Creating a Proper Scorecard

I’ve been asked a lot in the past few weeks the same question: “I really want to do a scorecard for my interviews but I don’t know how to make them?”.  I started looking into how these Hiring Managers were going about the process and I realized that it’s not the end result that has been elusive but rather the starting point. 
When creating a scorecard don’t start with a job description and hope you can create a good one.  Instead, write the Performance Evaluation Plan for the prospective employee at their 1 year review meeting.  By honestly assessing the results you hope to achieve by hiring someone you end up with a number of things (in addition to the basis for a scorecard).  You get (a) the metrics for bonus-based compensation (b) the foundation of a much better Job Description (c) a solid way of working backwards to see if an employee is really “getting it” in their first 30, 60, 90 days in the job. 

Here are some examples of real “Responsibilities” that we’ve seen on Job Descriptions and how they would have been written better if someone had started at the Performance Evaluation and worked backwards: 

CONTROLLER – Large Construction Company

Key Responsibility:  Ideal candidates will have strong leadership, communication and organizational skills.

If they worked backwards it might look like this instead:

Performance Review:  Possess the organizational skills necessary to reduce the closing of the books each month from 18 days to 7. 

New Job Description Requirement: Track record of implementing structure and organization to an existing accounting system that resulted in significant reductions in the amount of time it takes to compile, reconcile and close the books each month.

CALL CENTER MANAGER – Publicly Traded Phone Company

Key Responsibility:  Staff Recruitment, Training, Hiring and Development

If they worked backwards it might look like this instead:

Performance Review:  Implement employee retention programs that will reduce our turnover from 300% per year to 100% (a net reduction of 66%) and establish a quantifiable system to allow us to reward our top performers for their day to day behavior while tracking customer satisfaction.

New Job Description Requirement: Experience Recruiting, Training and Retaining employees at a high level through the implementation of high quality talent assessment with a focus on improving the customer experience and staff retention.

Tags: hire better, Interview, quantify, Scorecard, Topgrading