With the BBC’s help, and borrowing a format from American TV, Sir Alan Sugar has certainly devised an unusual and comprehensive recruitment process. The candidates have had to perform tasks as diverse as renting luxury cars by the hour, devising and launching new flavours of ice-cream, and selling fish in a street market. They have also been subjected to gruelling interviews by three of Sugar’s trusted aides, as well as by successful businesswoman Karen Brady.

The process has been character-building as well as testing. Television viewers have not only been entertained, but have also watched the candidates develop over the course of the series, and have identified each one’s strengths and weaknesses. Claire, for example, started off as an over-confident loudmouth, guaranteed to annoy colleagues, subordinates and managers alike. After some typically direct advice from Sugar she has learnt to listen more and control what she says and when she says it. She has shown resilience and become a reliable member of any team.
Lee has demonstrated his large ego and supreme self-confidence, together with a quite revealing insecurity about his lack of formal education.

Meanwhile, Essex County Council leaders must have been watching, too. Their decision to make an unconditional offer to the person who ends up in runner-up spot is, on the face of it, a canny one. Clearly there is some PR value in this stunt (witness the column inches in print and online since the news release this Monday). Beyond that, you can almost hear the thought processes saying “if they’re good enough to get to the final of The Apprentice then they’re good enough for us”. At one level, that may be right - if (and it’s a big if) your job is the same as the one that they have been tested for, then why not piggy-back on someone else’s recruitment process and save yourself the costly and time-consuming effort of doing it yourself?

Herein lies the common pitfall. No two jobs, even if they have the same job title, are ever the same. For a start, job titles are misleading and do not have a common definition even within one industry, let alone across sectors. Even where the job role and responsibilities are similar, the culture and values of the employing organisation will have a strong impact on which candidate will be the best fit. For example, the Finance Director of Innocent Drinks and the Finance Director of a traditional law firm may well have very similar job descriptions. However, the FD that is the right fit culturally for Innocent Drinks will have to have the wit, willingness and vision to sign-off a budget to invest in dancing, grass-covered vans. The law firm’s FD, on the other hand, will probably be most valued for restraining frivolous expenditure. It seems very unlikely that Essex County Council and Sugar’s companies have the same culture and values.

This means that the “right” person for one job cannot be guaranteed to be the “right” person for another. Some years ago I worked for an organisation who wanted to grow its sales team and appoint a sales manager. It so happened that we heard on the grapevine that the sales manager of our biggest competitor was interested in a job change. The management team met internally and reasoned that as he clearly knew our industry, our competitors, our products and our customers, and since he must be successful as his current employer was achieving more than three times the revenue that our company made, he was clearly the perfect candidate for the job. We employed him with barely any further scrutiny.

I’m sure many of you have experienced similar stories. Such a move can be successful, but it is rare. In this case, the poor sales manager was dropped into an environment as different from his previous employer as it is possible to imagine. He was used to a hierarchical, command-and-control structure, whereas we operated in a flat structure with fluid roles and responsibilities. He was used to having a fully staffed sales-support team whereas we did all our own support and administration. His previous employer invested in large corporate entertaining and marketing events, whereas we worked on small-scale relationship-building efforts. And so on. He was an exceptional salesman, but there was no possible way he could fit into our organisation and be successful. The parting was difficult, but a relief on both sides.

So Essex County Council need to be careful that they are not left with a high-profile employee that does not fit into their environment. We would advise all organisations who are planning to appoint new staff to consider the following:

With good planning and an appropriately structured recruitment process, Essex County Council will doubtless find the right person. For Sir Alan Sugar’s reject to turn out to be the right person would be highly unlikely.

What intention do you have in mind when you go to a networking event? Most people focus on things like “How many business cards can I get?”, or “I want to meet as many new people as possible”, or even “Who can I meet that will turn into a hot sales lead?”. You may have found that these approaches tend not to work. Or at least, you might collect lots of business cards, but you are really no better off than if you’d bought that many names from a list. I recently received an email from someone who said “It was a pleasure to meet you at the recent event”. I wasn’t even at that event - but I had lent my cards to a colleague who had run out. The person sending the email hadn’t even noticed that my name is female and my colleague is male. As you can imagine, that didn’t create too good an impression with me.

