INSTANT MBA: Here’s One Big Hiring Mistake Most Companies Make

Instant MBA

August 26, 2014

What's the first step most companies take when trying to fill a position? They post an online listing with a job description and list of required skills.

But Lou Adler, CEO of The Adler Group and author of "The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired," says in a recent LinkedIn post that most employers are doing it all wrong.

"[A majority] of the job descriptions listed on LinkedIn (or any job board for that matter) are not job descriptions at all; they're people descriptions," he writes. "Job descriptions should describe what the person in the job needs to do, (e.g., design circuits, sell homes, diagnose problems, fix automated test equipment, and architect systems, and the like,) not describe the skills needed to do the job."

He calls these "skills-infested descriptions" — and says the problem with them is that they exclude great people who can do the actual work extremely well, "but don't have the exact list of skills and experiences supposedly required."

"Instead of falling into the skills and experience box-checking trap, I suggest recruiters ask hiring managers to define the work that needs to be done before defining the skills the person needs to have to do the work," he says. He refers to this as a "performance-based job description," where you list the six to eight critical tasks and performance objectives defining on-the-job success.

Then, he says, to determine whether a candidate would be the right fit for a job, hiring managers should ask: "What single project or task would you consider the most significant accomplishment in your career so far?"

"[This question] can be used to determine if the person is competent and motivated to do this work," he says. "Just have the candidate describe a personal accomplishment most comparable to what needs to be done for each of the objectives. The assessment is made on the growth and trend of the candidate's accomplishments over time; the scope, scale, and complexity of the accomplishments in comparison to actual needs, and the results achieved."

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