Personnel selection seeks excellence

Finding and promoting personnel with suitable excellence is complex. How companies benefit from systematic applicant management is explained by the book author Thomas Völkl, (Dipl.-Kfm., Sprecherzieher univ., DGSS). A checklist.

"The goal is excellent personnel selection. The basis is an optimal process that works with and for people," says Thomas Völkl, book author. (Image: Depositphotos)

Personnel Selection Seeks Excellence is the title of an interesting report by Thomas Völkl. Völkl is convinced: "Finding the best employees and attracting them to the company is becoming the central key to economic success. The future of a company is no longer decided solely on the customer market, but increasingly on the applicant market." This makes it all the more important to recognize the challenges in personnel management and to build up methodological competence in the company in good time.

"The goal is excellent personnel selection. The basis is an optimal process that works with and for people," says Thomas Völkl, book author.

Systematic applicant management

To be successful as a company in the long term, one factor is crucial - systematic applicant management. The reality is different: For many companies, the search for a new employee is more of a chore than a pleasant freestyle activity. When an application arrives in the mailbox, it often takes days for the candidate to receive confirmation of receipt due to a lack of time. After checking the documents, further information has to be requested. And already the applicant finds himself in the tedious and unmanageable jungle of online forms that can neither be saved nor mastered in a short time.

The job interview conducted between "door and door" gives the candidate the feeling of being more of a nuisance than of importance. This is not surprising; after all, the "info@..." address in the job ad without a contact person also suggests little individuality.

The result is an anything but positive "Candidate Experience". It is hardly to be expected that the applicant will remember the company in a strikingly positive way or proactively recommend it to other people. Yet the employee search process has one major advantage for companies: By describing the new positions, an internal search process is triggered. After all, anyone looking for new employees needs to know who they are, what makes them tick, what distinguishes them and what sets them apart from others.

Mr. or Mrs. Right wanted  

There are worlds between the personnel selection of yesterday and today. Not to mention what will be possible and necessary tomorrow. Companies have barely figured out what Generation Y wants, when Generation Z sets completely new priorities. The days when desks were bent with applications are long gone. Without selection, however, the successful search for the right candidate has also become significantly more difficult in many areas.

Companies have long been the new applicants and must take on their tasks: To stand out from the rest through unique selling points and excellent application management. This is not made any easier by the fact that very well-prepared applicants are increasingly meeting unprepared companies. In addition, the Internet has virtually revolutionized the application process. Anyone who has not recognized this will certainly have to contend with completely different difficulties in the search for Mr. or Mrs. Right in the future.

Here, the most important steps for HR professionals (see full report "Personnel Selection Seeks Excellence") are clearly defined:

  1. Paying attention to what the present says
  2. View personnel selection as a marketing tool
  3. Conduct the application process in an appreciative manner right from the start
  4. Know exactly who you are looking for
  5. Know who you are even better
  6. Cast the previous thoughts into a job ad
  7. Actively use all search options (online, internal, external)

The agony of choice

If a company has the choice between several or even very many applicants, it has done an excellent job. But what comes next? A veritable jungle awaits the HR manager, which, depending on how much experience someone has with selection processes, seems impenetrable to many. It is anything but easy to keep track of the hiring filters within an application process. First a work sample, then the online test? Or psychological testing and no assessment center for that? And when and how does the interview even make sense in the process? Two questions arise:

  • Which hiring filters make sense for our company and in relation to the position we are trying to fill?
  • In which order should the selected filter methods be arranged?

There are different ways of designing the application process with different hiring filters (central, in-depth, exceptional). The goal of the joint journey is always a recommendation list that the company can use to decide for or against a candidate. A route plan through the jungle of hiring filters is helpful for this.

To reach the destination, intermediate destinations and filter options are available. Some are directly on the selected route and are already known. Typically, the document check and a trial period are among them. Others - a work rehearsal or a technical presentation to the team - require a somewhat larger arc and associated longer travel time to ultimately reach the destination as well. Still others - a joint customer visit or a spontaneous lunch - are at first glance absolutely not on the way and require unexpected detours and new paths.

With new insights, however, companies can reach their goal - you can find further recommendations from Thomas Völkl at   www.thomasvoelkl.de

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