What Is a Job Profile?
Imagine a high-resolution snapshot of your ideal candidate – that's a job profile. It's a detailed roadmap that goes beyond the surface, diving deep into the essential competencies, skills, values, and behaviors that set top performers apart. A job profile is a detailed, granular document that paints a vivid picture of success in the role.
This comprehensive blueprint breaks down desired attributes into real-life behaviors. It translates key skills and abstract concepts like 'Problem Solver' and 'Effective Communicator' into tangible, observable actions, providing a concrete framework for assessment.
For hiring teams, a well-crafted job profile acts as a compass, enabling them to look beyond polished resumes and rehearsed interviews. It clearly defines what skills are most important for the job, guiding recruiters and managers in identifying candidates who not only meet technical requirements but also have the right power skills (also known as “soft skills"), and fit the organization's culture.
Using job profiles offers three key benefits:
1. Align Hiring Teams on What "Good" Looks Like
Job profiles create a unified understanding among all stakeholders involved in the hiring process about what success in the role entails. This alignment is critical, as different stakeholders might have varying opinions on what makes a candidate ideal. By establishing a clear standard, job profiles eliminate conflicting expectations and streamline the decision-making process.
2. Reduce Bias and Broaden the Candidate Funnel
Traditional interview processes often rely on comparing candidates to each other in hopes of finding the best one. However, using a job profile allows you to compare all candidates to the profile of a successful candidate instead. Since job profiles are focused on skills rather than backgrounds, this approach significantly reduces bias and broadens the funnel of qualified candidates, recognizing that multiple individuals may be suitable for the role regardless of their relative performance in interviews.
3. Align Interview Process with Job Requirements
Job profiles enable a more accurate and thorough evaluation of potential hires by focusing on real-world applications of skills and competencies. Once you have a granular definition of each skill in the profile, you can design targeted interview questions and scenarios that assess these competencies in the context of the job. For example, consider this part of Effective Negotiator skill definition, taken from our sales representative job profile: “Leads negotiations towards a win-win solution”. To assess this aspect in an interview, you might role-play a dilemma based on the daily responsibilities of the position, such as a cost constraint scenario. Ask the candidate to enact the negotiation, then challenge them with responses to evaluate their aim to find a mutually beneficial solution.
This approach allows you to evaluate the candidate's negotiation skills—a crucial aspect of the "Effective Negotiator" skill in a sales context. By aligning your interview process with such specific job requirements, you ensure you're not just filling a position, but setting the foundation for long-term success by identifying candidates who can excel in the role's key tasks.
How Is a Job Profile Different from a Job Description?
While a job description provides the basic outline of a role by listing tasks, responsibilities, and required qualifications, a job profile delves deeper, by offering a detailed understanding of what makes someone excel in the role. It doesn't just stop at what the candidate needs to do; it delves into how they should do it, focusing on the specific skills, behaviors, and values that drive success.
💡 For example, where a job description might say, "Excellent communication skills required," a job profile would break this down into observable behaviors, such as how the candidate should interact with team members, handle client concerns, or adapt their communication style to different audiences. This level of detail ensures that hiring teams can accurately assess whether candidates will thrive in the specific environment and culture of the organization.
Why Is a Job Profile Essential for Skill-Based Hiring?
Skill-based hiring focuses on assessing candidates by their skills rather than just their experience. A well-crafted job profile supports skill-based hiring by clearly identifying the key skills needed for the role. Moreover, a job profile provides a structured approach to assessing the candidates, transforming abstract qualities like 'leadership' or 'communication skills' into specific, observable behaviors that can be evaluated during the hiring process.
As a method that recognizes that people from different backgrounds, education, and experiences can possess the necessary skills for a position, it opens doors for candidates who may have developed relevant skills through non-traditional paths. Thus, this approach enhances the likelihood of hiring individuals from diverse backgrounds by selecting candidates based on their actual potential, not just their past, while also increasing the likelihood that the best-fit candidates are selected. It encourages a more holistic view of candidates, considering not just what they've done in the past, but what they're capable of doing in the future.
