Used to Help Write Person Specifications

Person specifications for a particular job category

For person specifications for a particular job category, in which you expect to be doing a significant amount of recruitment, Enquire Within helps the user specify the behavioural dimensions on which effective performers differ from less effective performers.

In this application you use the Enquire Within process, as a technique for interviewing a sample of managers to gather data from all appropriate sources. (You can use the data as the basis for a wider questionnaire if you wish). Most important, though, is to recognise that the process has given you a very detailed picture of the behaviours your organisation currently values. (You may also be interested in Organisation Culture Measurement).

If your organisation needs to change the behaviour it values - for example if you want to have your ‘techies’ more customer-focussed, or have your managers take more responsibility for managing their budgets - then the knowledge of what you currently value provides an excellent jumping-off point for looking at what you should value and planning what you need to do to overcome the gap.

Person specifications for a new team member

For a new team member, where the accent is on how the newcomer will relate to the members of the existing team, an interview of the existing team members about how they view one another provides the basic information. You can then introduce the new team member - either as an abstract concept or, if the team have already met him or her, as a real person, and use the Enquire Within process to examine some ‘what if’ scenarios about:

• the contribution the new member might make to the team,
• how they will make constructive use of differences, and
• generally plan their strategy for having the new team member become effective as soon as possible.

Person specifications for a completely new position

For a completely new position, you could ask the receiving manager to consider the critical incidents that are likely to arise in the new position, and the skills which will be needed to manage them.

This is a very powerful use of the Enquire Within process, because it acts as a contrast or supplement to the more common ways of specifying a new job description, which tend to concentrate on accountabilities and positions in the organisation chart. Its power comes from the way it encourages the receiving manager to envisage, in depth, the challenges which will arise in the new job.

It is particularly useful when the new job is created as a result of restructuring and the jobholder may have to struggle to establish their authority - for example when business managers are introduced into hospitals or educational institutions, when someone is appointed to supervise a merger or impose order on a situation which looks like getting out of hand.

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