Design of a graduate competency framework and application form

We work with competencies all the time - helping organisations to identify the key skills and experiences required of their employees and future employees.
They are the lynchpin of what we do.

The Background

A distributer of fresh produce asked us to research and design a graduate competency framework to be used in recruitment and then design an application form that would simply score candiates' skills.

Members of the HR team were concerned about a lack of objectivity in their graduate recruitement process. They were aware that they needed a framework in place to benchmark candidates fairly, objectively and that reflected the business need. The legal implications and negative PR of getting it wrong can be huge - particularly for an organisation very much in the public eye, as in this case.

Their budget was not large, there were some difficulties over internal buy-in, and time was short. We therefore had to work cretively and help the HR team to position the need for competencies within the business.

What we did

We devised a questionnaire, ran a workshop with senior stakeholders , and then conducted in-depth interviews to elicit views about the skills the business needed. These view came from key stakeholders and past graduates. All the information was then collated and rationalised to produce nine competencies - with working definitions and positive and negative indicators of behaviour.

Once the framework had been established, we selected key competencies to integrate into a new-style application form and questions were devised and tested accordingly. The application form was a Word document, appropriately formatted and emailed to candidates. A simple scoring system was also put into place that facilitated fair and swift selection for the first interview stage.

The Outcome?

"Competencies and our scoring system have provided us with a robust and measurable recruitment model. We save time wading through piles of inconsistent CVs and are more confident that we are selecting the people who really match our skill requirements."