Welcome to the May 26, 2004 issue of The Total View.

Your resource for cutting-edge news, tips, and tools to help you hire, manage, and motivate top-performing employees.

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In This Issue
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1. Job competencies are like the tools in a carpenter's toolbox.
2. Perfect Labor Storm Alerts #151 to #155.
3. What Every Manager Needs to Know to Recruit In the Future.
4. An Employer's Guide to Good Practices: Testing and Assessment.
5. FirstView Job Fit Indicator: Quick, Easy and Cost Effective.
6. Select the Right Test -- Our Guide Walks You Through The Process.
7. What's the dumbest thing you ever heard a candidate tell you at an interview? Tell us.
8. Have you tested your Interviewing IQ Yet?
9. I just know you wanted to know this.

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The Total View is written and published each Wednesday by Ira S. Wolfe, founder of Success Performance Solutions. (Yes, Ira writes every article, every week!) and is distributed with permission by The Chrysalis Corporation.

Ira S. Wolfe )2004 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission only.

To learn more about The Chrysalis Corporation or to read back issues of The Total View, visit our web site at http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/remote.html?ltk=900812_31118432

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1. Job competencies are like the tools in a carpenter's toolbox.
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A successful interview uncovers the competencies that a candidate carries with him to work. What you as an interviewer wants to find out is what tools are in the tool box and who owns the tools  the candidate or the previous team or employer.

Does the candidate have the needed degrees, licenses and training? Do they have experience or will they need to be trained?

The resume is an excellent tool to describe what a candidate did in the past. But who is to say that he or she can repeat these successes again for you? In other words, does the candidate own his tools or did he just borrow them for the last job from his co-workers. That's what you really want to find out during the selection process  what competencies does a candidate have, how skilled is he at using them and will he use them for your benefit?

How effective is the interview at evaluating job competencies and projecting past performance into future job success for you, the employer? Research has shown that the traditional interview is slightly better than flipping a coin. The behavioral interview is nearly 50 percent more accurate than gut instinct and job matching (psychometric assessments plus behavioral interviewing) is an additional 25 percent improvement.

The challenge with relying on interviewing alone is that its success depends not only on asking the proper questions but on the skills of the interviewer to ask, listen and observe responses too.

Interviewers generally tend to focus on the functional or technical skills of candidates. Interviewing for job competence requires that you focus the interview questions on the job that you have in mind and the competencies to do the job

If the candidate is applying for a job with new or expanded responsibilities, what's to say that he or she has the untested ability to meet expectations? There has been this assumption that if you succeeded in the past, you will succeed again. That is true if the job the new employee will be doing requires the same technical skills as well as working with a similar group of people, at a similar pace, in a similar environment, with similar incentives and recognition.

But what happens when the circumstances change, the members of the team are not as experienced or don't collaborate as well, the pace of the work hastens, competition is increased and resources are limited  will this employee have the know-how, drive and motivation, and stability to get the job done under more intense and unpredictable conditions? As thousands and thousands of managers can attest, past performance is no guarantee of future success in a world where nothing is certain and nothing stays the same.

Expanding the hiring evaluation to include competencies raises the bar. The first step in integrating a behavioral based interview into a selection process is to identify what core job competencies are required. This is best accomplished by completing a job analysis. (To learn more about job analysis, see http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/remote.html?ltk=900813_31118432)

We recommend narrowing down the core competency list to no more than five to seven. These are the absolutely essential skills that an employee needs to have. Without these it will be difficult if not possible for an employee to perform beyond mediocrity.

>From this core list, behavioral interview questions can be created which link special target behaviors to the required skills. Online Interview Generator(r) pairs specific "target behaviors" to over 60 competency based interview questions. Behavior-based interviewing has been around for 25 years, but the practice has recently been gaining momentum with the increasing demand for skilled and competent employees.

Online Interview Generator(r) (IG) allows users to create company and job specific customized behavioral interview guides in minutes. As an IG user, you can choose an already- developed interview guide from our Job Library of over 40 standard job titles (from Administrative Assistant to COO), then quickly and easily edit to fit your open job. Or, you can choose to design your own interview guide from "scratch" using our extensive database of 65 competencies, and over 1,500 different target behaviors (interview "answers"), and corresponding interview questions.

IG is extremely versatile and flexible - it can be used for selection in every industry, business and organizational environment. IG is inexpensive and cost- effective; clients can purchase interview units separately, or through a site license.

To view a sample Interview Guide created with Interview Generator, follow this link:
http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/remote.html?ltk=900814_31118432

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2. Perfect Labor Storm Alerts #151 to #155 ============================================================
Fact #151
A national survey by Rutgers' Management Education Center of 4,500 high school students found that 75 percent of them engage in serious cheating.

Fact #152
More than half of the high school students have plagiarized work they found on the Internet.

Fact #153
Fifty percent of those responding to the Rutgers' survey said they don't think copying questions and answers from a test is even cheating.

Fact #154
Fifty percent of college professors admitted to overlooking cheating at least once.

