THE NEW ART OF HIRING SMART: MATCHING THE RIGHT PERSON TO THE RIGHT JOB

Organizations and businesses spend an enormous amount of time and money in a never-ending effort to train, coach, motivate, or develop marginal employees to a level of performance that is merely adequate. In organizations and businesses throughout the world, there are people who are not performing at the levels expected. At some time or another, virtually every person has been in a job that was not right for him or her. All the same, organizations hired each of these people with careful thoughts and positive expectations. Most people took those same jobs with every intention of succeeding. It is very difficult and expensive to train your way out of a bad hiring decision. The process by which individuals are selected is clearly the most critical and controllable variable in the development of a productive and successful work team. However, traditional selection methods have several limitations for the accurate understanding of people and their performance. Traditionally, organizations have viewed people and their performance within the context of ability. Those with lots of ability can do almost anything well, and those with less are often assigned to jobs in which they won't cause significant damage. This type of thinking supports the belief that education, experience, training, and more training will enhance ability and, therefore, performance. If a person with perceived ability does not perform well after being trained, his or her problem is assumed to be motivational. In reality, three factors may have impact on a person's ability potential: attitude (organizational match); technical competence (skills match); and cognitive ability, personality structure, and interests (job match). This paper discusses these cornerstones of job performance and follows up the discussion with an examination of assessment tools, the legalities of using testing and assessments, using job match assessments with existing employees, and succession planning.

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  http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/circulars/ec013/ec013.pdf
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  • Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved
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• Authors:
  • Swenson, A T
• Conference:
  • 12th Equipment Management Workshop
  • Location: Austin, Texas
  • Date: 1998-8-2 to 1998-8-5
• Publication Date: 2000-1

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: References; Tables;
• Pagination: p. 56-70
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Circular
  • Issue Number: E-C013
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0097-8515

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Abilities; Attitudes; Cognition; Evaluation and assessment; Hiring policies; Legal factors; Personality; Personnel performance; Planning; Testing
• Uncontrolled Terms: Job match
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Highways; Law; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors; I10: Economics and Administration;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00791524
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: E-C013
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Apr 12 2000 12:00AM