Let me offer you another way to look at networking - why not see every event as the opportunity to begin a relationship that will be mutually beneficial over time? There are lots of important parts to that challenge which I will explore in turn:

to begin

The networking event is just the first opportunity to meet someone. It is naive to hope to close a deal with someone on first meeting, so why should a networking event be any different. Like any other relationship in life, start with the basics of getting to know each other. Everything else will build on this basis.

a relationship

In business, the idea of a relationship is undervalued, and yet all transactions fundamentally boil down to interactions between individuals. This means that the underlying human relationship is an essential in all business dealings. Time invested in creating, developing and maintaining relationships will always pay dividends. The networking event is the opportunity to create new relationships. If I have started two new relationships out of one event then I am pretty happy - certainly happier than if I’ve collected 50 business cards, but can’t actually remember the people behind any of them. Chances are, those people won’t remember me either.

mutually beneficial

This is the absolute key. We’ve all met the seasoned networker with the polished elevator pitch, who works the room with military precision, and glazes over as soon as they think that you won’t be a potential buyer. On the face of it, these people have a great strategy, but think what they’re missing out on. If they walk away from me leaving me feel worthless (to them) I’m unlikely to hold any great feeling of loyalty or commitment to them in return. So as and when I DO have a need for their product or service, guess what? I won’t be calling them any time soon.

On the other hand, what has worked for me, and will work for you too, is to assume that there’s always a way in which I can offer the other person something of benefit to them. This might simply be an article I think they’ll be interested in, or it might be a contact name that they’re looking for. Once, it was a lift to a crucial football match. The thing is, it costs me nothing but a small effort to find out how I can help, and to make that thing happen. Then, when they have a need for my product or service the chances are that I will be favourably in their minds when they’re ready to buy.

over time

The final thing to remember is that networking is not about instant results. The person you meet at networking may turn into a valued client, and this only happens when you have built the relationship, and earned trust and respect. The more you invest in the relationship the more you will understand the other person’s priorities, values and needs, and the better placed you will be to meet those needs.

The person who taught me this, by her own demonstration of this approach, was Rhona Hutchon, of the recruiters Hudson. I first met Rhona at an event in 2000. Rhona approached me and took an immediate interest in me. She soon discovered that my company then had only 6 people and no budget to recruit, let alone use an agency. Where others would have glazed over and walked away, Rhona took an interest in me and found out a little bit more before elegantly leaving the conversation (incidentally, by introducing me to someone who she thought might be interested in my service), leaving me feeling good about the meeting. Some time later, Rhona sent me a small snippet she thought I might be interested in. A few months later she invited me to an event where she thought I might be able to meet some potential buyers. And so it went on, with Rhona actively building the relationship.

Our company began to grow rapidly, and guess who the only recruiter was that we trusted and respected enough to do business with us? Since then, Rhona has probably placed over 20 recruits with that company. In return, we recommend Rhona to everyone we speak to - a true illustration of a relationship that has been mutually beneficial over time.

When you are next planning to go to a networking event, try the following simple action plan:

MacDougall used the pack for the first time whilst attending Allen Training Associate’s Competency Based Interviewing training course. “The advantages of the pack were immediately obvious” she says, “I regard it as a new way of life!”

As a result of using The Interviewer’s Resource Pack, MacDougall’s approach to interviewing has become more structured and her preparation more comprehensive. The results are self evident she says; “We find the right people for our vacancies”.

In entry interviews carried out by the Scottish Agricultural College on new employees, candidates who were interviewed using the pack described the interview process as “thorough” and “in-depth”. “Candidates felt that the interviews were structured towards their individual capabilities and experience,” says MacDougall “and felt a sense of pride and achievement in making it through the selection process”.

1. Be clear about the job description - what are the responsibilities of the role, what expectations do you have of the person filling it? Remember that a job title isn’t enough to describe the responsibilities. Even if the vacancy is for, say, a graphic designer, might you also expect them to take their turn at manning the reception desk?

