So many choices, so little time...

Back in the late 20th century, my team and I needed to do a lot of hiring as I staffed up a call center. We needed to fill about 80 slots, so we had to interview a lot of people. This brought many challenges to the fore, such as:

• How do you keep track of all of them?
• How do you know which ones are the best fit for the job according to your selection criteria?
• How do multiple people apply consistent evaluation criteria to the candidates?
• How do you compare the relative strengths and weaknesses of candidates in an objective fashion?

...and so forth.

Recently, I had another multi-dimensional decision to make and (thanks to MSN Desktop Search) I was able to dig up an ancient copy of some Excel-based selection tools I developed over ten years ago. After some minor tweaking, they worked perfectly for my 21st century selection task. I decided to share the tools here in case they come in handy when you have multi-factor, multiple choice decisions to make.

The spreadsheet contains tabs with three different styles of selection matrices. Each one has different "features" so figure out which one fits your purpose and tweak from there. Basically, you decide the key factors or attributes you're evaluating, and the relative weighting of each factor. Input that stuff into whichever matrix you decide to use, and save it to a meaningful name.

Then, as you go through the selection process, score each person after you've interviewed them according to how well they compared to your ideal for each factor. At the end of the process, you can quickly and easily rank them based on the factors, or on an overall score based on the composite score from all factors.

These matrices can be used to help evaluate just about any multi-choice, multi-factor decision - not just hiring decisions.

You can download the spreadsheet here. (28.5K) (right click the link and select "Save target as..." or "Save link as...")

Comments

[R. M. Shiblee Mehdi]

I've seen the 'Ranking_Matrices_from_Dwayne.xls'. It was very simple. The formula did not impress me.

[Dwayne Melancon]

Sure, R.M. - it's simple. But simple tools sometimes work. In this case, I was after a quick & dirty way to organize, stack rank, and aid in recalling information about a lot of candidates. In its current form, quite a few folks have considered it "good enough" for their purposes, but it may not be good enough for you.

If you want to take the concept and improve it, please send me what you build. If it's good, I'll help you promote it as an alternative (and give you full credit for your work).

Thanks for dropping by, and thanks for the comment.

[Glen Ritchie]

I do have one question. How would you arrive at "these skill" factor ratings? Such as, during the interviews.

= I'm guessing, after the interview (with 3 people, for example), everyone "rated" the candidate with a 1--5 score, for some areas? Such as, years ability, appearance of technical competance, personality.

Although, how can one presume, these subjective ratings are "true" once you hired said person. (I have met, a number of very good bullsXXXts, lie to beat the bang, claim have degree, they get hired ... Some get cut a year later, others never seemed to be noticed as the hacks, they are.) (Myself, I have the degree, I've put in the years of experience. But, I don't brag about knowing everything. Who can?)

Glen

[Dwayne Melancon]

Sorry for the delayed response, Glen - I've been sequestered in a company Sales meeting all week.

There is always a risk of the BS artist, but team interviewing can mitigate some of that risk - it's likely that someone's BS meter will pick up the anomalies if you have a diverse team of interviewers. And I know what you mean about the "talk a good game" vs. "play a good game" problem - I'm also someone who's put in the time and has results to show for it, but am not always comfortable blowing my horn in interviews.

We try to mix in qualitative and quantitative whenever possible, in my team. For example, we'll have people drill for specific examples of completed projects, specific methodologies, measurable results (attainment vs. quota, P&L contribution, etc.) as well as ask "style" questions to determine team and cultural fit, comfort with conflict, comfort with diplomacy, etc.

You might also take a look at my posts:
"Hire on... Fire on..." (http://www.genuinecuriosity.com/genuinecuriosity/2005/06/hire_on_fire_on.html) and

"Creating job descriptions with MindManager" (http://www.genuinecuriosity.com/genuinecuriosity/2005/08/creating_job_de.html)

Hope this helps!