Hiring for keeps

Streamlining the recruitment process to get the best person for the job is a continuing challenge to most firms. There is a lot of time and money involved in hiring personnel, and if the ones chosen turn out to be the wrong employees, in firing them.
Recruiters either hire the wrong employee or miss out on the right ones because they have poor or no recruiting and hiring strategies. Many times, their selection standards are unclear.
Thus many organisations coming from diverse fields painstakingly undertake this critical aspect of the business and specialise in creating hiring techniques and procedures to lessen the risk.

Holistic method
The process of Executive Search is an opportunity to create a blueprint for an organization’s direction. It could be a make or break for the company, with some leaders able to turn a faltering company around or sustain a great run, as others bury their organisations deeper into the pit.
Knowing that companies need to tap the right leaders-those who are dynamic and possess the right vision-PotterHouse, initially organised as an executive search and selection firm, uses performance appraisals not only to assure that the candidate selected can truly deliver but also to determine areas of improvement.
But to achieve breakthrough solutions and maximum production out of the targeted results, PotterHouse expanded its services to offer a holistic method of matching both employers and candidates.
“PotterHouse was established as more than just an Executive Capital Acquisition firm.
In line with our Company’s values, we have also developed an Outplacement Consulting Specialty,” explains Audrey Cheang, Director, Professional Services of Potterhouse.
“With our expertise in talent acquisition, management and retention process as well as planned talent attrition process, we support as subject matter experts to partner employers through each of those processes so that their staff can continue to add good value to their business,” she adds.
More importantly, PotterHouse believes that people are not here by chance.
That people are formed for a special reason, thus they are one of a kind.
PotterHouse emphasizes that personally knowing an employee is the best way of measuring how they could perform and their importance to their operations.
“This is not to say that resumes are unimportant in the recruitment process as they provide the foundation of the discussions and behavioural interviews. But not only must it accurately detail the candidate’s past experiences, education and successes, recruiters must also explore beyond the written qualifications since some applicants have reached their peak in performance for a job category and whose performance may have plateaued or be on a downward spiral,” Ms. Cheang points out.
While PotterHouse sees to it that candidates meet the basic qualifications before they are considered for interview, these qualifications are not carved in stone as many qualified candidates often do not fit the role they are applying for. Ms. Cheang warns that companies should avoid the pitfall of looking for someone with more skills beyond what is necessary as positions are often left vacant because of this. “At times organisations can satisfy themselves with the best candidate available at that point in time,” she points out.
PotterHouse conducts Executive Coaching through Ms. Cheang who holds a Master Coach Certification from the Behavioral Coaching Institute in the United States to assist clients develop talents who are consistently resilient and successful in all they do and fit in with the company’s clients.
“With clients, we strive to continuously enhance our working partnership by working with speed and planned accuracy to provide optimal human capital solutions,” says Ms. Cheang.
“But we don’t tell a client that this is the ideal candidate,” Ms. Cheang explains. “Rather, we show them a particular candidate’s strengths and see if that is what they are looking for. We give them a feel of how that candidate can add value to their business,” she emphasizes.
Having matched many right candidates with employers while upholding values of high integrity, prompt response, and feedback as they explore all avenues to assist both clients and candidates is the hallmark of PotterHouse.

Ascertaining competence
Another obstacle happens when potential candidates hesitate to apply for positions whose given requirements they do not fulfill. Many of them hesitate for the apprehension of being shooed away by ill-advised recruiters religiously sticking to the set qualifications, who in turn often miss out on the right candidate and burden their company’s resources. Ascertaining applicants’ competence could certainly not be done through a hit-or-miss method, especially for EMC, who believes that people and their ideas are the only real differentiators.
To take these differentiators to the highest possible levels, EMC avoids recruitment loopholes by closely interacting with job applicants and making the pre-requisite formal qualifications dependent on the position applied for and the stage in their careers.
“EMC has a set of comprehensive and extensive hiring criteria to ensure that we hire the best from the industry, and these individuals are the right fit for the company and possess the qualities that will help drive our company towards maintaining its market leadership,” explains Paul Sexton, EMC HR Director - South Asia & India.
At EMC, a candidate does not necessarily need to fit the job role 100%. Rather, the company gives much weight on the applicant’s passion and drive for the job as well as the ability to learn, adapt, communicate and collaborate, which they are able to ascertain through background verification by leveraging through employee referrals, conducting behavioural interviews and reference checks to uncover valuable insights into the candidate’s experience, performance and level of motivation.
“A candidate applying for an accountant position must possess the relevant qualification and someone with only a year of working experience will certainly benefit if they can demonstrate a multi-year commitment by obtaining a degree qualification. However, a sales professional with over eight years of working experience and possessing strong customer and industry relationships do not necessarily need to show more credentials,” Sexton points out.
He added that in today’s business environment, being talented will not guarantee success. “Candidates must be self-motivated to achieve personal success through delivering on the company’s goals.
For EMC, a proven track record of more than five years of contributing to a company’s success is a very attractive quality in a candidate. Job hoppers who only spent 12 to 18 months in their previous companies will need to substantially justify their career changes.
It’s important for an applicant to have career purpose and focus. EMC supports career changes for employees who are performing well and interested in trying something new.

Motivating employees
Motivation usually forms the foundation in which the successful demonstration of an individual’s competencies will lead to outstanding performance. A company with de-motivated employees will struggle to keep pace. Maintaining high employee morale is an aspect of personnel relations that EMC and PotterHouse meticulously address.
With their goal to provide baskets of opportunities and to minimise the outplacement of candidates, PotterHouse sees to it that they match a candidate with the right environment or culture where they can perform more efficiently and deliver the right results. “Of course, there may be things that they might have to unlearn in order to adjust to a new culture,” says Ms. Cheang. “But we can coach these candidates by helping them rediscover their motivation, their strengths, know the kind of job they are looking for, and help them in positioning themselves,” Ms. Cheang points out.
On the other hand, to ensure that employees are properly motivated, EMC makes it a point to clearly enlighten employees what they are being tasked to do, the reasons behind what they’re doing and how their tasks are aligned and contributing to the larger organisational goals. Employees are also properly empowered with resources to drive their tasks forward and good leadership to ensure their success. One strategy that EMC exercises to motivate employees is to promote an open environment for managers and employees to discuss about performance and professional developments.
If the company still discovers high-performing employees who are feeling “restless” or unmotivated, the company looks for opportunities to keep them on a “high”. It has several employee development programs in place such as Mentoring Program, EMC University courses, Individual Development Program, Annual Performance Review, Quarterly Performance Discussion, and Internal Job postings.
“Often, we discover that the informal processes of communicating with applicants are the best ways to help uncover behavioral and performance insights,” notes Sexton.
“It’s important to take the time to talk to applicants to understand what we need to do as a company to help them be successful.”