Best Way to Understand the Employee’s View During an Interview



In the previous article we have started on a more productive course of analysis than merely asking a supervisor for characteristics. But we have only started. The picture we’ve sketched is one-dimensional, drawn only from the perspective of the supervisor. To test and refine the list of qualifications we are developing, we should get the same information from people who are currently performing the job by asking them to identify what they actually do on the job, and then analyzing what abilities, knowledge, or other characteristics these tasks require.

Why do we need to duplicate what we’ve already learned from the supervisor? The answer is because usually we don’t duplicate. Instead, we learn that the tasks the supervisor thinks the employee is spending time on differ significantly from what the employee in fact spends time on. And even when the tasks turn out to be similar, the employer and the employee often differ on what characteristics are necessary to perform the task effectively.

Employees Views during interviewing 1 Best Way to Understand the Employees View During an Interview

Let’s explore how those differences may occur by taking another example from the list of tasks identified previously – produce reports within a short time period. To the supervisor, this task may require that an employee work long hours, perhaps staying up all night for two nights in a row. The employee, however, may see the necessary characteristics as quite different, perhaps requiring strong organizational skills, the foresight to assemble necessary personnel at the proper time, and the abilities to plan ahead and to work quickly.

Which of the two is correct in his assessment, the supervisor or the employee? Both, or neither. What’s clear from this example is that there is a difference between what the job requires and how the job is performed. In the example above, the job required that reports be prepared in a short period of time. That task could be performed, however, in at least two widely divergent ways.

It’s tempting for an employer to define a necessary job characteristic by reference to the way he imagines the job should be performed or by the way the job in fact has been performed by a particular employee. Doing either of those, however, may restrict the pool of candidates, eliminating people who can in fact meet the job requirements by performing a task in a different way. In some cases, it may also stand in the way of the job being performed in the most effective way.



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