Hire the Best Talent with Strategic Competency Mapping

CompTeam is very proactive in making sure that our clients are hiring the right candidate from the start. Many of our clients come to us with a vast need for helping them sort out the best way to define the requirements of the job. Although there are many methods of classifying a position, we focus on defining the key competencies that are unique to the role that drives performance. We call this process ‘Strategic Competency Mapping.’ Let me explain a bit more about this process.

Let’s say you are hiring a Tech Support position and one of your top performers in this role is Susan. Susan has worked with your company several years now and is the ideal performer. She is consistent, a great communicator and your customers love her. When CompTeam identifies a top performer, we want to understand what are the key skills and behaviors that make that person so successful and then we use this information to identify great candidates in the marketplace.

How do we do this? We use assessment tools like the TMA Method to understand the “secret sauce” of key positions in a unique cultural environment. In Susan’s case, she would log into the TMA online tool and answer questions relating to her work and her preferences. We would include her results with other high performers in the same position and derive the Strategic Competency Map for the role. The results may be: listening, verbal expression, sensitivity, customer orientation and problem solving. Each competency is measured for the degree of attainment of the skill that is needed.

The next step is to use the Strategic Competency Map when recruiting for the role. Interviewers can choose to use the TMA assessment for candidates or can craft questions surrounding the known competencies. We have recommended interview questions for each identified competency.

Here is an example of a question for the competency of listening: “Could you give me an example of a situation in which you obtained information by listening carefully. Information someone else may have missed?” and another example for the competency of sensitivity, “When did you last encounter a customer who was emotional? What did you do? Would you do something differently next time?”. The results of these and other competency questions are well chosen, happy team members who perform and work with other teammates. The additional benefit is that once the Strategic Competency Map is known, these questions can be prepared and used consistently for all candidates.

When CompTeam works with a client to implement this process it is rewarding to see the clarity in identifying top talent and understanding the contribution that they make to the company. The goal of working with CompTeam is to better a company’s bottom line from multiple angles and aspects. We help our clients find the right talent from the start, so they can thrive like they intended to before working with us.

About the Author

Sam Reeve

Sam is the CEO and founder of CompTeam.

His core focus is leading companies through transformational change by optimizing talent initiatives with reward programs to achieve long-term strategic objectives.

Sam’s diverse experience includes the design and optimization of performance-driven variable compensation plans for executive, sales and core employee populations of growing companies.

Prior to founding CompTeam, Sam has worked in compensation functions of notable firms such as BlackRock, McKesson and Automatic Data Processing (ADP).

Sam is a global certified compensation consultant (CCP, GRP) with over 20 years of experience in Total Reward Strategies.