In Search of the X Factor

Ashley Sadler explains how to find an employee who truly has that X factor and will be a good fit for your business. 

Recruitment. The very word can strike fear into the hearts of business owners who know how painful a process it can be. It is well documented that the biggest frustration and potential risk to small and medium enterprises in New Zealand is hiring the wrong individual into the business. The right person can make a business, fuel growth, add to an enjoyable work environment and be a positive force. Make a mistake though and the expense of having to rehire is minimal compared to the collateral damage the company might have incurred with lack of productivity, lost sales, poor customer service or low staff morale.

In Madison Recruitment’s recent NZ Employment Market 2016 Report, a prevailing theme across all areas was the importance given to candidate ‘fit’. Rather than risk disruption to the existing team culture, companies preferred to wait for the right personality, placing as much emphasis on attitude as skill-set. Businesses increasingly seek candidates with the elusive ‘X factor’ – a blend of technical, job related experience and interpersonal skills. Madison’s consulting arm has increasingly been called upon to evaluate a candidate’s ‘softer’ skill-set such as personality traits, personal values and motivations when determining fit.

Recruitment is all about doing the same thing every time and can be applied to any role at any level. You can use the following guide for a highly technical IT role, an executive position or the receptionist vacancy. How do you find someone who truly has that X factor and will be a good fit for your organisation?

Assess technical competency
Assessing technical competency is almost an administration task. This is reading the CV in fine detail to check qualifications, work history and suitable experience. It can involve a barrage of tests – numerical, verbal, abstract reasoning or technical. For an IT role, or other technical roles, you’ll always need a certain level of skill regardless of fit, so assessing technical competency can help weed out unsuitable candidates.

It will certainly mean face-to-face discussions with a subject matter expert, someone in the business qualified to determine whether the skill level is satisfactory. Reference checks are there to verify statements made about these skills. This, however, is not the challenge. Getting the X factor is – and that comes down to finding out what motivates people.

Understand the candidate’s motivations
People are amazing. We all have a huge story; a full and vibrant history that we very rarely get to tell. All of us have a number of motivations for why we go to work and do what we do. Ask the right questions and you will quickly be amazed by the variety of reasons making people tick.

Ask the candidate to consider some key motivating factors:

• Their career – How important is their next role in terms of their career? Are they looking for it to take them along their career path? Are they looking for their ultimate role? Are they looking to diversify their skills or perhaps hone some specialist skills they already have?
• Their position in the team – How important is their role in the team? Are they looking to lead, to manage, to gain those skills or perhaps to be in a role with strong leadership, coaching or mentorship? Perhaps they like autonomy and don’t want to lead others?
• The company – How important is the company they work for; who they are, their size, their reputation, their industry, their technology, their methods, their ethics?
• Their salary – We all have financial obligations and despite loving our jobs we’d be down on the beach if we had the choice. How important though is the salary in relation to the other factors?
• Other – Outside of these keys ones there may be personal reasons. Common factors are the office location, work visa requirements, family commitments, tertiary studies and overseas travel.

The candidate should then be asked to prioritise those factors. Discuss them in order; why they’ve chosen that motivation first and what is it in that category that really inspires them. No two candidates will be identical and a clear picture of their inner thoughts becomes apparent.

Match the role and company with the candidate’s motivations
Now it’s your turn. If the candidate has been open you will have a wealth of valuable information to work with. You can now begin to describe your role and company in order of the candidate’s priorities.

• Appeal to their highest priority motivation first and work down the list, covering everything.
• Present your role and company, accurately describing where your role meets or surpasses their expectation.
• If there is something that doesn’t meet an expectation, address it; they’ll appreciate knowing up front.

By understanding and accurately matching what you say to a person’s motivations your aim is to give them a very clear idea of what they can expect in the area that matters most. The result? A great fit for the company and employee, and a higher likelihood that you’ll retain an employee who’ll help contribute to the future success of the company.

Knowing how in demand people with the X factor are, our advice if you’re looking to source top talent is to plan for this as early as possible. Build in plenty of lead time and move through the recruitment process quickly to secure candidates before someone else does.

Following these steps, you should be able to better identify and attract those star players with the X factor and create the best chance of retaining them. If in doubt, contact a recruitment agency. Doing it yourself might be cheaper, but when you consider what you might be able to achieve during the hours you spend culling CVs, it can be worth getting some expert help.

A thorough investigative interview up front, followed by a clear setting of expectations, means that the two parties go into the arrangement with a good understanding and a greater opportunity of ensuring the right ‘fit’ for the organisation.