When there is a role vacancy in business we often go on autopilot. We write a short outline of what’s involved and start advertising it across various job seeking outlets, receive resumes (sometimes over a hundred!) and then try and sift through all the paperwork to invite the lucky few for a face-to-face interview. The quality of the applicant depends on how well they have matched their skills to the advertisement through their cover letter and resume. When we follow this path we are on track for a 57% success rate. This can be improved marginally (to an approximate 63% success rate) when we use reference checks. This ultimately leaves over one third of roles advertised to end in an epic fail.
What would happen if the regular recruitment process was turned completely upside down? Could we still find the best candidate to join the team? Of course we can. And we can achieve a higher success rate, faster.
Working back from the middle
Let’s look at the type person who will be interviewed. Often this is the middle of the process, but in this new method it’s the first port of call. The question we want to answer is - what kind of person are they? How we do this, is through the DiSC personality profile tool. In One Week At A Time, the recommendation is to also profile the role before it is advertised to candidates.
The right seats on the bus
Finding the right people to sit in their designated seats within a business is an art form. Each role within a business displays different sets of behaviours and extracting what those are takes some science and investigative work. Following is a small subset of questions to start the search:
Does the job call for….
- Analysing data and facts before acting?
- Tactfulness?
- Quick and forceful decisions?
- Logical thinking before making decisions?
Each of the above questions starts to formulate the picture of the kind of person that would be attracted to the role. Rank the need of each dot point from 1 to 4 (1 being the most important). There are over 10 sets of the above questions that are applied for a role fit. It’s interesting to learn that from just the above set, “quick and forceful decisions” is indicative of a D personality type, whereas “tactfulness” is aligned to an S personality style. If the ranking is given a 1 for “tactfulness” that will mean a social personality type may work in the role.
Each assessment that DiSC applies to, results in varying levels of all of the 4 styles. The four styles are: Dominant, Compliant, Steady and Influencer. The main preference (the style that is the most used) is the one that is most likely to be “leaned on” when the pressure is on.
Glass Slipper that fits
Each of the main preferential DiSC styles - Dominant, Influencing, Social and Conscientious are associated with fitting best with different kinds of roles. Below is a list of roles that may suit each style when there is a clear single style preference:
- High D personalities are typically found in roles that are managerial, political, executive, entrepreneurial and they can even be found in the military.
- A dominant C personalities suit roles that are highly analytical and critical such as a film critics, engineers, scientists, architects and skilled craftspeople.
- A person on the high S scale would excel in roles that involve support and understanding e.g. customer service, medicine, insurance, advisory positions and psychology.
- And the party going I is an entertainer, salesperson, coach, and wonderful host/hostess.
Once the role has been DiSC assessed, there are keywords which will invariably strike a chord with qualified candidates who have the same dominant preferences. For example a role may turn out to be a high combination of I and S therefore the advertisement must include trigger words such as ‘positive energy’, ‘cooperation’, ‘warmth’ and ‘team spirit’. Candidates will read the recruitment advertisement and immediately ask themselves “is this me?” and only those who answer “yes this sounds like me” will be contacting the organisation. The quality of resumes will be sent through on the strength of the subtle, but powerful word associations.
Whether a role is a high D or a combination of D and S, DiSC will extract the core preferences required to get the job done well. The highest levels of success has come from this methodology, achieving a staggering 88% success rate. Using DiSC on each role means the right people really will become your greatest asset.
DiSC Assessment Requests
Please contact Action Centre BusinessCoach, Brett Burden on telephone 1300 971 763 or email brettburden@theactioncentre.com.au to start your new wave of recruitment using DiSC.
Online references
Comments are closed.
