HR Profiling

© BY STUDYLIE, 2019

ISBN 978-5-4496-1301-1

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

INTRODUCTION

A candidate came to the interview to work in your company. His speech is well delivered, curriculum vitae is great and in general he gives an impression of a professional. But appearances are deceptive, the Internet has plenty examples of «correct resumes», and behind the mask of a promising employee might be hiding an empty talker or a crook who has already been caught in stealing and dismissed in disgrace. And what if it is an agent of a competing company? And he will begin to give away confidential information?

Neither option can not be excluded. Security is one of the main factors determining the stability and competitiveness of any organization. In this sense, recruitment plays a key role. Who needs employees robbing a company, hustling behind their bosses’ backs and so on? The question is rhetorical, and the answer is simple – no one. But how to put a barrier in the way of such people? The task is not trivial.

Suppose a business is small, employees are few, and everyone knows each other for many years. Even in this case «surprises» from seemingly absolutely reliable employees are possible. Not to mention a large company. There are plenty of applicants for a good position, everyone has excellent resumes, everyone wants to demonstrate his or her strengths and hold back negative information. And so many people have things to hide: criminal biography, and, therefore, connections in the criminal world, addiction to drugs, alcohol, gaming addiction. The presence of large debts that one cannot succeed to pay off, a scandalous quit from previous work, and a lot more.

So, who is in front of us: an honest professional or a deft liar? The answer to this question can give technologies developed and widely used by the International Academy of Lie Research (IALR).

Our company has been present on the market for ten years. During these years, IALR carried out about 20,000 polygraph examinations (Psychophysiological Detection of Deception (PDD), took part in more than 500 actual investigations, and made 300 expert evaluations upon the request of investigative and judicial authorities. We provided more than a thousand psychological counselings, published 12 books and trained several thousand people. Our experts are often involved in television projects. And I am Martianova Lyudmila, the author of the book, a practicing profiler and polygraph examiner at the International Academy of Lie Research, and in this book I will share professional secrets and interesting stories from my colleagues and my own experience.

Of course, the work of a recruiter is not limited to identifying a liar. Before you take someone to work, especially in a responsible position, you need to make the most complete psychological portrait of the candidate. But everyone has weaknesses that are usually kept out of the public eye. Some people perform excellent results in a relaxed atmosphere, but they get lost in force majeure situations. The project deadlines are suddenly shifted, an acute shortage of time occurs – a familiar situation, isn’t it? In these case the ability to withstand stress comes to the fore.

Some can not find a common language with the customer simply because of insufficiently developed communication skills. Others are not able to resist the temptation to get illegal income at the expense of the company. And so on.

There is another layer of problems. They arise when a candidate fits all criteria except values. Imagine a young man graduated from a higher education institution, who wants to be a lawyer, defend the innocent and fight against injustice.

So at the interview he says: «I want to become a first-class lawyer under your guidance and fight for justice!». And in front of him sits an experienced man, who has a completely different view of the advocacy. «What? For justice? What are you talking about now? How will we earn money? ” If a young man does not want to move away from his creed, then these two people are out of the way.

Needless to say that some companies require adherence to strictly defined procedures. Other companies expect flexibility, if not absence of principles. Remember the joke about the accountant recruitment:

– What’s 2 plus 2?

– Four.

– Next!

– What’s 2 plus 2?

– Four.

– Next!

– What’s 2 plus 2?

– How much do you need?

In other words, before you approve a candidate for a position, you will have to gather as much information about him as possible. Sometimes it is quite easy to do, but usually the help of highly qualified specialists is required.

We had an interesting case when a guy came to the interview for a position of a head of sales department. I talk to him for a while, notice the features that say that according to his psychotype he is a kind, gentle, diligent person. He knows how to get along well with people, behaves delicately and carries out the tasks assigned.

Then I ask him a question: «What animal do you associate yourself with?» Understanding that his qualities are being evaluated now, he answers: «I associate myself with a lion!» Then the guy lists a number of his characteristics, explaining why he thinks so. And here it turns out that he will not «buckle» people, neither will he impose his point of view.

Then I ask him about the reasons for his dismissal from a previous job, and I see that the candidate is holding something back. After asking a question later using a different wording, I get an answer. It turned out that the guy was on a leadership position three times, but each time he would leave. The first time it was because one of his colleagues set him up, but he did not try to prove his position. In the second case, the manager was throwing a spanner in the works, but our «lion» did not fight. And, finally, he left the third post when a controversial issue with management arose. The guy decided to avoid the conflict and rather start looking for another job.

It is clear that the head of the department should be able to solve problematic issues, even if they imply any unpleasant confrontation.

And here is another example, unique in a way. This time a man was interviewed, a candidate for the position of a development manager. It was a man who was not accustomed to working under the guidance of anyone. Previously, he had his own business projects and not always legal, including raider attacks.

Of course, he did not share about his specific experience immediately. Standard control questions sound like this: «Have you ever deceived your employer?», «Did you treat the task or work negligently? At least once?» And others. But for this candidate we had to use «big guns». The dialogue was as follows:

– Do you prefer to achieve your goals illegally most often?

