By Gene Czuchnicki
Not too long ago, I had the opportunity to screen a candidate for a corrections position for a local community and an individual for a highly customer-centered driving position. In both cases, the importance of understanding the needs of the company and what they expect from their employees was an important component of doing the evaluations.
PRADCO’s corporate philosophy is to recommend candidates that offer potential to their employers. Candidates that bring with them something other than just being able to do the job. Candidates that want more than just showing up, putting in their time and clocking out.
In the case of the corrections officer, he showed little need to go beyond the straight requirements of the job and seemed to offer little growth potential for the organization. And yet, he had significant relevant experience and the Chief of Police had elected to send him through the PRADCO process. I called the Chief to better understand the candidate from his perspective. It turned out that a highly motivated individual would not be a good fit. There was little potential in the current environment for significant career growth or advancement. A strongly motivated individual would have been a tenure risk. What the city needed was a person who could do the job well and one who would be likely to stay for the long term. The candidate that I assessed had those qualities.
There was a different issue for the candidate for the driver’s position. In this case, the candidate came from a long career in construction. He had driven a variety of big rigs to construction sites over the years and was both comfortable and confident in this environment. However, the position for which he was being considered was one where he would be interacting one-on-one with customers in their homes. The concern was that the style that served him well on a building site would not be appropriate in a position that required more interpersonal interaction. Again, a call to the customer to discuss the candidate lead to a better understanding of the position and the customer’s needs.
These examples highlight the need to stay in regular contact with your customers to understand their business needs and the requirements that they need to meet when PRADCO evaluates a candidate for them. It is better to ask the question and confirm a belief than to make an assumption and find out it is incorrect. PRADCO consistently tries to evaluate the fit between a candidate and the culture of the prospective employer. One candidate may be a good fit for one employer, but a poor fit for another one.
Posted by PRADCO 
