How to create job profiles to find valuable employees?

Before each head or the manager on work with the personnel sooner or later becomes a question of replacement of a vacant post. Selection of a good specialist is not an easy task. To this end, managers often make profiles of posts that help to orient themselves in the requirements to the applicant.

Definition of concept

Profiles of posts are a set of professional and personal competencies, which must match the applicant for a particular position. At the moment there is no formal description of the characteristics that a representative of a particular profession should possess, and therefore these documents are made by the leaders themselves.

We can say that the profile of the post is a kind of standard, according to which the employee must perform his duties. The description should be detailed, and most importantly - realistic. The document should display the following main items:

• Place and importance of the position in the organizational structure of a particular enterprise;
• The functional duties that an employee must take on that position;
• Profile, which lists the main competencies that a candidate for a position must have;
• Personal qualities that are necessary to fulfill certain duties;
• The minimum list of requirements that the organization puts forward to its employees.

Thus, it can be said that job profiles are a set of characteristics that an employee must match. This is a specific standard that describes the duties, as well as the qualification and personal parameters of the applicant.

Why you need job profiles

Personnel managers regularly face the issue of closing a vacancy. Not having made an exhaustive profile of a post, it is not necessary to start direct selection of employees. This document is a kind of hint that is used in the following cases:

• Selection of candidates for filling vacancies;
• For attestation of already working personnel in order to reveal the degree of conformity to the position held (also for employees who have passed the probationary period);
• With a view to drawing up plans for training personnel and raising the level of qualifications;
• If you need to create a reserve of personnel for the future;
• In order to plan career growth and further promotion of employees to senior positions in the organization.

Quite often the job profile of a candidate for a particular post is confused with job description. The principal difference between these two documents is that the second is drawn up on the basis of the requirements of the law. A job description is a general document that is drawn up for the profession as a whole, and not for a specific employee of a particular organization. It defines the main duties and conditions of work. A position profile is a document of a local nature that does not have clear requirements for content and structure. The Human Resources Manager (or other personnel) makes it based on his own experience or general practice of the organization.

Professional competences

Each post requires the employee to have certain competencies. These are the qualification characteristics that are necessary for the performance of certain work. Thus, the profile of competencies for posts usually includes the following items:

• Strategic thinking (implies the ability to make long-term plans taking into account possible risks and alternatives);
• Influence on others (ability to defend one's point of view, and also to convince others of its correctness);
• Problem solving skills (the ability to adequately respond to non-standard situations and difficulties, as well as quickly find ways to exit from them);
• Search for information (selection and filtering of data, ability to find and use current sources);
• The ability to work with clients and counterparties (consideration of interests, understanding of psychology, satisfaction of wishes and needs);
• Flexibility (prompt response and decision-making in accordance with a changing situation);
• Focus on quality (knowledge and implementation of all requirements and norms, as well as the desire for continuous improvement).

Depending on the position in question, the list of competencies can be expanded or narrowed. A professional position profile contains not only requirements, but also the degree of their severity (basic, high, maximum). This indicator can be determined by the results of the interview or by means of special psychological tests.

How is it compiled

Drawing up a profile of a position is a rather laborious process. The need for it is due to the fact that this document allows you to determine the parameters that a valuable employee should have. Correctly formulating the profile, HR staff greatly facilitate the process of finding and selecting new employees. When drafting a document, it is worth following a number of recommendations and rules:

• The title of the position should be brief and clearly reflect its essence. It is also worthwhile to make a brief description that will contain a list of the main duties of the employee. Can be presented in the form of a list of tasks. This will be the basis of the profile of the post.
• The list of basic information about the post should include not only the procedure of work, but also the amount of wages, which will be one of the key moments in the interview. It is also worth describing the hierarchy of subordination, as well as an approximate list of persons with whom the new employee will have to interact.
• To perform job duties, you need a set of specific competencies. This list should not be too extensive (no more than 10 points). It can be compiled on the basis of personal experience, theoretical studies, observations of employees, as well as a sociological survey. You can divide the competences into several groups (for example, specific and corporate).

The profile should be concise and concise at the same time. This will allow you to obtain exhaustive information without spending too much time on processing it.

The main stages of creation

The development of the post profile includes several consecutive stages:

• At the first stage of drafting the document, job descriptions, as well as all information regarding the specifics of the work of the enterprise, should be carefully studied. You can conduct interviews with employees or a sociological survey using unified forms.
• Next, the circle of people who will be directly involved in the work is determined. Most often this issue is handled by specialists of the personnel department. Nevertheless, it is also important to involve managers of other services for which profiles are compiled. The work can be carried out jointly or separately with the subsequent consolidation of the results into a final working document.
• The third stage involves studying the organizational structure of the enterprise with the purpose of determining the place of a particular position in it. Subordinates, as well as immediate superiors, must be identified, before which the new employee will keep a record.
• Next, a detailed description of the functional responsibilities that correspond to a particular post. It is based not only on regulatory and legal acts, but also on personal experience in a particular enterprise.
• At the fifth stage, the human resources manager (or other specialist who is engaged in profile development) should determine the list of knowledge and skills that will be required to perform job duties. It's about professional competencies.
• Having decided upon the competences, it is important to distribute them in terms of importance, as well as the level at which the specialist must possess them. This will make it easier to select personnel.
• Further, the participants of the working group should determine what personal characteristics a candidate for filling a vacant position should have. Sometimes character traits are even more important than professional competencies, because the latter can be worked out, and the former can become a serious obstacle in the work process.
• At the eighth stage, it is necessary to determine the general requirements for the employee. Usually this is sex, age, level of education or work experience and so on. It is worth noting that the first two signs are not always appropriate to use, because the law can treat them as discrimination.
• The last stage implies the definition of criteria, according to which the efficiency of the employee's work will be determined. They can be applied during the trial period or for periodic assessment of the quality of work of existing workers.