– Well, in different ways.

– And most often?

– Yes.

«Are you capable of murder?»

– Yes.

Eventually, I did not recommend taking him as a development manager. He would have done an excellent job as a consultant, but I had suspicion that with such a manager our client would have a risk of losing his company.

Well, on this the introductory part of the book can be finished. Details are waiting for the reader further. The following chapters will discuss how to apply technologies to ascertain the personality characteristics of candidates and organization employees in practice. And, not least, we will look at ways to predict their behavior in contexts of interest to you.

It should be noted that the book you hold in your hands is a practical guide written on the basis of the Russian realities of doing business. Theorizing is minimized, everything is to the point and aimed at solving real problems that are constantly encountered by executives, recruiters and middle managers.

We would like to thank our colleagues: Evgeny Spiritsa, Alexey Filatov, Svetlana Ivanova for the opportunity to use the results of the works and research of these talented people who have made a great contribution to the study of this field.

CHAPTER 1
MAPPING A POSITION PROFILE

If the goal is blurry, then the result will be the same. A clear idea of the tasks to be solved by the employee is a prerequisite for successful recruitment. Therefore, the first thing that is required is to describe the relevant competencies, individual and personal characteristics, requirements for knowledge, skills, qualifications and experience of the employee (candidate).

Such a description is called a position profile.

If we neglect the compilation of the position profile, guided by some vague image of the desired, then the selection of employees will be made «by guess and by gosh». That’s how companies hire mediocre, poorly motivated, and sometimes obviously undesirable performers.

Companies often send candidates to the International Academy of Lie research both to assess their psychological portraits and to identify risk factors. Here it turns out that customers have little idea what they want to receive. In other words, these companies simply select more or less liked resumes from the stream of incoming ones. Moreover, the selection takes place on the basis of some vague ideas about what kind of employee is needed!

In this situations we have to make a profile ourselves. Later when we agree on this profile with the customer, he says: «It looks good! Why not?».

Sometimes there is another error which occurs because of using obsolete profiles. Well, yes, the profile has been once compiled, and you cannot say that it is not there. But since then the company has changed the direction of its development, and employees continue to recruit according to the criteria formulated for other tasks. The world is changing very quickly. And even if it sounds like a cliche, it’s a fact. And, nevertheless, a number of companies use «cemented» profiles, the «filling» of which has long been requiring a radical revision.

I believe we agreed that the current profile of the position is necessary. And now let’s consider how to make it properly.

Writing down the list of competencies and values that are mandatory for the candidate.

For instance, for the position of sales manager such competence will be sociability or stress resistance. Further, based on the prevailing corporate ethics and values of the company, it is necessary to prescribe the values that the candidate should have. It is desirable that the company and the employee have similar values.

Main requirements for the employee, his experience and knowledge.

The list of requirements, as a rule, includes specific knowledge, skills and abilities that the candidate must possess. I will not dwell on this in detail. I will only note that there are basic requirements, without which a person cannot be effective in a particular field of activity. For example, if the work of a manager is connected with foreign companies, then one cannot do without knowledge of English. This is a prerequisite, since a person cannot quickly learn a foreign language in the process of doing his job.

I will talk more specifically on such components of the profile as work experience and learning capability. If you want the employee to be engaged in the work immediately, then preference should be given to an experienced candidate. If the nature of work has its own narrow specifics, it might be better to invest certain resources into the employee while he is learning and getting into the position. By the way, in driving schools, instructors often ask a student if he had previously driven a car. The answer «no» usually makes the instructor happy, since he won’t have to retrain. If you need to find a specialist for the «bottleneck», or train him «for yourself» – it is better to choose a candidate without experience.

What is more important for you, experience or personal characteristics? For example, an active student applies for the position of sales manager. Yes, he has no experience, but he is so charming, charismatic, he rocks and inspires so that the question of experience is not even an issue. Or, let’s say, here comes a manager with 10 years experience, but upon closer inspection it will become clear that all these years he has been sitting on incoming calls in the same company.

However, if we are talking about a highly specialized field or specific knowledge – work experience is necessary. If you select an employee for a large foreign company, and, for example, job responsibilities include technical translation from a foreign language, then experience is desirable. To work in shops or to manage the production, one needs experience of at least 3 years. Experience has shown, that during the first 2 years a person figures out the nuances and specificity, makes mistakes and learns from them. Therefore, before answering the question of who you want – beautiful or smart – analyze the specific nature of the work.

I need to warn those who want both an experienced and capable of learning employee, that sometimes the «box» is fully stuffed. And things that you will try to add to the top might simply pour.

Expected employee motivation.

You need to understand what kind of motivation you expect from a person. For example, there is a motivation «To positive results» (for short – «TO»). And the motivation «From negative consequences» (for short – «FROM»), which means avoiding unpleasant situations. Mind the main credo of doctors – «Do no harm!». Especially in emergency situations motivation «FROM» allows to make the right decisions.

