Multiple Criteria Decision Making

Essentially, making a selection decision is a multiple criteria decision making process. A candidate is weighed up against multiple and often conflicting criteria.
Your broad criteria are:

Competencies and Capabilities.
Within Competencies you have the following sub - criteria:

Job Specific Competencies
Generic Competencies
Within each of these sub - criteria are multiple sub - sub criteria such as :

product knowledge (job - specific example) and
commercial awareness (generic example)
Within Capabilities you have the following sub - criteria

Cognitive Capabilities (IQ)     
Personality /Emotional Capabilities (EQ)
Within each of these sub - criteria are multiple sub - sub criteria for example

fluid intelligence (IQ) and
resilience (EQ)

In daily life people usually weigh multiple criteria instinctively and may be comfortable with the consequences of such decisions that are made based on only intuition. How often haven't you heard it said: " I don't know my gut just tells me she is the right candidate." Or "He has the best CV". Or "I like how she handled the curved balls we threw at her in the interview". Or "He was definitely the most confident candidate". These are simply subjective impressions and not decisions based on clearly defined criteria.

However, when stakes are high, it is important to properly structure a problem and explicitly evaluate multiple criteria. Structuring complex decision making problems well and considering multiple criteria explicitly leads to more informed and better decisions.

In recruitment and selection decisions it is very easy to lose track of the multiple selection criteria, or over - focus on the most recent ones, when you don't have a system in place for making a multiple criteria decision. This inevitably results in sub - optimum decision.

Using the steps and method we propose in this module will go a long way towards preventing such decision errors.
Judgement
It is critical to remember that utilising assessment information and deciding on a candidate’s suitability is always a judgement call. Better judgements are made when you have a system in place that enables you to weigh up all candidate information against the selection criteria.

It is not an engineering or accounting decision which is based on precision and exact rules. All assessment results are open to interpretation and various types of information from various sources need to be integrated by the HR Professional and Line Manager to make an informed best judgement about who is the best candidate for a job and whether a candidate is in fact suitable for the role. Without exception, there will never be a perfect candidate for any role. Each and every candidate will bring a mix of strengths and weaknesses to a position. All in all, making a good selection decision is a complex and daunting task.

Essentially, you have to engage in multi – factorial decision making, using diverse information from various sources and pulling them into an integrated decision. Without the proper tools to do this, even the best assessment and selection process can fall apart. Typically, too much weight is placed on one source of information – whether positive or negative – and in so doing ignoring a host of other relevant candidate information.

At EQ – IQ we therefore advocate a systematic approach to reviewing and pulling together all the assessment information – acquired and inherent – in a coherent manner by following a simple procedure. This is explained more fully in our Advanced Assessment Training program which will be available later in the year. In brief though, the system we propose follows.

Firstly you need to think about selection decisions on a continuum of fit. A useful model or rating scale is the one below:
In the previous two sections we discussed how you should rate candidates - using the following rating scale :
Poor
Borderline
Average
Good
Excellent
With Respect To:
Job Specific Competencies
Generic Competencies
Global Competency Fit
IQ Fit
EQ Fit
Global Capability Fit
Transferring all of these ratings into a table such as the one below, makes it easy to provide yourself with a global view of the candidate's fit with the role, taking EVERYTHING into consideration. This global view is extremely useful in deciding what course of action to take going forward with the candidate.

For instance, in the scenario below, the candidate has excellent capability but is thin on skills, knowledge and experience. With this global picture in mind, one can now weigh up how important experience is for the role, and whether circumstances allow for appointing an inexperienced high potential individual, who with a proper development plan can close the Competency gaps relatively quickly. Conversely, circumstances may dictate that Inherent Capability will not be sufficient – the candidate has to hit the ground running – and is therefore not a suitable candidate for the role.

In addition to the Global Fit Table, we advocate that you use the following Next Steps Table:
Depending on the candidate's different ratings on the global fit table, your decision options are:

Regret the candidate

Based on the Global Fit Table it may be patently clear that the candidate is not a suitable fit with the role.

Put the candidate on hold

You may feel the candidate is a possible overall fit, but certainly not ideal, in which case you may decide to continue your recruitment effort to see if you can find a better candidate

Triangulate

You may have identified a few issues with the candidate that you are not comfortable with and therefore decide to triangulate, which simply means getting more information from for instance reference checks or a final interview, before making a final decision on his suitability.

Appoint

You may of course decide, taking into account both Inherent Competencies and Inherent Capability, that the candidate is a suitable fit with the role and appoint him.

Address Development Areas

You may decide to appoint the candidate but based on the various assessments be aware that there are important development areas that will need to be addressed when the candidate starts in the role. If your assessment process has followed our guidelines you should be clear about exactly what the candidate’s development areas are.

Flag as High Potential

You may decide to appoint the candidate but based on the various assessments be aware that there are important development areas that will need to be addressed when the candidate starts in the role. If your assessment process has followed our guidelines you should be clear about exactly what the candidate’s development areas are.

Or a combination of the foregoing
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