2. As well as the job description, specify the kind of person you need to fill the vacancy. Bear in mind their soft skills and personal attributes that will fit best into your team. Square pegs in round holes are never comfortable.

3. Be aware of employment legislation. Various laws against discrimination exist, for example on religious beliefs, gender, disability and sexual orientation. Make sure that you don’t fall foul of these at any stage in your recruitment process. And remember, from October last year it became illegal to discriminate on grounds of age.

4. An interview is a two-way process. Some interviewers try to sell the vacancy, and paint an unrealistic picture of what the job will be like. Be honest about your company, the role and your expectations. there should be no nasty surprises for a new start.

5. At interview, keep notes of the points that influence your decision. If unfortunately there are any problems, tribunals often take into account the specific reasons why someone was accepted (or rejected) for a role. If you have no evidence that shows how you reached an objective, measured decision, you may be on sticky ground.

6. The smaller the company, the bigger the impact of making the wrong recruitment decision - you can’t “hide” mistakes. Think not just about whether the candidate can do the job, but also in terms of how the candidate will contribute to the team, and complement the skills and attributes of other staff.

7. Friends, employees and acquaintances can be a good source of candidates, but don’t feel under any obligation to hire the people they recommend. Make sure you get the RIGHT person for the job.

Public training courses exist in a bewildering array of topics. Want to learn to do origami? There’s a course for you. Want to understand international finance? There’s a course for you.

Attending a public course ensures that you meet other like-minded people who want to learn the same topic. The ability to interact with people from different backgrounds can be one of the great advantages of attending a public course. On the other hand, you cannot tell in advance what each attendee’s starting point is, and you may find yourself learning alongside people with a very different level of existing knowledge, meaning you might be either struggling to keep up, or bored whilst they re-visit the basics that you already know.

A public course can be cost-effective when you have only a small number of people to be trained, as you simply pay a price per delegate. Courses are run in all sorts of locations, so the chances of finding one near you, and on a date to suit you, is high. The material will be of a consistent standard, but the tutors will be limited in the extent to which they can tailor the course to your own needs, so you may find time being spent on a topic that is irrelevant to you, or your organisation.

Some topics lend themselves especially well to a public course, particularly if the material is universal and does not vary in different organisations. One of the key advantages of an in-house course is that the course content can be tailored to your own organisation’s needs. If you are fortunate enough to have in-house trainers on your payroll, then one of their responsibilities will be to develop bespoke course material.

Where you are using an outside company to deliver your training, make sure you ask your training provider to tailor the course for your needs. Beware of those providers who simply add your logo to their standard material and claim to have customised it. Providers should be able to build in specific details of your own internal processes, or design exercises that use real case studies from within your own organisation.

An in-house course is a great alternative to public training where you have several people to be trained as you can usually get economies of scale from your provider. It tends not to be cost-effective for very small numbers, but always ask your training provider for their best pricing options, as there can be ways of paying per delegate that make the price more attractive.

Whilst an in-house course lacks the variety of delegates that you can get on a public programme, it is also true that when a group of your staff are trained together, they have a rare opportunity to interact, exchange views and ideas and build relationships outside the normal working environment. This sharing of information between delegates can often be just as important as any new information learnt on the programme. A good tutor will facilitate and encourage this interaction, and help your delegates to get the best from themselves and from one another.

In summary, public courses and in-house courses both have their advantages and drawbacks. Make sure that you consider your key requirements to make the best decision:

Let’s say you’re running a graphic design company. Even if you’ve never interviewed before, you will have a pretty good idea how to tell whether your candidate is a good designer. It will only be after they’ve been in position for a few months that you begin to discover that they’re not a team player, or that they’re unwilling to take decisions.

The solution is to spend only half the interview on exploring the candidate’s skills and knowledge, and the other half on their attitudes, character and soft skills. Here are seven steps that make this easy both before and at the interview.

Before the interview:

1.List out the responsibilities of the job, then list out the attributes that a person in this position needs to have. You may well come up with 10 or more attributes, ranging from decision-making to customer focus, from strategic thinking to a liking for detail, from courage and risk taking to procedure-loving. Narrow them down to about 5 by asking yourself “If two candidates were the same in all other respects, which of these attributes would be the most important when choosing between them?”

