Homing in on the Right Talent

Have you ever hired an employee with an extremely impressive resume and glowing references only to wonder where that person went once they actually started to work for you? If, so you are not alone. In fact, so many businesses make such bad recruitment decisions that it has spawned an entire industry dedicated to weeding out job seekers who may have gotten carried away embellishing their resumes, or who may be incompatible with your company's culture and objectives. Many human resources departments provide primarily administration roles to screen, hire and generally manage staff, which Wilson Chu, General Manager, Kenexa Brassring Asia Pacific Ltd., feels is a big mistake. "One of the HR manager's key roles is to recruit talent, but HR managers should also improve the skill sets of existing staff to sharpen the company's competitive edge," he said. "If HR departments are merely administrative departments, they will not be in the best position to contribute to their company's growth." He suggests that HR managers attend management meetings to clearly understand their companies' status to allow them to provide a strategic development role, instead of just an administrative function. Kenexa Brassring Asia Pacific Ltd, set up its office in Hong Kong in 2006 when Kenexa, a leading provider of talent acquisition and retention solutions, acquired Brassring, an applicant tracking company. The American-based HR expert has 20 years' experience in manpower software, management, and outsourcing services. It also helps organizations recruit and retain employees, as well as maximize their performance, through its talent assessment software, which tests applicants' hard and soft skills sets. "Just because someone graduates from a well-known university, this doesn't necessarily mean that they will be good employees. Likewise, if somebody graduates from a second-tier university, it doesn't mean they are not as good," Mr Chu explained. "So a useful way help narrow down the right candidate is to have potential employees take a customized test based on your company's needs. This will help ascertain how this person will perform if he or she enters your company." While hard skills tests are nothing new, soft skills tests are designed to measure applicants' behavioral traits, such as team spirit, leadership qualities, etc. The results are benchmarked against leading professionals in similar fields, and the findings can also be used to determine what attributes make certain staff performer better than others. "In China, there are about 6 million fresh graduates every year, and a lot of companies in the Mainland will hire fresh graduates," Mr Chu said. "So the question arises how are they going to screen the very high volume of applicants effectively and efficiently in the shortest possible time? These tests help these companies find the best people," Mr Chu said. In addition to skill tests, Kenexa also provides structured interview questions designed by psychologists to highlight whether applicants have winning attributes. But Mr Chu points out that finding the best candidate is not the end of the story. Making sure staff perform to the best of their ability is equally important. "Usually, when you have a high level of employee engagement in your company, customers tend to be more satisfied, which also means increased profits. For example, when your staff arrive for work, you can see they have physically come to the office, but have their hearts and minds come to work too?" he asked. Today, Asian businesses are more open to using assessment tools, and Mr Chu believes that those who have tried them appreciate their usefulness, because it helps companies maximize the contribution of their workforce, thus improving their bottom line. "It is surprising how many HR managers fail to do this or even ask themselves: Are we using your human resources effectively?" he said. This is a question that any company which wants to improve its performance needs to ask itself.