💡 By prioritizing skills over traditional markers of success, such as specific degrees or years of experience in a particular industry, skill-based hiring allows for increased diversity in the workplace.
How to Build a Job Profile
Now that we've established the importance of job profiles and how they differ from traditional job descriptions, let's explore the process of creating one. Here are some practical steps to guide you in developing effective job profiles and elevating your hiring practices:
Step 1: Align Your Team
The cornerstone of creating an effective job profile is achieving alignment within your hiring team, as each person may have their own internal definition of what "good" looks like.
It's about getting everyone on the same page, speaking the same language regarding what the role requires in terms of skills, values, motivations, and behaviors for success.
A collaborative focus group discussion (most recommended)
One-on-one interviews with each stakeholder
The focus group approach is particularly effective as it sparks meaningful discussions, helping to separate the essential from the nice-to-have and allowing for any contradictions to be addressed.
💡Pro tip: Don't forget to include your current top performers in this process. Their firsthand experience is gold when it comes to defining what really leads to success in the role. Including current top performers in this process not only provides valuable insights into the job's demands but also serves as a form of recognition for these employees.
Conduct a Structured Focus Group Discussion
Ask participants to think of a (current or past) top performer who excelled in the discussed role.
Have the participants write down the three most crucial characteristics of these top performers. Encourage them to recall and write down specific behaviors rather than vague descriptions. You want to understand exactly how these characteristics manifested in the workplace. So, instead of writing "good with people" a detailed description would look like: "Consistently builds rapport with clients by actively listening to their concerns, asking thoughtful follow-up questions, and providing clear, jargon-free explanations of complex technical issues.”
Gather the insights. Go around the room, avoiding starting with the most influential person to prevent bias (and to keep others from simply agreeing with them), and ask each participant to share one characteristic from their list. Allow everyone to speak individually to ensure all voices are heard.
Take notes and begin grouping similar characteristics together. For example:
- Emotional Intelligence + Team Player = Interpersonal Domain
- Adaptable + Persistent = Functional Domain
Aim to narrow your list down to 10-12 distinct skills. Keep it concise and ensure that each skill is distinct and not just different terms describing the same behavior/skill. For instance, Emotional Intelligence and "People Person" may not be truly different in essence. Remember, quality over quantity – each skill should bring something unique to the table.
Prioritize the traits and skills you've identified. Once the group has its list, create two distinct categories: 'Must-Have' and 'Nice-to-Have'.
Step 2: Refine and Validate
After the meeting, take time to further refine your list. Make it concise and impactful. Then, share the document with your team for validation. Ask if there are any additions, edits or deletions needed before finalizing it. This final check ensures everyone is on board and that your job profile accurately captures what's needed for success in the role.
Step 3: Benchmarking - Tapping into Industry Wisdom
When you go about building a job profile, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. There's a wealth of information available on critical skills for various roles. Leverage public data and industry reports to benchmark your profile against in-demand skills for the position.
Benchmarking can be conducted either before or after the hiring team alignment, with each approach offering distinct advantages and potential drawbacks.
Benchmarking before the hiring team alignment:
Pros:
Provides a baseline of industry standards to inform discussions, ensures key industry-recognized skills aren't overlooked.
Saves time by having a starting point for the focus group
Cons:
May bias the group's thinking towards generic industry standards, potentially stifle creative or organization-specific insights and overshadow unique aspects of the role within your company.
💡Recommendation: Conduct benchmarking before the focus group, but present the findings only after the group has shared their knowledge. This approach combines the benefits of both timings while minimizing potential drawbacks.
In this comprehensive guide we revealed how you can move beyond generic job descriptions and tap into the essence of what truly drives success in a role. By aligning your team, identifying critical skills, and benchmarking against industry standards, you'll create a roadmap that reveals top talent and fuels organizational growth. This guide equips you with actionable steps to build job profiles that reduce bias, broaden your candidate pool, and ensure every hire is a strategic win.
Master the art of job profiling and transform your hiring process today!
Need expert guidance? The Informed Decision team of organizational psychologists with expertise in people assessment, is here to help. We've helped companies worldwide create job profiles that have led to a more precise and diverse recruitment infrastructure.
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