When HR professionals hire someone for a new position, they need to cut through the resume and the candidates themselves to find what is really there. Of course, the question is: how do they do that?
It’s impossible to define “merit” comprehensively, yet that’s precisely the thing that HR professionals are trying to get at. Hiring the best people is how businesses build winning teams, while bad hires drain time, money, and energy.
Aside from finding operational or financial improvements, companies need to take proactive steps to ensure their hiring process is fair and free of discrimination. Modern job description software revolves around “competencies,” which is an organizing principle that closes the gaps between your company’s needs and what your employees can do.
Please keep reading to learn more about how tech-savvy HR departments use software that gets at the heart of hiring.
“Competencies” Versus “Skills”
In talent-management processes, certain terms have specific definitions which differ from their everyday usage. There’s a crucial distinction between “skills” and “competencies.”
You may be wondering how are skills and competencies similar and how they’re different, and it’s an important question. This difference is central to modern HR job description software. Put simply, a “skill” is the basic learned activity, while a “competency” is the larger context in which a skill exists. If you look for skilled workers, you’ll connect with some talented people. But if you look for competencies, you’ll hire people who can get the job done.
Embedding “Competencies” into Job Descriptions
HR personnel struggle to write accurate job descriptions, especially for niche roles or in large companies with many divisions. Even if you understand what the job entails exactly, translating it fully and accurately into a few words is a genuine challenge.
By leveraging software that makes competencies the basis of the job descriptions, companies will signal to prospective hires the exact skills, knowledge, and on-the-job ability the position needs. Because competencies are factored in from the very start, it will unify all job descriptions and positions across the organization.
The best platforms have more than 1,000 high-quality draft descriptions you can use as prompts in your job posting or use the software’s AI to create a new job description from scratch. This process will help any business hire the best candidates and avoid accidentally perpetuating any systemic discrimination or contravening any labor laws.
Better Questions
Journalists need to ask the right question to ensure they tell the real story. Likewise, HR professionals need to probe along the right lines to identify the best job candidate from the stack of resumes.
Job description software supports your HR department with a database of over 1,000 high-quality interview questions. These questions are directly linked to the initial competencies embedded in the job descriptions, so there’s continuity and alignment throughout the process.
It’s easy to add inputs from colleagues to these questions, so the hiring process benefits from the power of the software and the brain-trust of your personnel.
Career Mapping
Alignment around “competencies” covers an employee’s entire tenure with the company. When workers are measured by the same qualities that got them in the door, they’ll be positioned to succeed.
Plus, managers will have precise targets and goals they need to reach based on performance. This level of transparency lets businesses achieve their goals and gives workers the stability and predictability to manage their careers.
Hiring is always an essential aspect of running a business and getting it right matters now, perhaps more than ever. Help your HR department value what matters most by relying on job description software that revolves around competencies, not just skills.
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