2.For each attribute, identify the kinds of situations when they might need this attribute, and how you might be able to recognise that they have it. How might someone with this attribute behave in the given situation? For example, if you are looking for someone who is very adaptable, they might demonstrate a flexible approach in their work, or be enthusiastic about taking on new challenges.

3.Prepare questions that ask the candidate to tell you about actual situations in their current or recent position in which they have had to demonstrate this attribute. For example “Tell me about a difficult decision that you have had to make recently”. We call these “situational” questions.

At the interview:

1.Tell the candidate that you are going to ask them to give you real examples when you ask them questions. It is only fair to give them time to think of a good situation that illustrates the behaviour you are interested in.

2.After each situational question, follow up by asking what action the candidate took in the situation. Watch out for candidates who say “we did such and such”. They may be taking credit for the actions of a colleague. Press them to describe what they did personally.

3.Ask the candidate to tell you what the outcome was in this situation. This will help you to assess whether they understood the consequences of their own behaviour, and made appropriate choices of action in that situation.

4.Finally, ask them to reflect on the situation, what they have learned from it, and what they would do differently in the future.

It pays to remember:

S –- Situation
A –- Action
O –- Outcome
R –- Reflection

Now go out there and hire the right person.

“It is a pack of cards with prompts and model questions. It would be useful to anyone who conducts recruitment interviewing and who has taken on the competency-based approach of predicting future performance on the evidence of past behaviours.

“It is well-designed and easy for any manager to use.

“Useful? four out of five
Well-written? four out of five
Value for money? five out of five”

First, it helps to understand a little about this technique and why employers use it. In a traditional interview, the interviewer will ask you questions designed to let you show that you have the skills and knowledge needed to do the job. However, it is also important that you fit in with the team, and with the employer’s culture and style. A competency-based interview is designed to ask you additional questions about your character, soft skills and personal attributes that let both you and the employer determine whether you fit their needs. These are called “behavioural competencies”.

This is in your interests – you wouldn’t want to work in a place where you stick out like a sore thumb.

A competency-based interview will spend about half the interview on your job skills, and about half on your behavioural competencies. The interviewer will assess these by looking for evidence of how you have acted in real situations in the past. Here are some steps to help you to prepare for the interview, and advice to keep in mind when you are actually at the interview.

Before the interview:

1. List out all your attributes and characteristics that you think will be important both to you and to a future employer. For example, are you good at handling detail or are you a strategic thinker? Are you good at creative problem-solving or do you develop and follow careful procedures? Are you a logical thinker or are you intuitive?

2. For each attribute, think about one or two real situations in your current or recent jobs which demonstrate how you have used this attribute. The interviewer will want real evidence of what you did to prove that you have this attribute, so having some prepared before you get to the interview will show that you have thought ahead, and will save you from those dreaded “mind’s gone blank” moments.

At the interview:

1. Be honest about your attributes. If you were to convince an employer that you love precise detail because that’s what they are looking for, when really you are a big-picture person, you would soon be caught out once you’d started the job.

2. Take time to think before you give your example. Don’t just rush in with one of your prepared situations if it doesn’t show that you have what they’re looking for. Ask yourself whether this is the best example you can think of to illustrate the attribute they are interested in.

3. Be willing to ask the interviewer to clarify. If they ask you a vague or ambiguous question, rather than asking them “what do you mean?” you could say “do you mean such-and-such?” and show that you have at least tried to interpret what they’ve said.

4. Take time to ask the interviewer about the environment and the people. This process is as much about you evaluating their attributes as the other way round.

Most of all, take a deep breath, relax, smile and show that you know your own strengths and are prepared to illustrate them with real examples. Good luck!

2 – Vision
Have a clear purpose and be able to paint a picture of your vision to others. Mediaeval leaders used symbols on their shields and banners representing their cause, which acted as a rallying point for their followers. What is on your banner?

3 – Inspiring Followership
Why should I follow you? What makes it worth my while? Identify what motivates your followers and capitalise on it. Take notice of their level of willingness to follow you, and adjust your behaviour, communication and example-setting to build their willingness.

