Driving Quality of Hire with Competency-Based Assessments

EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW

Everyday, employers face legal challenges to their hiring decisions, and employee challenges to their promotion decisions. Everyday, companies think, and re-think, their plans for remaining competitive. Everyday, the "war for talent" seems to become an increasing struggle. HR professionals have responded with a variety of tools to meet these challenges. The goal: objective, realistic, economical ways to document what a job really requires, and how to find "the right employee." Today, it is increasingly clear that using competencies to guide HR decisions not only avoids problems, but also creates competitive advantages. We spoke recently with Deborah K. Smith, a senior HR executive with over 30 years' business experience in workforce selection and development. The topic: competencies, and their role in improving a company's "quality of hire."