A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE ON MATCHING


By Ms. Diana Shen

Senior Researcher/Associate Consultant, Onpress Shanghai
Ms. Shen is a psychologist and has taught in a well-known girls’ high school in Shanghai.  She wrote a book on the psychology of girl students while she was teaching there.  She is very interested in people, and has become an effective recruiter for Onpress.

As we all know, the recruitment process would take a lot of learning experience. And, to explore one’s personality and personality traits is probably another kind of such art.  In here, I would like to express some personal views, in order to attract more valuable inputs from the readers, something like the Chinese proverb: casting a “brick” so as to attract “jade”.

1.   Choosing the “suitable” rather than the “best”

“To find the person with a similar goal” is a principle in the selection of a prospective employee, even when we choose a part-time person.
A person who was thinking of divorce while he /she is marrying with someone, will probably bring along a potential danger in the matching; for example, the “strange bedfellows” syndrome!  We therefore need to access what exactly the candidate has in mind.

2.   “What does he/her expect to get from the job?”

Only when you get an in-depth understanding with each candidate, i.e., his history, his marriage status, his family background, his education, his parents and a feel about his family culture, etc., you can then form a opinion about this problem: “what does he expects to get from the job?”.

Abraham Harold Mallow’s theory on the hierarchy of needs says that the needs of a person will grow from a low level to a high one. An individual will has different needs in a certain stage with a dominant need. For example, everyone should resolve the living problem in his early life during his career; a normal engineering position will not satisfy an excellent Tsinghua graduate for long, as his needs progress in the hierarchy.  As professional recruiters, we must try to meet the needs of this person!  And, we must meet his/her expectations from the position that he/she might be seeking. 

3.   Match the assignment with the candidate’s capacity.

We all know that, everybody is different in his/her capacity, even though they might have similar working experience. For the employees, who might be in the same position level, and treat them equally without discrimination will not make the most benefits for these candidates. Therefore, we must match the right position with a candidate’s capacity.

The assignments that are too easy or too difficult will invoke the incumbents’ bad emotions, such as boredom, frustration, etc. This will prevent their potentials to be realized.  Researches in psychology indicate that the best working efficiency comes while a person is dealing with the assignment that is moderately difficult.

These research results suggest that the assignment with perceived challenges would inspire the employee to dedicate their wisdom and energy as much as possible.

At the same time, we should not evaluate an individual with a tunnel vision. To build a career plan for your employee and to create the opportunities for their continuous progress is an effective  strategy to retain this employee.

4.   To give recognition is an effective tool to motivate your employee.

Praise is a common tool in uplifting one’s spirit. But, sometime praise will bring undesirable effects. We should therefore give praise whenever it is well deserved!
So, give the praise to the employee only after he/she succeeds in a difficult assignment in which the employee had spent great efforts in the achievement.
On ordinary achievements, giving praise will not always bring positive results.

Criticism is the counter measure of praise.  And this can become very negative, and should only be administered to certain employees.

5.    The pay should commensurate with the performance.

This is an axiom in human resource management.  But what’s the percentage of the incentive salary in the total package should be in the form of pay, and how to avoid the perceived unfair treatment within a group of employees is an art for the management.

6.   Delegation.

A manager should not be seen as an “overseer”. Give your subordinates and employees the sense of “trust”, “space”, “some power of self-determination” and “proper guidance” are tools of motivation as well as wise management.

7.   You are OK, I’m OK.

The Bible says: God destroys the mold with which he makes a certain human being. The moral of this saying is that,  “every individual is unique”.

Therefore, we should assess each individual with a different set of criteria.  And, when you’re OK, I’m OK too!

I hope I’ve shared with you some of my views about the art matching and also throw in some light son the application of psychology theories.