Succession Management Through Effective Selection and Support
           
Marathon Human Resource Consulting Group Ltd. is committed to increasing the effectiveness of your hiring practices through supporting your managers and leaders in their hiring roles. Our commitment is to assist our corporate clients in meeting the challenge of managing and reducing the risk involved in the recruitment and selection process, and in identifying and hiring the right candidate to ‘fit’ your future leadership and productivity needs. The ‘candidate market’ is becoming increasingly competitive. Hiring and retaining top-notch employees is also an increasingly complex challenge. Hiring has become much more of a ‘future oriented’ process, where new employees are also evaluated in the context of ‘succession management’. New employees are expected to have the capacity to be effective at the new position into which they are hired and to have the potential for development in preparation for increased leadership responsibilities. Recruitment and selection, by necessity, has evolved into a strategic human resources initiative.

Leaders, Managers, Supervisors and Human Resources Professionals are often overwhelmed by the responsibility, effort and resources involved with selecting the right person to assume a leadership role in their organization. Failure to successfully screen and engage a future leader, without considering ‘the right fit’; for both the present and the longer-term, can cost organizations significantly in lost revenue, productivity and leadership focus.

Long-term Benefits of the Marathon approach

Once the hiring decision has been made, and the new manager or leader is becoming integrated into their new position and organizational culture, the supervisor has the opportunity to initiate a long-term developmental process for the newly hired individual. Through the comprehensive selection process organization has gathered a significant amount of information about the new employee. One of the key documents is the developmental report prepared as part of the Marathon recruitment assessment process. From this report, the supervisor can identify the apparent strengths of the new employee, as well as the areas that require further development and growth. By strategically projecting this development report into the future, the supervisor can initiate, with the new employee, a comprehensive development program to prepare for future leadership opportunities and responsibilities. Few, if any organizations today can afford not to develop their future leaders. At the same time, the benefits are immeasurable: increased motivation, commitment, loyalty, productivity and overall effectiveness, as well as a cadre of leaders within the organization who are being prepared, on an ongoing basis, to assume more senior leadership responsibilities, as the baby-boomers retire, or other leaders are promoted to more senior roles.

The Marathon Human Resources Consulting Group Selection and Support services, described here, are designed to increase the strsategic endurance of your organization through effective hiring processes.

The Selection Process

Our Candidate Selection and Support Services are designed to be integrated within the broader Succession Management strategy of your organization. We begin with a clear understanding of the mission and culture of your organization, and work with you to analyze the requirements and the measures of expected success for the position being staffed. With this information, we develop a position description, the benchmark against which applicants will be measured. The position description which incorporates the ‘competencies’ required, will be consistent with the values and mission of your organization, and will incorporate a ‘potential for development and advancement’ section.

We offer the following professional services to meet the challenge of finding the right people for the future of your organization: 

Candidate Assessment and Feedback

Objectively assessing candidates, using valid and reliable assessment instruments and interview processes, allows hiring leaders to access objective information which corroborates that gained from resumes, references and interviews. This objective information can confirm those ‘gut feelings’, and provides additional objective data which assists leaders in making informed decisions between strong candidates; thus reducing the risk inherent in ‘wrong’ hiring decisions.

We administer a series of relevant psychometric instruments designed to gather the information required by the hiring leaders, on candidates being considered for the final ‘short list’ (usually one to three candidates). We prepare a concise but comprehensive report, which provides objective and salient information about the candidate. Feedback is provided to the hiring team in oral and written forms. Each assessed candidate also receives feedback from a Marathon Consultant.  

Resume Review

Because it is not uncommon to receive numerous resumes for one position the time involved in the resume review process is often time lost to other leadership activities.

Our Resume Review Service involves:

• Systematically analyzing each resume to determine if it meets the benchmarked requirements of the position.
• Preparation of a comprehensive ‘long list’ of all resumes received.
• Preparation of a ‘recommended short list’ of top rated resumes, with detailed justification, for the consideration of hiring managers. This short list is rated according to the weighted criteria outlined in the position description.

Screening Interviews

When choosing new leaders, employers often want to interview as many as ten or twelve potential candidates, prior to determining a final list of candidates for a leadership position. An effective Screening Interview process is an efficient way to gather information about candidates which is not readily accessible in their resume. Screening interviews probe into the candidate’s motivation, values and past achievements, and determine if the candidate can meet the challenges of the new position. The result of this process is a second look at the top candidates to determine which ones will be interviewed for the posted position. Having experienced Human Resources Consultants conduct screening interviews increases the efficiency of the process, while reducing the risk of making a poor and expensive hiring decision.
           
Reference Checking

In today’s work world, referencing is often the last thing employers want to do; however, it is one of the most important aspects of the candidate selection process, particularly when hiring into leadership positions. References corroborate information gathered from resumes, assessments and interviews, and are vital to obtaining a well rounded picture of the candidate. Referencing has also become a more challenging and structured process because of concerns with private personal information. For all of these reasons, referencing is often better carried out by a capable third party of professionals who know how to ask appropriate questions and obtain the valuable information needed by employers. Our Referencing process provides leaders and decision-makers with a report which describes the reference information, and which, in turn, can be used to validate candidate information gathered from other sources.
           
Interview Development

We provide professional consulting expertise to develop Interview Processes which will enable interview teams to make objective and informed decisions regarding candidate suitability and ‘fit’. Formal interview protocols also ensure an ethical and unchallengeable interview process; increase the confidence of those making the hiring decisions to ultimately find the right person for the future leadership role. The issues of interview format, questionnaire preparation, interview panel preparation, interview scoring, and decision making, are some of the important elements of this service.

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