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Recruitment of a
director
A national transport company was looking
to appoint a new director of IT. This was a key role
as the company's new business strategy of growth into new
areas required a rethink of the whole IT system. We
were asked to provide a detailed assessment of the final six
candidates prior to interview.
As a result of our job analysis, we
identified that the role not only required significant
technical and intellectual ability, but also the capacity to
communicate upwards and downwards, to focus on delivery and
to be able to work as part of a team. The culture at
the top of the organisation was participative, although the
CEO did not suffer fools and results were expected quickly.
The person would need to be persuasive and sensitive to the
needs of others in the senior management team. They
would need to be able to shift their thinking style from
detail to the big picture. The previous person in the
role, with a very strong technical background, had only been
in port for nine months and had had relatively little
impact.
We designed an assessment programme that
included a structured competency- based interview, a robust
personality questionnaire, a group exercise and a critical
thinking test. This allowed us to obtain information
on how each candidate typically related to others, their
leadership and problem solving style, as well as their
intellectual suitability. We were then able to feed
back the key facts for each candidate to the board in order
to assist them in the decision making process.
The outcome of the job analysis process
influenced the wording of the vacancy advert and the final
selection decision was successful for the organisation.
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