Selecting Game Changing Employees For Now And The Future

More than a decade ago, I led the human resources department of an engineering software company. The company was number one in its industry. All the engineers, including management, were brilliant and technically talented. Anyone in this field aspired to work for this company. We found and employed the brightest technical minds. They were truly game-changing employees.

After several years of pursuing and selecting exceptional technical employees, we confronted undesirable, disruptive workplace behaviours. Behaviours such as poor communication and interpersonal traits were common.  These behaviours created situations that alienated co-workers or customers. Other counterproductive behaviours were evident. Examples of these were an unwillingness to learn or work on a team. We saw egotistical personalities that were not open to constructive feedback or change.

In a moment of overdue enlightenment, our management team realized that that technical prowess did not equate to great employees. We agreed that deep technical expertise was important but it wasn’t enough. Our selection criteria and process were forced to change. This is when Game Changer Hiring was created.

Managers Search for the Best

Every manager has the same goal when they bring on a new employee. The goal is to select the best. The “best” are employees who thrive in their roles. Employees who add real value and rise to contribution levels that delight and amaze everyone. Undoubtedly, we can recite horror stories of new employees who turned out to be less than expected or complete disasters at work. What if all managers had a custom interview and selection approach that identified employees who are the next game changers?

Game Changer Hiring is a practical model that allows managers to assess candidates and their fit for now and the future. Game Changer Hiring increases a manager’s ability to identify and choose the next game-changing employees for your organization.

Gain Competitive Advantage through Talent

How would your organization’s competitive advantage change if your managers were better equipped at identifying and selecting the best employees? Employees who bring increased productivity and profits, foster innovation and teamwork and positively impact morale. What if your managers had a tailorable selection approach that identifies employees who are the next game changers?

Employees for Now and the Future

Game Changer Hiring is grounded in candidate traits and dimensions that truly determine success for present-day and future needs. The Game Changer Hiring model enables smart managers to select candidates who not only possess the requisite technical skills and to choose candidates who have the specific success factors that work for the role and the company. These factors include:

• The ability to effectively communicate ideas and concepts both internally and externally;
• Communication skills and desire to impart their knowledge or expertise;
• The right interpersonal skills to work well with co-workers and in team-based environments;
• Interpersonal competencies to build relationships and trust even in diverse workgroups;
• Constructive attitudinal capabilities such as perseverance, conscientiousness, openness, and agility to tackle complex challenges;
• An attitude that brings positive energy and emotional intelligence to their work;
• The aptitude to always be learning and affect change for the better;
• An aptitude to learn from mistakes, self-correct and continuously improve.

Why Employees Fail

Human resources professionals and astute managers know that employees must have the requisite technical expertise. Yet, rarely do employees fail in their roles because of their lack of technical expertise. Game-changing employees who join with the requisite technical foundation can learn other technical skills to augment what they already know.

The reality is that most employees don’t fail in their jobs because of their technical ability. They fail because of deficiencies in other capabilities such as communication and interpersonal skills along with the deep-seated factors of attitude and aptitude to learn, grow and adapt.

Shifting Our Selection Focus

Our selection processes do not achieve the desired results. Managers repeatedly make the same mistakes. The decision on candidate selection can range from the manager making a unilateral decision to a full post-interview debrief and evaluation. Even full debriefs can vary from a comprehensive post-interview discussion to a “thumbs up or thumbs down” exercise.

Our interview preparation and selection criteria are often flawed or weighted incorrectly.  This causes us to select the wrong candidate. Selecting the best candidates is achieved by shifting the focus to customized and correctly weighted selection criteria based on the company, department, and job-specific requirements. Shifting the focus is the key to employing the best employees – for now and in the future.

It’s Time for Game Changers

Companies fight to find and keep their competitive advantage. Competitive advantage is never guaranteed to last forever. Your differentiation is employing the next game-changing employees who will keep their companies ahead in the market. Game changers are smart, agile employees who excel in their current jobs and future jobs that do not exist.

GameChanger Hiring selects the “best” by showing you the steps to identify company, department, and job-specific success factors, create distinguishing interview questions that elicit revealing answers, and finally, define the right weighting of these success criteria.

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