This article on the Management Issues site raises some good questions….Yet another reason to build your people from the inside instead of buying them from the outside…….. 

Only a tiny proportion of European employers have any faith in the trustworthiness of academic qualifications, CVs and job application forms in determining on-the-job performance, while many also harbour doubts about the quality of managerial candidates.  A study of 375 major European employers by HR consultancy Cubiks found that fewer than one in 10 (eight per cent) believe that academic qualifications are always a reliable indicator of how a candidate will perform in a role. 

The survey also revealed that lies and exaggerations have become common features of application forms and CVs with almost nine out of organisations encountering both of these on a regular basis. To compound the difficulties for employers, it appears that dishonest or inappropriate candidates are not being identified and rejected early on in the recruitment process. 

Six out of 10 employers said that they have had to withdraw job offers at the very last minute following the receipt of a poor personal reference. The most common reasons for businesses rejecting candidates are because they lack the core abilities needed to do the job or because of a poor personality fit. 

At managerial level, employers said that the competencies they find candidates most commonly lack are the ability to manage and lead others and the ability to think strategically. These competencies were also identified as the most difficult to assess, suggesting that employers do not have the knowledge and instruments required to focus in on these areas during selection and development assessments

Read the rest of the article here….

By the way…. my trip to Israel has been postponed for a couple of months. To Yuval and the rest that were planning to meet me for dinner, thank you and please stay safe. To those of you who emailed me telling me not to go, or to at least be careful, God love ya for caring. To Techie Mom (who is my cousin Melanie in real life)… tell your mom she can stop worrying.

While you are all breathing a sigh of relief I now have to spend my 45th birthday in  a classroom in White Plains, NY, rather than at the crusader castle of Montfort. Does that seem right to you????

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 22nd, 2006 at 6:21 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.