In my last post, I encouraged companies to evaluate their hiring process.
Remember, hire with purpose!! Put the same effort and diligence into hiring a new employee that you do evaluating and underwriting a loan decision, pursuing a new account or preparing for a regulatory exam.
A first and critical step in the process is to define the position for which you are hiring. Though few love to do it, developing a position description is an important step that accomplishes multiple goals:
1. Forces you to evaluate the purpose, deliverables and ideal qualifications for the position.
2. Provides a summary that can be shared with the candidates.
3. Gives you a set of criteria to measure every candidate against.
When I am working with a client on a new position, there are a series of questions that we discuss in order to help define. Some examples:
• What is the business purpose of this position? Remember, every position in the bank serves a purpose for the business.
• What is the desired impact on the business?
• What are the key objectives of the position?
• What are the required qualifications a candidate needs to meet?
• What are the key objectives in the first 90-120 days?
• What are the growth opportunities?
• What are the challenges of the position?
• What are the selling points on the company?
• What are the selling points of the position for the candidate?
I recommend that you do not take the “easy” route here – no copy and paste from a 3-year old job description! The ‘thinking’ this exercise requires can be extremely valuable to the decision-making process.
The next step after defining the position is identifying and screening candidates. In my next post I’ll offer some thoughts on that.