For employers: Creating measurable performance parameters

Planning an interview is an exercise in objectivity. You're trying to achieve something. The theory is that the interview will identify the right candidate, according to your definition of the skills, knowledge and experience required.

For you as an employer, however, there's a secondary class of objective: the objective of the job itself.

Every job has a built in series of definitions of what constitutes good performance. To hire someone who matches these actual, on the job, criteria, you need to create a series of verifiable measures for your interview. You need: Productivity Performance levels. Motivated staff. Clear indications of ability to meet targets. There are various ways of measuring these things when on the job. At the interview stage, you need create definitions of measurable indicators for your interviewers to work with. Interviewers are obliged to make recommendations based on job criteria, which are the binding obligations of employment laws. If measurable performance isn't included in the criteria, it won't be addressed.

Interview questions regarding measurable performance occur during the all important phase dealing with experience.

Important: Cross checks must be done to verify information and guarantee accuracy of information.

Creating measurable job performance criteria

Measurable job criteria are based on a series of indicators.

• Key performance indicators
• References describing performance
• Indicators of workload volumes
• Indicators of work complexity
• Multi tasking abilities
• Setting priorities

Key performance indicators

KPIs are the standard measure of on the job performance. KPIs are raw numbers. Their main function at interview level is to give an indication of workloads, rather than work quality. The job's objectives contain known volumes of work. You need to correlate the KPIs with those volumes.

References describing performance

Referees are useful measures of performance. You can go into some detail with work references, and get an idea of quality of work and performance standards. Many work references will also be able to verify workloads, so you can double check that information.

Indicators of workload volumes

The classic problem with non measured job criteria is hiring someone who can do the work but can't handle the workloads. That undermines what would otherwise be a good performance, and creates real problems in a small workforce.

You can ask specific questions about the amount of work done. Experienced people will have no problem with this question, and can usually identify the range of tasks involved easily. In many cases you'll find they refer to extra work done, which is a good indicator of extra value in the employee.

Indicators of work complexity This is a true quality control issue for job interviews. In many jobs the ability to think on your feet is essential. Depending on the job, there are levels of complexity which must have proven competencies as part of the job criteria. Use the job's own complex issues as an indicator. You can use a situational question, dealing with a previous complex problem which was solved effectively. The competent applicants will understand the issues and produce an answer which matches the solution. You can also use the references to double check the candidate's abilities to deal with complex matters. Multi tasking abilities Multi tasking is now inherent in the workplace. The job will have several tasks, most of which are concurrent. They'll be handling customers while in the course doing other work and often taking on other tasks. The idea of multi tasking is that all tasks are performed effectively, in good time frames, with good performance indicators.

An experienced person will be able to quote figures or at least give good indicators for their multi task roles. These are also verifiable and should match other performance measures.

Setting priorities

One of the standard questions in many job interviews is 'How do you set priorities?' These are organizational skills, and they're key indicators of performance. The question is far more effective when asked in conjunction with other performance measures.

Using the job's own needs, compare the answer to the realities of the job. The right answer will match the requirements. This answer is also verifiable through references, complexity questions, and KPIs.