It’s important to note that using behavioral interviewing #BEI without a detailed job analysis pretty much invalidates the entire interview. Without knowing how a skill, competency or behavior is actually used on the job, the assessment is left to the interviewer’s biases and perception of the job and how well the candidate presented their answer.
This is an important area where ChatGPT can help in the hiring process by conducting the initial job analysis.
For example, I just asked ChatGPT to help develop the top five KPOs (Key Performance Objective) for a customer success manager leading the implementation of a new order tracking system. This is what it suggested as a starting point:
- On-time Project Completion: The software should be implemented according to the set timeline. Delays can lead to increased costs and customer dissatisfaction. Therefore, one KPO could be the percentage of tasks or project milestones completed on time.
- User Adoption Rate: This KPO would measure the percentage of targeted users who have started using the software after its implementation. A high user adoption rate is often indicative of successful training and system usability.
- Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): This is a measure of how satisfied the users are with the new system. This can be measured through surveys and feedback forms. The higher the score, the better the software is serving its intended purpose.
- Reduction in Order Processing Time: Since the software is meant to improve the tracking and delivery of new orders, a significant KPO would be the reduction in time it takes to process orders. This could be measured by comparing the average order processing time before and after the implementation of the software.
- Increase in Order Accuracy: Another key objective for this kind of software would be to reduce mistakes in order processing. Therefore, measuring the decrease in order errors or issues could be another critical KPO.
It only took five minutes to get these results.
Of course, the KPOs need to be modified to reflect the actual job but it’s a great starting point for conducting the job analysis and preparing a performance-based job description.
Use the Most Significant Accomplishment Question to Assess Ability
With this information interviewing a candidate is straightforward. All you need to do is get examples of how the candidate implemented a comparable system and the process the person used to get the results required. This is called the Most Significant Accomplishment question. In fact, this is where behavioral interviewing techniques can be quite useful. After you get an overview of the accomplishment have the candidate give examples of how they used different behaviors, like coordinating and influencing team members to get results, training users, and how an understanding of the technical requirements of the project enabled it to be completed successfully.
This is called behavioral fact-finding. By tying the behaviors to a specific job-related KPO the assessment is much more accurate. In fact, ChatGPT can help develop some of these peeling-of-the-onion type questions. Here are a few it suggested:
- Described how you managed to the implementation timeline.
- How did you deal with setbacks?
- How did you increase the adoption rates and what was the most challenging aspect of this?
- Did order accuracy improve and by how much?
- What were the things you had to do to increase the customer satisfaction rate?
- What kind of recognition did you get for this successful implementation?
To increase assessment accuracy even further ask the candidate for another example of a major job-related KPO at a different period in time and go through the same fact-finding process. Then tie the accomplishments together to see the trend of performance over time. Just as important is to see if the same behaviors were used to accomplish the other task and if the person became more adept in the process.
Use Evidence to Predict On-the-Job Performance
The research on interviewing accuracy clearly states that past performance doing comparable work in similar situations is the key to increasing interviewing accuracy and avoiding hiring mistakes. The research doesn’t indicate that generic behavioral interviewing without a job analysis is effective, yet somehow those in HR have taken this shortcut. However, the problem is solved by having ChatGPT jumpstart the job analysis process.
And when it comes to hiring better people and avoiding all types of hiring mistakes, this could be the single best use of ChatGPT.