By: Nicholas Christner, TTI Solutions Consultant

Prior to writing a job description and posting an opening, have you identified the specific behavior styles, motivating factors and skills that the job requires? How will you ensure that the candidates you review are truly qualified to succeed in your company? When it comes to talent acquisition, the number one resource any hiring manager should be using is a job benchmark. With a properly implemented job benchmarking technique, you’ll save time and money by hiring the right people the first time and reducing the learning curve with new employees who are strategically matched to be successful in your organization.

Prior to creating a job benchmark, it’s important to gather a group of subject-matter experts. These are people who understand how the job should be done, and may include managers who have been in the job before and/or top performers who are currently in the same role. While certain leaders may desire to be involved in the talent acquisition process, it’s extremely important that the individuals creating the job benchmark are people who are very familiar with the day-to-day activities of the position. It’s common for a president or CEO of a company to be acquainted with the goals and desired outcomes of a position without fully understanding the steps a superior performer will take to achieve those goals.

In an interactive session, the identified subject-matter experts will then come together to identify the key accountabilities of the job. Moderated and managed by a TTI-certified associate, the group will focus on the main contributions the holder of the position makes to the organization, thus avoiding a laundry list of tasks and assignments. This ensures you are able to distill the crucial elements of the role. By the time this part of the process is complete, the team will have created a comprehensive, yet succinct, group of three to five final key accountabilities that can and will be prioritized, weighed and ultimately measured.

Now, here’s where the science of TTI meets the experience and expertise of the subject-matter experts. Through a multifaceted job report, the job benchmarking team will individually complete an assessment while keeping in mind the three to five key accountabilities. Once those individual reports are reviewed and merged, the final report will illustrate a clear picture of the job.

At this point, anyone can be compared against the job benchmark. As personal assessments are administered, results will appear in a Gap Report that recognizes the strengths and weaknesses of each individual, as pertaining to the job. As hiring managers review applicants, they won’t have to question, “Can this person do the job?” Instead, they’ll be able to focus on selecting the best person to do the job at that company.

If it sounds like it works, that’s because it does. TTI Performance Systems has a 92% retention rate with talent acquired through the job benchmarking process. Can your company say the same?

Nicholas Christner is a TTI Performance Systems Solutions Consultant, responsible for providing superior customer service to TTI-certified Value Added Associates in the United States and Canada. For more information about TTI, visit www.ttiassessments.com or call (800) 869-6908. Or, speak to your TTI-certified associate.