Our Approach – Value Based Recruitment

The purpose of Value Based Recruitment (VBR) is to ensure that the current and future workforce is selected against the values of the organisation.

This ethos is a development on the more traditional forms of recruitment which focused on skills and experience. VBR gives the opportunity to assess the behaviours and values of an individual which will give a better indication as to how they will carry out their duties and demonstrate those skills and values in the workplace.

Clearly, behaviours and values are harder to assess and are open to more subjective interpretation as they are received differently by people. So, in order to recruit fairly and ethically it becomes more important to have an identified process that can confidently claim to be able to assess behaviour and attitude as well as ability.

For positions where it is important to assess potential as well as aptitude, ability and attitude it may be appropriate to use an assessment centre. These centres are a process rather than a place and are designed to assess candidates against a set of organisational competencies. They have a high validity rating and are rated as being able to deliver high quality in terms of selection outcomes.

For other posts, and typically the most senior ones in the organisation where an assessment centre would not be appropriate, the use of a psychometric instrument becomes one of the most appropriate, insightful and cost-effective mechanisms for VBR.

At Salomons Consulting we approach each recruitment assignment individually. We work with our clients to understand the role, from the job specification, the background knowledge of the organisation, and the aspirations for the role from the organisation. We take into account what the organisation is aiming to achieve and look at the strategic goals. Once we have a full understanding of the roles, the organisation and the skills, experience, behaviours and values required then we match these to the profile of the candidate.

However, we also understand that the person is more than the profile. A test such as the 16PF can only indicate how the person is likely to behave so we draft an additional profile which is matched to the role and a set of competency based questions designed to test out the findings of the profile. So, we give everyone to opportunity to either substantiate or refute the findings of the test. Largely, it is our experience that the profiles give an excellent indication regarding the likely behaviour and values of the individual and the questions we pose support our findings. To further test the “hypothesis” of the profile we suggest a variety of activities for example “presenting to a stakeholder audience” this addition has given a richness to the process, allowing our team to look for “Golden Threads”

Although the upfront costs of such a process are somewhat higher than interview only, the research would suggest, that organisations are less likely to get it wrong, and the cost of getting it wrong is much more expensive.

Candidate Feedback is an important part of the process and it is in line with the British Psychological Society (BPS) guidelines to offer all candidates, regardless of whether they are successful at interview or not, a one to one feedback session. Those that take up the opportunity typically report how useful they find this in their subsequent appointment or job search and confirm that they found the recruitment process to be a positive one for them, regardless of the final outcome.