Competency based recruitment- this is how it works!

Recruiting new employees can be costly both in terms of time and money. Often you spend hours reviewing applications and conducting interviews, but how can you make sure to choose the person who best suits the job?

It is not uncommon to make use of traditional recruitment processes, where you go on your gut feeling and keep your fingers crossed for it to be right, which can lead to expensive mistakes. Or you use knowledge and facts to match the company’s needs, with the candidates’ skills. Fortunately, with Adecco’s competence-based recruitment process, you can increase the likelihood of a successful recruitment and choose the candidate who has the best chance of succeeding in the role.

Implementing a thorough competency-based recruitment process should be your top priority to ensure that you always find the right candidate to fill available positions within your company.

So what does competency based recruitment process entail?

A traditional recruitment process focuses on identifying and linking the candidate’s qualifications to the job description. The competence-based recruitment process aims to identify and match existing competencies, knowledge and skills, by drawing up a clearly defined list of requirements specified in the job description.

A thoughtful job description is prepared on the condition of a thorough needs analysis. The competence-based job description ensures that the intended position is defined on the basis of the skills and experience necessary to achieve the desired result.

Once you have decided what skills and experience are required for the role, the next step is to develop customized interview questions and tests to evaluate how the candidates use their skills and experience. In addition, they should convey a clear picture of what will be required in the new position, and here the candidates also get an opportunity to share their experience of performing similar tasks.

The competence-based recruitment process is structured, enabling a professional and objective assessment. In recent years, this process has become increasingly prevalent as it aims to treat all candidates equally and give applicants the opportunity to highlight their skills.

What are the benefits of using a competence-based recruitment process?

Increased candidate satisfaction – It is important that the candidate gets the right expectation and a clear perception of what will be required in the new position. This is ensured by having a job description with clear competence requirements in combination with tailor-made interviews and tests. It reduces the risk of disappointed candidates later in the process, while at the same time the structured methodology conveys an experience that you as a candidate are judged on your competence and nothing else.

Promotes diversity – Although structure is one of the main ingredients in competence-based recruitment, a customized process is also important. Structured interviews and tests help you focus more on the candidate’s actual skills, leading to a reduced risk of discrimination. As discrimination decreases, it will slowly but surely lead to increased diversity in the organization, which has many positive aspects.

Focus on results – A candidate’s level of education and years of experience are not necessarily an indication of his or her ability to deliver. In a competence-based recruitment process, the candidates are assessed both on the basis of the results from previous experience and on the basis of which existing competencies can be useful for achieving a desired result in the future.

Gain control over your competence needs with a clear requirements profile – By mapping your team’s expertise and goals, you focus on your company’s overall needs. With a clear requirement profile, you can in turn customize the questions according to the competence required to achieve the desired result. In this way, the questions are directly related to the needs of the business and the team. It should also be mentioned that a clear requirement profile contributes to setting expectations in the team and can be an effective tool for assessing competence needs going forward.

The labour market is changing more and more rapidly, and our recruitment processes must do the same. There is no need to waste time hiring based on intuition. Hiring the most suitable candidate should be based on a thorough needs analysis where you ensure that your specific business needs are met.

If you want to know more about how to get started with a competence-based recruitment process, get in touch with our experts at adeccoae.info@adecco.com.