Let us compare the motivations of a risk manager and a sales manager. The first one should be motivated to get away from unnecessary risks, solve assigned tasks without mistakes and get the salary on time. The second one is motivated by the results worth the effort, by management recognizing him as the best manager. You need to understand what you can give the employee, and what pole of motivation he is relying on. Below, in the chapter on metaprograms, we will talk in more details about the program of motivation.

Behavioral model in different situations and when making decisions.

Model the most common situations that an employee will encounter in the course of the work. Then identify the most effective models.

Suppose an employee is invited for a process, operational activity, where the main requirement is sense of duty. This work does not require super-skills, and here the model of conflict avoidance is acceptable. But if we select a candidate for the position of leader, then avoiding conflicts while solving issues will have a destructive impact not only on his work, but also on the entire organization.

How will the candidate behave in conflict situations? In order to test, argue with the candidate, just do not start right away, let him get used to you a little, adapt. After that, create a conflict situation around disagreement with something. This will be a hint for you. But still for an exhaustive analysis a deeper check is usually required.

Before we start talking about it, let me introduce the term «metaprogram, linguistic and behavioral profile». This is a set of unconscious filters of a person’s perception, through which basic life and behavioral strategies and associated beliefs are formed.

So, we study the past experience of the candidate, his psycho-type, and, of course, the metaprogram profile. Knowing the metaprogram profile we can tell a lot about the candidate.

It will become clear how and in what form information should be conveyed to each specific candidate in the most accessible and capacious way.

Analysis of the metaprogram profile will allow to form official duties, identify the professional opportunities and limitations of a particular candidate, find out how to motivate him.

It will become clear whether the candidate is able to interact with the team members, how he makes decisions and on which basis, how long it will take him to do that. Instant respond to rapidly changing conditions is one thing, another thing is a systematic problems solving analysis in the field of strategic management. Who do you need, a call center expert who promptly answers questions, or a manager who determines the development strategy of an organization?

Summarizing the above said, I would like to note that the analysis of the metaprogram profile provides an answer to the main question: whether the candidate will be successful in the position he is applying for or not.

Candidate’s education

There are positions in which a person’s personal characteristics play a greater role than a certain education.

For instance, a manager may be a charismatic, strong-willed, initiative person who thinks strategically, but has not got education of a manager. And vise versa, a person with a manager education might not fit this position in terms of his personal characteristics (passive, non-initiative, etc.).

But if you recruit a candidate for the position of an engineer in the nuclear industry, then you cannot do without a specialized education. So in the profile, be sure to record the level of education, if necessary.

Here the question may arise: if a person has experience, but there is no proper level of education, is it so critical? What if you’ll miss a good specialist? Are you ready to invest in raising his level of education with various qualification upgrades? Will the employee be allowed to go on study leave if he wants to study? You should have the answers to these questions.

Preferred relationships in the team, expectations for leadership style, peculiarities of team interaction.

An important moment is the type of relationships that a person prefers in a team. If the activity implies the competition among employees and the candidate is used to working in conditions of trust and mutual assistance, then this team will not work for him.

Leadership style is a factor that affects the duration of the work and the motivation of the employee. Some people prefer a strict hierarchical relationship and a clear task, but for another one it is easier when you can talk with management on unrelated topics and maintain good relationships. These things can be cleared up with the help of special questions used in projective techniques. We will talk about them in the relevant chapter.

There are also situations when a candidate is an excellent specialist, but he has «his own vision» of working in a team. To put it bluntly, he poorly interacts with the team, which is a distraction for both the specialist and the rest of the team. Who is your candidate: a manager, a lone wolf or a team player? There are special questions to find this out.

Goals and tasks of a specialist.

Determine what goals the worker should pursue. Once we were recruiting a candidate for the post of a production manager. We were looking among people living in Moscow, Moscow region and in the province. There was one 53 years old candidate from the periphery. On the question why did he respond to the vacancy and was even ready to move to another region while not having relevant experience, he answered: «I want to try myself in a new field.» It is unlikely that such a goal should have a person in this position, taking into account his age and experience.

Quite often we face the fact when a person gets a management position having no goal at all. This might suggest that he can stick to the same policy at work. Try asking the question: «Whom does your candidate see himself in a few years? In which areas would he like to develop? ” With some candidates it becomes immediately obvious that the person has never asked himself these questions.

If we need to fill a vacancy for a line position and we need a good performer, then the goal to take the post of director in the near future is hardly suitable for our request. For this post we will be looking for good performers who are not striving to take management positions.

Recommendation: In this part of the profile, the full functionality of what the employee is required to do shall be written. The reason for that is so that other responsibilities, which might be gradually added, won’t come as a surprise to an employee.

The more detailed the profile, the better it is. It is more likely that you will not get a cat in a bag. But try not to overdo it with incoming conditions. At times, you read a profile and you understand that this position requires a Superman, although in fact the position does not imply the use of a number of the listed skills. Just as in everything, you need to stick to the golden medium.