Changes in how firms select candidates can transform workforces, according to Ed Sketch, former director of HR for the European sales division of Ford in the 1980s. Responding to an article on resistance to inclusive hiring policies, Sketch shared his experience of improving graduate hiring in the UK for the sales division, which was overwhelmingly white males and unsatisfactory in terms of selection methods.
Improving the Selection Process
Rather than launching a diversity initiative, Sketch's team decided to enhance the selection process based on the assumption that talent is evenly distributed by gender and race. They spent time defining what the sales department needed by interviewing successful hires about their jobs and performance. From this, they devised a selection process to identify such abilities in future hires.
Key Changes Implemented
- The application form was redesigned to search for specific background education and achievements.
- Verbal and numeric reasoning tests that mirrored the work graduates would do were introduced.
- The interview process was restructured, and group exercises on typical job tasks were added.
- All line managers involved in selection were retrained.
Almost immediately after implementing the new approach, the hiring profile matched the application rate. While there were plenty of female applicants, ethnic minority applicants were slightly underrepresented, which was later addressed.
‘The line managers were amazed at the quality of candidates that our improved, more objective and job-related tests produced,’ Sketch said. He suggested that professional HR managers might do well to follow this approach.
Ed Sketch is a former director of education, training and development at Ford Motor Company.
