In reality many organisations do not have a tightly defined specification and recruitment consultants don't always help organisations to define them properly.

Moreover even if this has been done correctly, organisations and people change over time so a specification is only one frame in a moving picture.

We know from social science studies that people change day by day; people judge others in a not entirely consistent fashion; and the very fact that someone is being assessed causes their behaviour to be different.

This makes the interview process a difficult one to do well and one which requires a skilled and systematic approach to assessment.

Supplementing an interview with psychometrics or assessment centre techniques can be useful but only if the role dimensions have been assessed correctly in the first place. Even so, the vagaries of trying to measure people still apply. In our opinion the interview is still the most useful way of indicating suitability for a post despite some studies to the contrary! 

Methods of Assessment

Many organisations are on their second or third iteration of competencies. Boyatzis' thoughts in this area were quite useful. However many organisations have taken the competency profiling movement to levels of sophistication which are probably too unwieldy for practical application.

Moreover, in Alexander Pope's words, "'tis not a lip nor eye we beauty call, but the joint force and full result of all".

Assessing people purely by competencies can give a simplistic and distorted perspective.

The seven-point plan devised by Alec Roger in the fifties can still be used as a comprehensive framework for assessing people. The seven points of:

appearance, attainments, intelligence, disposition, interests, special aptitudes, and circumstances

can still provide a good framework.

Later versions of the seven point plan spent some time discussing the concept of motivation and whether this was an additional component.

Professor Adrian Furnham of the University College London offers the view that to be successful in an organisation individuals need to be intelligent, well motivated, and fit in with the culture. These three things all need to be present and if one is missing then the individual is likely not to succeed.

The question is how are these things measured?

Strategic Dimensions' Approach

Our approach at Strategic Dimensions is to look at competencies, the seven point plan and the views of academics such as Adrian to produce a fit for purpose assessment framework which is based heavily on facts as well as feelings.