Fact #155
Thirty percent of all college papers submitted have significant levels of plagiarism.

Source: ABC PrimeTime, April 29, 2004

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3. What Every Manager Needs to Know to Recruit In the Future ============================================================
--There Will Be Too Many Jobs and Not Enough Skilled People.

--Don't be fooled. The labor shortage over? The shortage of people and skills has only just begun. Learn what's ahead in The Perfect Labor Storm Fact Book. See below for details.

"The Perfect Labor Storm Fact Book: Why Worker Shortages Won't Go Away" has arrived. Get your copy today - $7.95 includes no shipping costs for limited time only. You can view a sample chapter online by following this link:
http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/remote.html?ltk=900815_31118432

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4. An Employer's Guide to Good Practices: Testing and Assessment ============================================================
This Guide is designed to help managers and human resource (HR) professionals use assessment practices to reach their organizations' HR goals. It conveys the essential concepts of employment testing in easy-to-understand terms and was developed by the US. Department of Labor. To download this guide, follow this link:
http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/remote.html?ltk=900816_31118432

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5. FirstView Job Fit Indicator: Quick, Easy and Cost Effective
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FirstView Job Fit Indicator is the newest generation of pre-employment personality tests which includes an optional cognitive section. FirstView requires only 15 minutes to complete and reports are available immediately. FirstView is the perfect solution to screen large candidate groups for 15 entry level positions in retail sales, hospitality, persuasive sales, administrative positions, drivers, IT positions, telemarketing, customer service, drivers, health care and more.

Each report includes job specific interview questions. FirstView evaluates a candidate's preferences in the following areas:

--Rules - consistency, ability to deal with change, need for structure, ability to follow rules and policies
--Extroversion - need to work with others, communication of enthusiasm, ability to talk or listen
--Assertiveness - decision making, selling and closing abilities, ability to handle confrontation, willingness to take direction from others
--Teaming - teamwork, collaboration with others, competitiveness
--Sensitivity - emotional stability, handling of criticism and feedback, dealing with stress
--Organization - planning, spontaneity, time management attitudes, ability to handle details
--Social Desirability - an internal validity scale to determine if the candidate is being frank with their answers
--Cognitive Ability - an overall aggregate measure of cognitive skills

To learn more about FirstView and to view sample reports, follow this link:
http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/remote.html?ltk=900817_31118432.

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6. Select the Right Test -- Our Guide Walks You Through The Process
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Confused by which test to use for which employee or position? Then visit our newest guide to help managers Select The Right Test.

Beginning with pre-hire tools to screen out high risk candidates to development assessments to help guide an employee's career, you'll find nearly our whole family of assessments conveniently listed with brief descriptions about each assessment and how when to use them.

Select The Right Test - Download the CriteriaOne Hire Competence with Confidence Assessment Guide here. Follow this link:
http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/remote.html?ltk=900818_31118432

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7. What's the dumbest thing you ever heard a candidate tell you at an interview?
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Last week we asked you, our faithful readers, to e-mail us the dumbest thing that you have ever heard a candidate tell you during an interview. Our "in box" has been literally overflowing with responses and some of them are quite outrageous. Due to the large response, we decided to have a little fun with this.

For the next couple of weeks, we will continue to collect your experiences of the dumbest thing you've ever been told during an interview. You can send your stories to interview@chrysaliscorporation.com.

Based on an interoffice vote, we will select the most usual experience out of all those submitted, and that company will be awarded with an assessment package valued at $150. If you sent in a response last week, you do not have to resubmit it -- we've kept a record of each submission and who sent it in.

The winning entry will be published in this newsletter, however the person and company submitting the experience will remain anonymous -- so feel free to tell all.

Please only one entry per person, and you are on the honor system to submit an experience that actually happened -- not a fabricated one. Remember, we are looking for the dumbest thing you ever heard a candidate tell you during an interview. E-mail your entry to: interview@chrysaliscorporation.com.

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8. Have you tested your Interviewing IQ Yet?
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Interviewing is still the most commonly used selection tool even though the traditional interview is effective at identifying a top performer as few as 1 in every 14 times. It's not always the fault or due to the inexperience of the interviewer either. The laws are complicated, time is always too short and the candidates are a lot more savvy and have more time to prepare.

Test your interviewing skills (see link below).

Take this test and determine how well you know the ins and outs of effective interviewing.

Don't hesitate to forward this test to your manager or boss. We won't tell where it came from! Follow this link to test your Interviewing IQ:
http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/remote.html?ltk=900819_31118432

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9. I just know you wanted to know this.
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Signs that make you look twice:

--On a maternity room door: "Push. Push. Push."
--At an optometrist's office: "If you don't see what you're looking for, you've come to the right place."
--On a taxidermist's window-. "We really know our stuff.
--In a podiatrist's office: "Time wounds all heels."
--On a fence: "Salesmen welcome! Dog food is expensive."

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Contact Information:

Tbe Chrysalis Corporation
2001 Hammock Drive
Valdosta, GA 31602
229-257-0665

e-mail: mike@chrysaliscorporation.com