企業(yè)招聘環(huán)節(jié)中職位描述往往是最耳熟能詳?shù)摹Ｔ诼毼幻枋鲋?，最基本、最確定不變的一個組成部分就是對應聘者資質(zhì)和技能的一系列要求。比如求職網(wǎng)站Monster.com上最近有一個銷售高管崗位的職業(yè)描述，其中提到，應聘者必須擁有“學士學位、至少兩年的醫(yī)療保健業(yè)信息技術(shù)或者相關(guān)領(lǐng)域工作經(jīng)驗、出色的溝通技巧，要有積極主動的團隊合作精神?！?/p>

這些資質(zhì)要求看上去已成常識。但憑借常識招聘的方式可能是招徠最佳人選的最大障礙。為什么？因為這樣的職業(yè)描述來源于過時的員工評價方式。過時在哪呢，就是關(guān)注應聘者的共性，而非個性。

這種有誤導性的觀念起源于19世紀的歐洲，一位比利時的數(shù)學家首次提出“普通人”的概念，第一代社會學家由此開創(chuàng)了區(qū)分各色人等的做法，根據(jù)觀察對象共有的基本特質(zhì)分為“士兵型”、“罪犯型”和“鋼鐵工人型”。

一個世紀以來，企業(yè)也用同樣的思路在職位描述中假定某類員工應具備的素質(zhì)、比如典型的銷售經(jīng)理應該是什么樣。但按類型甄選人才隱藏著極大的問題：企業(yè)的關(guān)注重心偏離，忽略應聘者個人的相關(guān)信息。

幸運的是，現(xiàn)在有一種更好的招聘方法，建立在人稱“個性科學”新型跨領(lǐng)域?qū)W科基礎(chǔ)上。這項科學不接受以“普通人”的觀念，依靠21世紀數(shù)學領(lǐng)域的動態(tài)系統(tǒng)理論，而不是19世紀的統(tǒng)計學。

個性科學的一個關(guān)鍵概念是情境原理。情境原理認為，員工的績效總是取決于特定個體和特定情境的互動。而且，如果不考慮個體行為所處的環(huán)境，評估某個員工的能力或者潛力就毫無意義。

情境原理已經(jīng)改變了許多曾經(jīng)依據(jù)共性分類的領(lǐng)域。腫瘤學家就改變了標準類型癌癥的標準化治療法，轉(zhuǎn)為針對不同癌癥特有生理情境的個性化治療。生物學家也不再研究“標準化細胞”的模型，而是研究“特定環(huán)境下單個細胞”的動態(tài)變化。

但在所有領(lǐng)域之中，情境理論對企業(yè)招聘帶來的影響可能最大。

情境理論主張，不要描述企業(yè)希望招聘哪一類員工，而是將重點放在崗位需要的特定績效，以及員工工作時將身處的特定情境，然后挑出曾在類似情境下能達到類似績效的求職者。

以上述銷售高管的職位描述為例。這份工作要求應聘者具有學士學位，可能是因為銷售高管通常都是本科畢業(yè)。另外，職位描述提到需要至少兩年的經(jīng)驗，這也是企業(yè)假定類似的銷售高管一般擁有的經(jīng)歷年限。最后，職位描述堅持應聘者要有“出色的溝通技巧”，看起來也是個不動腦子就加進去的要求，這又是基于共性的概括，并不明確，也沒解釋清楚。

以上職位要求沒有一項提及求職者應有哪些具體能力。更重要的是，即便符合了所有要求，也沒法判斷求職者到底能不能在特定職業(yè)情境中完成既定績效。

那么，要怎樣改變職位描述中那些中規(guī)中矩的資質(zhì)和技能要求？人才培訓與獵頭機構(gòu)Lou Adler Group的創(chuàng)始人盧?阿德勒已經(jīng)實踐了側(cè)重情境的招聘方式，開發(fā)了一種招聘和聘用員工的新方法，稱為“基于績效的招聘”。阿德勒解釋說：“用人機構(gòu)不要描述想要哪種員工，而是描述希望員工完成哪些工作。”

在轉(zhuǎn)行做招聘以前，阿德勒為一家航空航天制造商設(shè)計零部件。作為工程師，他深諳要根據(jù)零部件未來使用環(huán)境挑選適合的原材料，這可能是他會以同樣思路甄選員工的原因。

阿德勒舉了一個例子，用來解釋績效招聘比一般的職業(yè)描述效果好在哪。英國一家社交媒體初創(chuàng)公司要招募市場營銷團隊主管。他們列出市場總監(jiān)通常應具備的資質(zhì)和技能，最后招到一名有多年營銷經(jīng)驗，簡歷也非常出色的人。

然而這次招聘后來變成一場大災難。怎么會這樣？因為這位總監(jiān)此前一直在大公司工作，手握大把預算，通曉層級分明的管理模式。但這家初創(chuàng)公司變化發(fā)展迅速，節(jié)奏快，營銷預算較少，管理方式不正規(guī)。新情景和該總監(jiān)此前成功的環(huán)境截然不同，因此他根本不適合。

這家初創(chuàng)公司只好求助阿德勒。他用基于績效的招聘法幫助該公司鎖定了一位讓人非常意外的人選——一位毫無營銷經(jīng)驗的藥劑師。首席執(zhí)行官起初將信將疑，但阿德勒向他解釋了，變動大、節(jié)奏快、預算少、管理不正規(guī)的環(huán)境下，那位藥劑師如何勝任營銷總監(jiān)。事實證明，藥劑師獲得了巨大的成功，現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)成為公司最得力、影響最大的員工之一。

