Is competency-based recruitment at a dead end?

An exploration of ‘strengths’ and how they may be poised to replace competencies as the new ‘gold standard’ in assessment.

By Jamie Betts, Solutions Consultant at Ochre House

Have you ever stopped to consider what it is about your role that you find truly engaging and absorbing? Have you thought about which elements leave you feeling energised and wondered how time has passed? Do you often marvel at how quickly your day has flown?

Or, perhaps, do you work on things you can do well, but that leave you feeling somehow low and de-energised… bored, even? Is most of your time spent doing something you are perfectly competent at, but which leaves you feeling a little bit empty and unfulfilled? How does this impact on your productivity?

Now think about your average recruitment process. The vast majority of recruitment and HR professionals invest considerable effort in assessing what an individual ‘can do’, since this forms the essence of the competency-based approach to assessment.

Competency-based assessment has been the focus of recruitment and selection for over a decade. Recruiters have bought into the approach, and trust that it’s delivering an accurate assessment of an individual’s ability to perform well in a role. We’ve been told it works, and we accept that, sometimes blindly and without basis in evidence, and we preach its virtues.

Today, though, some visionary recruitment and HR professionals using this approach are beginning to suspect that something’s missing. They are left with the feeling that it‘s not a true assessment of the person. It may be that there’s a disconnect between what the candidate says they’ve done, and what they actually do when in the job. Or it could be that their interview answers seem… overly prepared. Whatever the case, how can we explain the common occurrence of a candidate who meets all the criteria on paper, and is technically able to do the job, but once employed does not seem to be fully engaged or enthusiastic? What has gone wrong? Why does an assessment of a person’s level of ‘competence’ not lead to a great hire all of the time?

The growth of positive psychology has brought recognition that an individual who ‘can do’ and ‘loves to do’ the role is more likely to achieve higher levels of job performance. But traditional competency-based approaches only measure if someone can do something, not if they enjoy doing it. So, why aren’t we investing more effort in understanding each individual in terms of what energises them, or what they truly ‘love to do’? It would, after all, undoubtedly provide a more accurate assessment of their likely performance in the role.

One key factor may be that motivation; engagement and enthusiasm have traditionally been seen as more difficult to measure objectively. However, leading occupational psychologists have long believed in the importance of assessing an individual’s ‘motivational fit’, as it correlates well with future job performance.

Recently, valid and reliable psychometric measures of ‘strengths’ have hit the assessment market, enabling an accurate assessment of what an individual finds energising, or what they both ‘can do and ‘love to do’. Some forward thinking recruitment and HR professionals have embraced this development, and collaborate with positive psychology practitioners and academics in defining how strengths can be used in assessment for recruitment.

In this white paper, we explore the benefits of strengths assessment – and challenge you to take recruitment to the next level.