4 – Serving
“I lead by serving, I serve by leading”. Serving in a leadership context is a two way street. The leader serves a higher purpose, whether it is a corporation, a deity or an ideal. The leader also serves their people. When you give to those around you as much as you expect them to give to you, you will be rewarded by respect and trust from motivated and inspired followers.

5 – Advocacy.
Present compelling arguments in favour of your cause, idea or policy. Actively demonstrate support for the issue. Be ready to speak fluently and passionately about your cause. Great leaders are inspirational when talking about or debating their cause.

6 – Decision-Making
Sometimes it’s tough; sometimes it feels like any decision you make is full of pitfalls, but as a leader you have to make decisions. So make your decisions with conviction, display confidence in your decisions, take ownership of them and follow them through to implementation.

7 – Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurs show agility, speed of response and independence of thinking, driven by the awareness of threat from competition or market conditions. An entrepreneurial leader harnesses this sense of urgency to get results. Leaders with this attribute dream big dreams and achieve big goals.

When there is a skills shortage, as there currently is in the accountancy profession, employers can feel under pressure to hire any candidate who presents the right skills, running the risk of taking on someone who subsequently turns out not to exhibit the values and behaviours that are actually required. This situation will be uncomfortable for both employer and employee. Unless matters are resolved, there is a likelihood that the employment may be terminated leading to the cost of re-recruitment. Organisations have been known to repeat this mistake several times, hiring appropriately qualified and experienced people who do not actually suit the post, the team or the organisation.

In 2001, Larry Bossidy, the CEO of Allied Signal described the recruitment interview as “the most flawed process in…business”. Candidates are offered extensive coaching in interview technique whether they are graduates looking for their first training place, or qualified professionals making senior career moves. They are helped to hone their interview technique, shown ways to answer difficult questions, and practise presenting their weaknesses in a flattering light. Line Managers carrying out interviews need to be given the same sort of help and support. There is a science to designing effective questions, and a skill in listening to the candidate’s responses to recognise and sift through the evidence being presented.

Most companies expect their line managers to undertake the task of interviewing candidates despite the fact that these individuals’ skills lie in other areas, and that they may only have to carry out recruitment interviewing occasionally. This is one of the potential weak points in the recruitment process. Line managers tend to focus on candidates that have the qualifications, professional knowledge, technical skills and experience for the post to be filled, or in other words, they tend to conduct interviews that primarily explore the question “Can you DO the job?”

This is unsurprising, since questions to explore technical and professional competence are relatively easy to frame, and evidence of technical and professional competence is relatively easy to recognise. However, what is more difficult to interview for, and harder to spot evidence of, are the underlying behaviours and soft skills that each candidate demonstrates. Often this means that the interviewer does not take due regard of the candidate’s suitability to fit into the culture, values and behavioural norms of the team or company that they are joining – in other words, they frequently fail to ask the question “Are you the right person for the job?”

Competency-based interviewing, also known as behavioural interviewing, gives interviewers a method of exploring the behavioural traits of their candidates, answering this all-important second question. It is a technique that is fair to all candidates and probes candidates’ experience for evidence of past behaviours in order to effectively predict likely future behaviour.

Imagine two accountants who, on paper, look to have exactly the same qualifications, and comparable commercial experience. In traditional interviews, the focus would be on probing their experience, testing out their ability to resolve job-related problems, and exploring their ideas for the future. These angles all help to build up the essential bed-rock of recruitment decision-making – “Can you DO the job?”

However, let’s say our two accountants prove to be equally competent, but the employer has a need for someone who will make a particular contribution to the team, or has a certain attitude towards risk and creativity. Without a method to test these behaviours, many organisations rely on gut instinct to make their choice between the two candidates. Competency-based interviewing will give the interviewer the method to interview for these kinds of attributes, and many others ranging from leadership or inspiration, to problem-solving and adaptability.

Companies can significantly improve their ROI in the recruitment process by educating their line managers in competency based interviewing techniques. This would significantly improve the ability of line managers to make a better choice of recruit, reduce the risk of wrong selection via flawed interviewing techniques, and save the business major costs by reducing staff churn.