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Robin Hood is reputed to have said,
"I can’t hit the target when I don’t know what it looks
like." While he wasn't talking about hiring new employees, the
quote aptly illustrates the first thing you need to do before you
recruit and hire anyone – make sure you know what your target employee
looks like. I'm not talking about physical characteristics or even a job
description. I'm talking about analyzing what it takes to be successful
in the job. A great acronym to use here is
CAPS – capacities, attitudes, personality, and skills.
Visualize a pyramid with four layers. Label the base layer with the C,
which stands for capacities. This base layer holds the rest of the
pyramid up and reminds you that if an applicant doesn’t have the
capacities needed to do the job, nothing else matters. There are two kinds of capacities
required for every job. The first is physical capacity. What does the
job require physically and can the person do those things? Does the
person have to be able to carry and place open house signs? Climb
stairs? Stand for long periods of time? The second part of capacity is
mental. How smart does the person have to be to do the job? Can the
person understand real estate law and write contracts – either now or
with training? Physical and mental capacities are the bare minimum
requirements needed to do any job. The second layer in the pyramid is
attitude. Once you know an applicant has the required capacities, you
need to find out if they have the attitudes needed to do a good job.
After all, 80 percent of the people who don’t make it in this industry
don’t wash out because they can't do the job, but because they won't
– and that’s an attitude problem. When 1,000 employers were asked what
the most important trait an employee could have was, the No. 1 answer
was a positive attitude. The No. 2 answer was dependability, and No. 3
was honesty. These are all attitudes. Customer service is an attitude,
dependability is an attitude, and, honesty is an attitude. The employee
who is consistently late, believes that being on time isn’t that
important. You need to define the attitudes that are important to
success on the job and then test for them. The third layer of the pyramid is
personality. When you consider personality, you have to understand that
there are three personality fits to look for.
First, the job has a personality. A job that requires an employee
to interact with a lot of people would, of course, be best suited to
someone who likes working with others.
Think of the employees who have been successful in the position
you need to fill and try to pin down the personality traits that set
them apart. The second personality fit to look
for is whether they have a personality that fits the manager's
personality. Ideally, the employee should prefer to be managed the way
the manager prefers to manage. At the extremes, some managers
micromanage and some encourage their people to manage themselves. Analyze
your management style and ask applicants who their favorite manager was
and why. This will give you a good idea if it will be a good match. Finally, you've got the company fit.
Does the personality of the applicant match the personality of the
company – its culture and organization? While you'll never find one
person who perfectly matches all three personality fits, if they have
the capacities and attitudes you need, most likely, they will be able to
manage their personality (do things they don’t necessarily like to do)
in order to get the job done. At the peak of the CAPS pyramid is
skill. Skill is the least important thing you should look for in a
potential employee. While it’s always possible to train a person in
the skills needed to do most any job, there’s simply no way to train
them to have the right mental and physical capacities, attitudes, or
personality. So, always hire for capacities, attitudes, and personality
and train for skills. They next time you have to hire, remember the C.A.P.S. pyramid. You’ll be surprised how much easier it is to find just the right person when you know exactly what you’re looking for. |
