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Selective Hiring: Hiring The Right People: Southwest Airlines Hire For Attitude, Train For Skill

Selective hiring is an important HR best practice that enables companies to bring in employees who add value. It is crucial for managers to define the criteria for each position, including both technical skills as well as cultural fit and attitude. Some companies, like Southwest Airlines, focus on hiring primarily based on attitude since skills can be trained, whereas attitude is more fixed. An effective recruitment and selection process reduces turnover by identifying candidates that have the right experience, aptitude, and alignment with company values to succeed in the long run.

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204 views2 pages

Selective Hiring: Hiring The Right People: Southwest Airlines Hire For Attitude, Train For Skill

Selective hiring is an important HR best practice that enables companies to bring in employees who add value. It is crucial for managers to define the criteria for each position, including both technical skills as well as cultural fit and attitude. Some companies, like Southwest Airlines, focus on hiring primarily based on attitude since skills can be trained, whereas attitude is more fixed. An effective recruitment and selection process reduces turnover by identifying candidates that have the right experience, aptitude, and alignment with company values to succeed in the long run.

Uploaded by

aatish
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Selective hiring: Hiring the right people

The second HR best practice is selective hiring. This enables an organization to


bring in employees who add value.
You can’t just hire anyone; you want people who are fit for the job. Companies
do their utmost best to hire exceptional people because they add the most value
to the business.
Research shows that the difference in performance between an average
performer and a high performer can be as high as 400%! This holds true for
different industries and job types, including researchers, entertainers, and
athletes.
Bringing in the right people is, therefore, a key to building a competitive
advantage.
In order to evaluate the fit, it is important for managers to create a list of
relevant criteria for each position before beginning the recruitment and selection
process. Each job description should be associated with a list of critical skills,
behaviors or attitudes that will make or break the job performance. When
screening potential employees, managers need to select based on cultural fit and
attitude as well as technical skills and competencies. There are some companies,
such as Southwest Airlines, based out of the United States, who hire primarily
based on attitude because they espouse the philosophy that you hire for attitude,
train for skill. According to former CEO Herb Kelleher, “We can change skill
levels through training. We can’t change attitude” (O'Reilly & Pfeffer). After
determining the most important qualifications, managers can design the rest of
the selection process so that it is in alignment with the other human resource
processes.

In today’s digital world, there are a lot of different recruitment tools we can use
to make the right selection. More and more companies vigorously keep track of
their recruitment metrics to see how well they are doing in this regard.
Commonly used selection instruments are structured and unstructured
interviews, IQ tests, personality assessments, work tests, peer assessments, and
reference checks. These (pre-employment) assessments are used to uncover
three key candidate characteristics.
Ability:
is the person able to do the job? Does the person have the right technical and
soft skills? Is the person smart enough to do the job well?
Trainability:
can we train this person to improve his/her skills? Has the person the aptitude to
learn and keep developing?
Commitment:
will the person commit to his/her work and to the organization? Will we be able
to retain this person once he/she is up to speed and fully productive?

An effective recruitment and selection process reduces turnover, we also get


much better results in our recruitment process if we advertise specific criteria
that are relevant to the job. Include all necessary skills, and include a list of
desired skills that are not necessary but that would enhance the candidate's
chances. If we fail to do this, we might end up with a low-quality pool of
candidates and wind up with limited choices to fill the open position. When we
choose a candidate based upon the qualifications demonstrated in the resume,
the interview, employment history and background check, we will land the best
fit for the position. Based on our decisions about a specific candidate upon
specific evidence rather than any gut instincts. If we hire people who can do the
job instead of people we merely like, we will have higher productivity and
quality in our products or services.
The recruitment and selection process is the time we not only identify a
candidate who has the experience and aptitude to do the job that we are looking
to fill, but also to find someone who shares and endorses our company’s core
values. The candidate will need to fit in well within our company’s culture. The
selection and recruitment process should provide our company with an
employee who adapts and works well with others in our business. Failure to
recruit and select forthe long term can result in high turnover

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