注重情境的招聘方式還有一個好處：讓員工感到和本職工作的關(guān)系更密切，也更有成就感，進而提高員工的生產(chǎn)力和忠誠度。它也讓企業(yè)更容易招到優(yōu)秀的人才。

阿德勒的公司已經(jīng)幫助上萬名負責招聘的人事經(jīng)理采用基于績效的招聘方法，其中既有小本經(jīng)營的初創(chuàng)公司，又有《財富》500強企業(yè)。“企業(yè)總是抱怨招不到人才，以為有技能差距，其實只是思考方式上有差距，”阿德勒說，“如果多花工夫明確工作崗位的具體情境，企業(yè)必有收獲。”（財富中文網(wǎng)）

作者Todd Rose與Ogi Ogas合著有The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness一書（HarperOne出版社2016年出版）

譯者：Pessy

校對：夏林

There are few recruiting practices in business as familiar as the job description, and one of its most basic and entrenched components is the list of candidate qualifications and skills. For instance, a recent job listing for a sales executive position on Monster.com said that applicants must have “a bachelor’s degree, a minimum of at least two years selling in healthcare IT or a related field, excellent communication skills, and be a team player with a positive attitude.”

This list of qualifications seems like common sense. And yet, this common sense approach to recruiting may be the single biggest obstacle to hiring the best person for a job. Why? Because such job descriptions are rooted in a flawed and obsolete way of thinking about employees. That is, they look at candidates as averages instead of individuals.

This misguided mindset originated in Europe in the 19th century with the invention of the “Average Man” by a Belgian mathematician, which led the first generation of social scientists to develop the practice of “typing” in which they averaged the qualities of each class of people to describe the essential traits of the “soldier type,” “criminal type,” or “ironworker type.”

For the past century, the same kind of thinking has led to job descriptions that identify the presumed essential qualities of a type of employee, such as a typical sales executive. There is a huge hidden problem with typing, however: it steers attention away from what is relevant and informative about an individual candidate.

Fortunately, there is a better approach to recruiting, one grounded in a new interdisciplinary science known as the Science of the Individual. This science rejects the entire notion of the “Average Man” and relies on the math of 21st century dynamic systems theory rather than 19th century statistics.

One of the key concepts of the science of the individual is the context principle, which holds that performance always depends on the interaction of a specific individual and a specific situation; it is meaningless to evaluate an individual’s ability or potential without referring to the environment in which the individual will be performing.

The context principle has already transformed many of the fields that once relied on typing. Oncologists have switched their emphasis from standardized treatments for standard types of cancer to personalized treatments that target the specific physiological contexts of individual cancer. And biologists no longer study models of “standard cells” but the dynamic activity of “individual cells in context.”

But the context principle holds the potential for the greatest impact in business hiring.

Instead of describing the type of employee you think you want to hire, the context principle suggests it is better to focus on the particular performance a job demands and the particular contexts where the employee will be performing, and then look for candidates who have successfully executed similar performances in similar contexts.

Consider the sale executive job description above. That job requires that candidates possess a Bachelor’s degree, probably because the typical sales executive possesses a bachelor’s degree. Next, the job description demands a minimum of two years of experience. Again, this is presumably the average amount of experience that similar sales executives possess. And finally, insisting upon “excellent communication skills” might seem like a no-brainer, but once again this is an average-based summary rather than something precise and explanatory.

None of these requirements provide insight into the actual constellation of a candidate’s abilities, and more importantly, fulfilling them provides almost no useful information about whether the candidate can execute the specific performance we need in the specific job contexts.

So what can replace the job description’s venerable list of qualifications and skills? One man who has pioneered a practical and effective context-focused method of recruiting is Lou Adler, founder of the Lou Adler Group. He developed a new way to recruit and hire employees that he calls “performance-based hiring.” Adler explains: “Instead of describing the person they want, employers describe the job they want done.”

Before switching to a career in recruiting, Adler designed parts for an aerospace manufacturer. This might be why he approaches the practice of selecting employees with the mindset of an engineer who knows that selecting the right material for a part depends on accurate knowledge of the environment where the part will be used.

Adler gives one example where performance-based hiring produced better results than the generic job description. A social media startup in Britain needed to hire someone to head their marketing team. They put out a listing of the qualifications and skills of a typical marketing director and ended up hiring someone with many years of marketing experience and an impressive resume.

Yet he turned out to be a complete disaster. Why? All of his experience was at large corporations with sizable budgets and hierarchical management. The startup, however, was much more dynamic and fast-paced, with a smaller marketing budget and a more informal approach to management. The new context was different from the ones where the marketing director had been successful, and as a result he was a terrible fit.

The start-up turned to Adler, who used performance-based hiring to help them identify a very counter-intuitive prospect, a pharmacist without any marketing experience. Though the CEO was skeptical at first, Adler showed how the pharmacist had actually performed the same kinds of tasks that the startup’s marketing director would need to do, in similarly dynamic, fast-paced, low-budget, informal settings. The pharmacist turned out to be a huge success and is now one of the company’s most effective and influential employees.

There is another benefit of context-aware hiring: it makes employees feel more connected and fulfilled by their jobs, which makes them more productive and loyal. It also makes it easier to recruit great candidates.

The Adler Group has helped more than 10,000 hiring managers adopt performance-based hiring at businesses ranging from shoestring startups to Fortune 500 companies. “Companies always lament there’s a shortage of talent, that there’s a skills gap. But really there’s just a thinking gap,” Adler says. “If you spend the effort thinking through the contextual details of the job, you’re going to be rewarded.”

Todd Rose and Ogi Ogas are the authors of The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness (HarperOne, 2016).