinced they would be interested.
Excellent. I’m currently working with NHS/local authority clients on training issues. They don’t understand this. I do. And I’m hugely delighted to see that you do as well, and have put it better than I ever could have.
Competence management is my specialist subject – along with learning and development..
The best way to decide if someone is worth hiring is to be on drinking terms with someone who’s employed him before.
How better can you see into the abilities of a man, than to hear/not hear what a clueless twat he was today, etc. after work? What better reference can there be?
I suppose the same vetting method could be extended to girlfriends, just letting a friend take her for a test drive first. And like the cars I have bought that way (goes really well, 20!), she’ll show up leaking, steaming and shagged out.
On the basis of a report prepared by Human Remains, I closely rejected a chap (he came third). He was selected anyway (someone else got the blonde) and became my protege. He has since left, formed his own business, and earns more in one month than I do in a year.
He wouldn’t have been good enough on the day but within three months he was right on track and after six, my solid Tonto. I guess he became the Lone Ranger after that. I’m the guy who mucks up after Silver. Heigh-ho!
I had a similar experience the other way around. I was rejected at interview for a line manager role. A role I was ideally suited for because I had both the technical expertise and the soft people skills gained from my training experience.
The chap who eventually secured the role failed dismally because while he had the technical background, he had no management skills. Eventually, after three other candidates tried it and failed, they gave me a try – the wooden spoon and all that. I excelled in the role and surprised the cynics. Indeed, my performance was noticed at headquarters because the performance of my team not only improved, but the level of contentment and motivation in the team was noticeably higher than the mean. There’s a moral in there somewhere…
Indeed. I gave up management because I missed the tech side that you get through small group mentoring. So I’m good at telling people to go off and do something, lousy at barking at them when they lag.
“Of course, if they are interested, I could always do some consultancy with them on the matter of competence management, but I’m not entirely convinced they would be interested.”
Are you joking? These people are far too smart/clever to put themselves into a position where their own competence can be judged.
A friend of mine was part of an interview board for a project manager. One of the board came from the HR department and they had a list of ‘competences’ that were required for the post.
To my friend’s mind the best candidate was someone who had worked for several years in aerospace, doing a job that my friend was familiar with, as he had also worked for the same company in a similar role.
However the candidate that satisfied the HR lady was one whose competence for project management was demonstrated by the way he mapped each of the required skills to the installation of his B&Q kitchen! In her defence at least that candidate fitted in with the departments culture, something where ‘diversity’ is never seen as ‘enriching’.
In my 20+ years working for the same large outfit in corporate America, I found that in most jobs competency did not matter. The only thing that did matter was that you never got management into trouble. This was rule # 1. It was always difficult to advance your career because in order to do that you could never tell management “no.” This was rule # 2. Of course complying with rule # 2 would often cause you to break rule # 1.
Are not interviews designed for exchanging codes.
Secret handshakes , showing of old school tie , cricket club colours or giving just a chance to have a chat with a young relative before dong the proper thing.