It should be noted that this algorithm is not mandatory for compliance in all organizations. Depending on the size of the enterprise, as well as the specifics of its organizational structure, some stages may be missed, and additional ones may be introduced.

Sample compilation

At the moment, there is no unified form, according to which the profile of the requirements for the post would be drawn up. And to the professions themselves, specific requirements may be imposed on each enterprise. Nevertheless, the staff managers have already developed a certain practice, according to which the profile of the post is drawn up. The sample can look like this:

• The title of the position, according to the staff schedule;
• Short description (what the worker should do);
• Essential conditions (working schedule, salary level, etc.);
• Requirements imposed on the applicant for the position (level of education, work experience in a particular field, certain special skills);
• Extended list of job descriptions;
• The corporate competencies that a potential employee of a particular organization should have;
• Psychological tests and other methods of assessing the suitability of an employee of a particular position.

This is an approximate pattern. Most often this structure has a profile of the post. The sample can be expanded or narrowed, depending on the structure of the organization. Also, additional parameters can be entered for specific posts.

Staff Manager Position Profile

The HR manager is one of the most important positions in the company, because it is the employee who determines the qualitative composition of the employees. Therefore, the personnel have special requirements, which are reflected in such a document as the profile of the post. The sample can be as follows:

• Skills of work with people (the manager on the personnel should have skills of dialogue and the decision of disputable questions);
• Fast involvement (the personnel specialist should not be indifferent, he should have an interest in solving certain issues);
• Manifestation of initiative in matters related to improving the structure and quality of personnel;
• Openness to communication (this quality is necessary due to the specific features of the post);
• Enthusiasm for solving current issues;
• A positive mood that will be passed on to all other members of the team;
• Ability to conduct a conversation (it is the manager who is given the leading role in a conversation with potential and real employees);
• leadership skills;
• Skills of public speaking (for presentation of reports and reports to top management, as well as holding seminars for subordinates);
• Non-standard thinking for making creative decisions in emergency situations;
• Oratory, persuasiveness of utterances;
• Speed of thinking and quickness in action;
• The ability to adapt to changing conditions (as well as assisting newly recruited staff);
• Absence of fear of risk (this characteristic should be moderately pronounced);
• Independence in decision-making;
• The ability to experiment and find new approaches to management ;
• A sense of humor that helps to nullify stressful and stressful situations.

The profile of the position of the manager responsible for recruiting staff should be drawn with particular care, because this position is one of the key in any enterprise. The person claiming this position must fully meet the requirements, because it is on his shoulders that he will be responsible for the formation of the staff.

Requirements for the sales manager

Quite often you can find such a vacancy as a sales manager. Despite the fact that many young people begin their work on the career ladder with this kind of work, already at this stage serious demands are made on the applicants. A typical profile of the position of a sales manager is as follows:

• Readiness for constant communication with a wide range of people (suppliers, customers, buyers and so on);
• The ability to make quick decisions on the results of negotiations with counterparties;
• The ability to maintain an optimistic mood in a conversation, and create an atmosphere of trust;
• Creativity of thinking (it is important in the presentation of the product);
• The ability to rationally organize their time (since work involves many daily meetings and negotiations);
• Diplomatic tone in dealing with contractors and clients;
• Emotional balance, the ability to remain calm in stressful situations, and quickly find a way out of conflict;
• The ability to find a common language with different types of personalities;
• Loyalty to the product being sold.

It is worth noting that a very approximate profile of the position is given. The example can be expanded or reduced, according to the needs of the particular organization.

The main approaches to the profile of the post

The development of the position profile can be carried out in accordance with two main approaches:

• The situational approach implies that the document is drawn up in an emergency order, when it is necessary to urgently close the vacant post. Since time is very limited, the document is drawn up very approximately, indicating only the most basic requirements for the potential employee. In the future, this procurement can serve to form a full-fledged profile.
• The methodical approach implies thorough work, the results of which will develop clear features of the post, necessary competencies, personal qualities, functional areas of responsibility. It will contain all the exhaustive information, and therefore will be considered a working document in the search and selection of personnel. As the organization will undergo any reforms, the profile will also undergo changes.

conclusions

It is worth noting that for the successful selection of personnel it is important that the profile of the position be drawn up at the enterprise. An example of a unified document is difficult to bring, since this issue is not regulated by law, but remains at the discretion of the company's managers.

The profile is one of the main tools that is used in the selection of candidates for the filling of a vacant post. In addition, in accordance with this document, periodic assessment of personnel or a test of the trial period can be carried out . Depending on the results of the study, there may be identified areas for increasing the level of qualification.

When composing a profile, one of two approaches can be used. Situation takes place when it is necessary urgently to close a vacancy. In this case, the description of the post can be compiled quite approximately with the indication of only the main characteristics. If we talk about the methodological approach, then a thorough detailed document is developed, which is constantly used in the recruitment process.

Typical process of developing a profile of a post implies the passage of several consecutive stages. To begin with, the characteristics of the profession, as well as the requirements for it, put forward by regulatory and legal acts are studied. It is also necessary to form a group of competent specialists who will participate in the drafting of documents. The profile is drawn up taking into account the organizational structure of the enterprise, and therefore it must also be carefully studied. The main part of the document is a description of the job description of the potential employee, as well as the requirements for competencies. Also worth paying attention to personal qualities (communication, stress and so on).