D.I.S.C profiling in the recruitment/selection process
The fact is that the DISC method of behavioural profiling is one of the most widely used worldwide. Why? One reason is that it may be used effectively by middle management. You do not need to employ the services of a psychologist to interpret the results. The system does that automatically. True the outputs will vary dependant upon which particular DISC system you use. But then so would the interpretation from one psychologist to another. However the great value of a DISC report is that it does give the interviewer a track to run on, gives them a base from which their understanding of the interviewee may accurately be developed. It is a fact that it is unlikley that the majority of folks in middle management who are involved in the recruitment process have had much in the way of interview process training. The majority of interviews conducted in the hiring of sales personnel in particular are likley carried out by untrained or poorly trained individuals. They may well be high calibre but if they have had no training then it is likely that they will experience a high fall out rate of their recruits. The main problem is that such people never stop recruiting, never switch from attract mode to investigative mode. They are usually being pushed from on high to fill the vacancies left by past selection failures. The interviewee has shown an interest in the position, that is why they are there. What the interviewer should be doing from the start is deselecting, is looking for reasons why the recruit would fail. Instead they buy at face value the package the interviewee is selling. They do not dig deeper they do not ask the killer questions. Why? Because first of all they are desperate to get this person on board and because frankly they do not know how. OK, so how can a DISC profile help? The first thing to be clear on is that all people charged with the responsibility of delivering the report to the interviewee MUST HAVE TRAINING. Not just a one day training course. (they are almost worthless, no matter the quality of the course content), they should have continous training, role playing workshops and be assessed as competent by an in house expert. The in house expert should have attended an full blown train the trainer course and they themselves been accredited and shown to be competent. Any management tool is apotential commercial time bomb unless appropriate training has been delivered. Why is it that some companies will buy management tools but then baulk at the expense of training their people to be effective in their use? Do you use DISC in your organisation? Do you conduct recruitment interviews? Are you responsible for delivering the report to the interviewee? Are you competent to do so? If you are in any way unsure then bring the matter to the attention of the appropriate company official
