由丹·朱和Tim Weeber

当中国继续是成长市场，对老练和有天才的人民的需求相应地增长。 人民日报报道中国现在有88空位为每名老练，熟练的蓝领工人。 美国商会报告了那80%他们的成员考虑补充和保留他们的第一个企业挑战。 补充增量、小时和管理的挑战面对一个关键的问题： “怎么我们吸收适当的人？”

背景

mcKinsey进行的勘测在2005显示中国需要80,000位有经验的经理以国际企业曝光在2020年以前，并且供电只是大约7,500。 这些图说明a 在中国经营活动投入很多张力的天分短缺。

要求供应配错，如演讲以上，影响补充市场。 上海计数做它亿万RMB事务的1,500家补充企业。 由于天分短缺，组织仅仅经常使用补充企业作为“源头”代办处。 2007报告由Hudson补充，根据2,200家多民族公司勘测，显示什么严厉竞争为有天才的专家可以导致。 在他们的`名列前茅5原因在人员周转之后’，被偷猎的`职员’是次要个共同的原因，只有由`事业进步极限冠上’。 Staff turnover rates are higher than those reported for other Asian regions, and the question of whether or not the right selection criteria are being used arises, especially in such a heated market.

Currently, selection is primarily education and experience based. In most cases experience means background-driven: has the applicant worked in a similar organization before? Limited career progression, ranked as the #1 reason by Hudson’s report, could be partly ascribed to the experience-driven approach. Staff turnover seems to be caused by a lack of long-term fit with the job as there are no career possibilities. Is this experience-driven approach sufficient to get the right people?

Assessment Center: The Holistic Approach

Assessment center is a method in assessing candidates’ capability and possible fitness in to an organization. It is applied to a group of participants by trained assessors using various aptitude diagnostic processes in order to obtain information about applicants’ abilities and development potential. The assessment center offers holistic measurement of candidates, as pictured in Figure 1. Hiring decisions are often merely based on a candidate’s CV. Selection is usually based on information coming from the CV - skills, knowledge and experience. Although the CV offers certain insights about these qualities, it does not give full information about a candidate’s:
* Capability & potential in problem solving and decision making
* Motivation, personal style & fit with the company culture

Capability & potential means we need to identify the candidate’s current capabilities and possibilities for future growth. In a nutshell, this means the candidate’s problem solving and decision making capabilities.
* Problem solving means whether the candidate is results driven; gets his/her job done, even when facing constant challenges.
* Decision making means whether this person can make a causality analysis. Is the person able to trace the roots of a problem, even when facing unknown circumstances?


Fig.1: Holistic approach in candidates’

Every organization has its own value system. Based on the value system a company tends to attract certain kinds of people with similar values. When the person’s values are similar to the company’s, the employee is likely to stay longer. Therefore, there is a need to identify a candidate’s style and determine whether it is compatible with the organization’s culture. “Fitness” can be assessed via his/her preference in:
* Team role
* Conflict handling
* Work style
* Personality

The assessment center based approach focuses on the candidate’s capability & fit with the job and organization. The key issue is: does the person feel comfortable with the decision making pattern within the company? This is an important indicator for the person being recruited to the organization.

Recruitment Overview
Global recruitment trends show an increase in the use of assessment center techniques. The starting point in every recruitment practice is goal setting. Recruiters need to be clear about the qualities they are seeking for different types of recruitment, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Recruitment Overview & Tools

Campus / volume recruitment focus at recruiting entry level employees that can become potential specialists and future leaders. The most important selection criteria are that both a candidate’s capability and style are compatible with corporate quality standards.
However, the focus nowadays is often on English language skills, such as vocabulary, grammar, verbal and reading skills. Language skills are necessary, but it does not give sufficient information on how people bring across their messages. There is a general lack of attention to how people organize their thoughts and put them forward. This persuasion quality is the key foundation of any communication skill.

Specialist recruitment focuses on expertise and functionality. Current practice puts much emphasis on the candidate’s professional qualifications and less on potential possibilities.

As the Hudson report pointed out, the number one reason for leaving the company is “limited career progression”. Therefore, it is recommended to put more emphasis on a candidate’s potential. When an organization considers offering a future employee more career perspective, it should know what his/her stretching potential is. Only then can a realistic prognosis of future career progression be possible.

Manager/Leader recruitment is to select role models with strong strategic qualities - the capability to make decisions, especially in unknown circumstances. Next to decision making, it is important to execute such decisions. Extra attention needs to be paid to the leader’s style and ability to motivate people.

Quality Issues

Just like every market, assessment center comes in a variety of forms and qualities. The most frequently encountered problem is the use of invalidated psychological tests. They are often not benchmarked to Chinese norms. Another problem is the lack of specialists for interpretation of test results. This could lead to inaccurate judgment of a candidate’s qualities. There is also a tendency to use merely IQ based tools. Contrary to what is generally assumed, recent studies show that IQ does not have clear correlation with a candidate’s work performance.

The use of assessment center is on the rise, but is still primarily used by Western companies. Although considered labor intensive and relatively expensive, assessment center can help improve success rates in selection. It can also help collect information on a candidate’s behavior patterns with the aim of preparing future interventions. Based on such findings, organizations can better prepare their employee deployment strategies.

Conclusion

Assessment center is increasingly becoming widely used in China, but remains favored by corporate organizations. The latest trend also shows that search firms have started to adopt assessment center’s approach to candidate selection due to the industry’s demand for higher retention rates.
Assessment center can help reach such a goal as it provides a scientific methodology in assessing the candidate. The key to assessment is to detect the qualities you are looking for. These are not listed on the CV, but are often hidden in a candidate’s capabilities’ and ‘fit’ to the company culture.

The enclosed box provides an overview of important considerations when choosing an assessment center.

Table 2: Checklist for selecting an assessment center

Dan Zhu and Tim Weeber, www.rainbowcareer.com