It’s OK to Commit When You Find the Right Job Fit

Hiring is a little like scanning through Netflix for the next show to commit to. Stick with us here.

With Netflix, you have so many choices, and the opportunities for entertainment are endless. But even if something is critically acclaimed, it might not be for you. Even if your friend recommends a program, it might be too slapstick for your tastes. Make the wrong choice, and you just wasted hours of your scarce leisure time.

Like searching Netflix, a job opening provides an opportunity where you need to make a choice, a difficult choice. But this is an opportunity for your organization, and for the people you’re hiring. It’s a good thing, we promise. You can add fresh talent, new ideas, and an all new perspective. But for all the great things a new hire can bring, many hiring managers and human resources fear the worst-case scenario in which the new hire just doesn’t work out.

In the ultra-competitive world of talent procurement, these mistakes cost money, time, and they cost your business the opportunity to add someone to your team that can get the job done well, fast.

It comes down to fit. The right person. In the right role. For the right environment.

Note, we didn’t say culture fit. That’s too easy, writes Patty McCord, the chief talent officer at Netflix from 1998-2012, in an article published by the Harvard Business Review.

“One company’s A player may be a B player for another firm,” McCord writes.

Because job fit isn’t just about whether the candidate would be fun to have a beer with, she advises.  Job fit is about how well an individual fits specific jobs in your organization based on the traits that are most important for each of those roles. To find candidates who are a great fit for roles in your organization, McCord says you have to:

1. Treat recruiters as business partners – “Just like any other department or division head, your HR chief should understand the details of your business, how you earn your revenue, who your customers are, and your strategy for the future.” Connecting business strategy to talent strategy is a ‘must’ for organizations looking to drive business results.
2. Engage hiring managers fully – The people who know best what they need, and what their dream candidate should look like, are in your building. When hiring managers work closely with the recruiting team (internal or external) to align on the vision for the open roles/job requirements things tend to go more smoothly
3. Probe beneath the surface – The resume only tells a small part of a person’s story and skillset. One of her best recruiters found seemingly off-the-wall talents such being a musician helped people succeed in data analysis. While this might sound odd, it makes sense. Music, it turned out, showed an ability to “toggle” between the left and right brains, which is necessary in data analysis.
4. Always be recruiting – For most companies, hiring is often a reactive process where hiring managers and recruiters start talking when they have to start looking. Starting from scratch and rushing to fill vacancies often delays the hiring process and causes them to miss out on the best candidates. Having a proactive approach to your talent strategy helps you hit the ground running. Keep an eye out, because your next great candidate might be the person sitting next to you at the bus stop.

You see, McCord and Netflix knew a long time ago what PXT Select has been offering since before you could stream an entire season of “The Office” in one weekend. Built on 20-plus years of research and rigorous validation, PXT Select offers a simple solution trusted by thousands or organizations worldwide to help them select the right people, fast. When it comes to finding the right hire, we make it “Simple. Human. Smart.” It doesn’t matter if you’re Netflix or the little shop around the corner, PXT Select helps address your hiring needs to help your organization drive business results.

The PXT Select solution offers one assessment, 13 reports, and a simple 4-step process that assists hiring managers through the life-cycle of searching for a new hire all the way through the retention of that person. With the use of adaptive testing, we offer a personalized assessment experience for candidates, and a personalized interview tailored for hiring managers and future hires. We’ll help you identify and assess what your vision is of your “ideal candidate” based on the competencies most important to you, then create a performance model that defines the characteristics of them to be successful in the role. Finally, we’ll evaluate future candidates against this performance model to find the very best fit for your organization.

“’I’ve found that if you focus intently on hiring the best people you can find and pay them top dollar, chances are your business growth will more than make up for what you spend on compensation,” McCord writes.

See, it really is an opportunity. You can’t afford to waste yours. Now, excuse us, we have some binge watching to do.