Category Books

Talent Edge: A Behavioral Approach to Hiring,Developing,and Keeping Top Performers »

Authors: David S. Cohen
ISBN-13: 9780471646433, ISBN-10: 0471646431
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated
Date Published: August 2001
Edition: (Non-applicable)

Author Biography: David S. Cohen

Dr. David S. Cohen is a Principal in the Strategic Action Group, a consulting firm specializing in human resources development. His work with corporations is in several primary areas: management and leadership development; behavioral-based recruitment, selection, and performance management; helping corporations to articulate their values and develop a strategic vision; creating high-performance, results-focused teams.

Dr. Cohen's background spans both corporate consulting and education. He has consulted with a diverse group of industries in Canada., the United Kingdom, and the United States, specializing in the design and delivery of management development programs and human resources processes that are integrated with the business plan, vision, and values of individual clients.

Dr. Cohen is a sought-after speaker on human resource issues that has presented frequently for groups such as Linkage, the Institute for International Research, Insight, IQPC, the Canadian Management Centre (of American Management Association International), and the Human Resources Professional Association of Ontario Annual Conference. He is also called upon as a keynote speaker at a variety of corporate programs.

Dr. Cohen holds a doctorate in Education from Boston University and is a member of the Human Resources Professional Association of Ontario (HRPAO).

Book Synopsis

There are huge costs to any business for making the wrong hire— in the selection process itself, training, higher rates of turnover, reduced innovation and productivity, and the negative impact on customers and other employees. Whenever you hire talent that does not fit your organization, you set yourself back.

The Talent Edge shines a bright light on the failings of the traditional interview and selection process, and offers a clear, management system based on behavioral job profiling and interviewing. This competency-based approach improves your chances of picking the right candidate two to five times over traditional processes, has a tremendous impact on retention levels, and results in clarity within the organization around goals, values, and the nature of top performance.

The Talent Edge shows anyone involved in the selection process how to use behavioral interviewing to improve the hiring and selection process. It also shows hiring managers and human resource professionals how to translate the principles and techniques of behavioral interviewing into effective processes for managing human capital throughout the organization, far beyond interviewing— in career development, performance management, training, coaching, and succession planning.

The Talent Edge clearly articulates the business case for a behavioral interviewing system and provides a road map for implementing it effectively:

Explains how to write behavioral job profiles and translate them into interview questions.
Shows how to prepare for the interview, ask questions, and probe for the right information.
Features case studies throughout the book from seven companies that have used a behavioral approach to dramatically improve their hiring and performance management processes— AbbottLabs, Calgary Police Service, HMV, Michelin, Sprint Canada, Starbucks, Thomas Cook.
Includes sample dialogues, interviews, behavioral profiles.

	Acknowledgements	xii
	Introduction: Leaders Needed	ix
Chapter 1	Value Beyond the Balance Sheet: The Right People	1
	Are Your People Really Your Competitive Advantage?	1
	The Traditional Interview: Rolling the Dice	2
	The Hiring Manager	4
	The Human Resources Professional	5
	Behavioral Interviewing: Examining the Past to Predict the Future	6
	Not a Cookie-Cutter Approach	7
	Case Study Profiles That Lead the Way	8
	A Vision of Organizational Clarity	16
Chapter 2	Making the Business Case for Behavioral Interviewing	19
	Competing for the Best	19
	Why Hiring Decisions Fail	20
	The Job Description	21
	The Resume	23
	Technical Credentials	24
	Experience	24
	Hypothetical Situations and Opinions	25
	Behavioral Information	26
	Comparing Types of Information	27
	The Interviewing Skills of the Candidate	28
	The Time It Takes for a Decision	29
	Reference Checks	30
	Structured and Unstructured Interviews	31
	The Odds and the Options	32
	Determining the Economic Value-Added	33
	Getting Buy-In From the Organization	38
	Case Studies: Two Approaches to Behavioral Interviewing	39
	Summary	46
Chapter 3	The Organization, the Job, and the Candidate: The Right Fit	47
	Understanding What to Look For	47
	Employees Success and Failure	48
	The Importance of Defining Fit	49
	Organizational Values	50
	Organizational Culture	55
	Organizational Vision	55
	Corporate Mission, Strategy, and Objectives	56
	Linking Values to Behaviors	56
	The What and How of a Job	58
	Technical Knock-Out Factors	60
	Can-Do and Will-Do Factors	60
	Behavioral Competencies	61
	Transferability: The Hierarchy of Behaviors	63
	Developing Behavioral Competencies in Your Unique Organization	65
	A Road Map for Success	66
	Working With Values: Case Study Examples	67
	Summary	73
Chapter 4	Developing Behavioral Profiles that Benchmark Top Performance	75
	Identifying, Examining, and Describing Top Performance	75
	Critical Incidents	77
	A Critical Incident: An Example	78
	Breaking Down the Incident	78
	The Right Critical Incident and Behaviors	79
	Critical Incidents and Behavioral Interviewing	80
	Focus Groups	81
	Identifying Must-Have and Preferred Behavioral Competencies	86
	Writing the Behavioral Profile	88
	Sample Behavioral Profile	91
	Case Study Profiles	96
	Summary	105
Chapter 5	Writing Behavioral Questions that Elicit High-Yield Information	107
	Behavioral Questions	107
	Key Words	111
	Sample Behavioral Questions	112
	The Interview Guide	115
	Summary	117
Chapter 6	Interviewing to Select and Sell the Best	119
	Laying the Groundwork	119
	How Much Structure?	120
	Time Allocation	122
	How Many Interviews?	123
	Note Taking: Recording Behavioral Information	124
	Preparing for the Interview	126
	Opening the Interview	127
	The Agenda-Setting Statement	128
	Open-Ended and Closed-Ended Questions	131
	Listening	132
	Probing	134
	Getting Behavioral Answers	136
	Selling Your Organization	139
	Closing the Interview	141
	Behavioral Reference Checks	142
	Post-Interview Debriefings	144
	Ensuring the Fit of Your Selection	145
	Training Hiring Managers to do Behavioral Interviewing	146
	Case Study Profiles	149
	Summary	159
Chapter 7	Doing the Numbers: The Right Decision	161
	Suspending Judgement and Developing a Common Language of Assessment	161
	The Process	163
	Determining Evidence of Behaviors	163
	Scoring Responses: Using the Anchored Rating Scale	165
	Anchored Rating System	166
	Case Study Profiles	168
	Sample Response Rating	169
	Common Rating and Profile Assessment Errors	173
	The Decision	174
	Making the Offer	175
Chapter 8	Aligning Organizational Values, Strategy and People: A Common Language of Success	179
	The Hub of the Wheel	179
	Michelin North America	181
	HMV North America	183
	Calgary Police Service	187
	Abbott Labs	188
	Thomas Cook	190
	Starbucks	191
	Sprint Canada	192
	A Final Thought: Championing a Behavioral Approach	193
	Afterword: Hiring in a Dot-Com Start-Up: The Tug of War Between Growth and Time	195
	Does Hiring Right Work When You're Hiring Fast?	195
	An All-Out Hiring Blitz	196
	First Steps: Easing in a Behavioral Approach	198
	Seizing the Opportunity to Spread the Word	198
	Adaptions to the Behavioral Interviewing Workshop	200
	Benefits to the Organization: Adapting to Change, Choosing the Right Competencies and Building a Global Culture	201
	How Hiring Managers and Senior Executives Have Embraced the Process	204
	Conclusion: A Step-by-Step Approach	206
	Index	209