The Evolution of Approaches for Matching Talent to Jobs
The concept of matching is very familiar to most people today with the proliferation of dating services that rely on this approach. However, there has been a long history of matching approaches that precede profile-based matching. In this article, I want to cover some of the milestones that characterize the evolution of matching techniques.
Early Matching Approaches
The resume and position description were the primary documents for the initial matching of talent to available job. However, these documents are very poor representations of either the job or the talent. Resumes are notorious for embellishment and downright fabrication. Some of the top fabrications include:
- Lying about your degree
- Playing with dates
- Exaggerating numbers
- Increasing previous salary
- Inflating titles
Even when the resume is totally factual, it provides little information for truly differentiating individuals on the basis of actually being able to perform in a given role.
The position description fares little better as a vehicle for specifying the parameters necessary for differentiating talent and evaluating the degree of “match.” While the position description may follow a more structured format and typically covers key accountabilities and background requirements, it provides sparse information on the complete experiences, predispositions, preferences and competencies that would comprise an ideal match. Like the resume, job descriptions limited information on comprehensive talent requirements nor do they typically address organizational culture implications.
Filter Based Matching with Key Word Search
Most job boards or career sites offer various filters to locate jobs or talent that match certain basic parameters such
- Industry
- Job category or functional area
- Location
- Compensation ranges
- Job level
In addition to filters, job boards or career sites will also typically offer key word search to identify job descriptions or resumes that contain certain words. While these filters and key word search capabilities are useful for narrowing one’s options, the end result is still basically a comparison of a job description to a resume.
Assessment Based Matching Analytics
This approach is very new but quite straightforward. The employer provides a profile of the relative importance of a set of constructs (e.g., experiences, competencies, personality traits, etc.) and the talent completes a set of assessments that provide norm based measures on the same constructs. Business rules can then be applied to determine if the individual’s percentile standing on the assessment results are sufficient, given the relative importance of the requirement, to be considered a “match.”
The assessment information is augmented with other background information as well as information concerning career preferences and interests and key accomplishments. The result is a comprehensive talent profile on measures that matter and are predictive of job success. This is a vast improvement over the resume alone.
The comprehensive job profiling process indicates the relative importance of each construct or measure in performing the job. It also includes a description of key challenges and work context realities associated with the job.
In this approach, a comprehensive job profile is systematically compared to a comprehensive talent profile on elements that are important for job success. It is possible to compute the percentage match for any set of job and talent data as well as identify any possible gaps or areas of non-match that should be addressed or considered.
