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Highlands Today

Job Interview Technique Focuses On Skills

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By BILL ROGERS

Highlands Today

Published: October 26, 2008

SEBRING - Bluffing is a good tactic to use when playing poker but don't try it during a job interview - especially when the interviewer is using a technique called "targeted selection."

"Targeted selection enables an organization to ensure that the skills that they are looking for are indeed within that individual," said Joe DeCerbo. "That they are not simply in the right place at the right time, or who they know and can coattail."

DeCerbo, the district manager of the Spring Lake Improvement District, has been asked by the board of directors of the Highlands County Economic Development Commission to talk with the candidates who have been granted interviews for the EDC's executive director position. He will use the technique when he meets with them this week.

"The whole concept is based on past behavior dictates future performance," he said.

DeCerbo said it is not easy to do because "the skill is not in identifying what it is you are trying to find in somebody; it is asking them the right questions and prodding."

A former teacher, assistant principal and football coach, DeCerbo learned about targeted selection when he was the regional director of the Midwest Boys and Girls Clubs of America. He attended an intensive week-long training session in New York City in targeted selection, which DeCerbo described "as kind of the new buzz word in the mid-80s."

Like other companies, DeCerbo said Boys and Girls Clubs had run into situations that because someone was in an organization for a number of years and "paid their dues" as they rose up the ladder, they wound up running the organization. Often times, DeCerbo said, it wasn't because they had the skills or expertise, they just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

There are nine key areas the process relates itself to: communication skills, decision-making skills, developing organizational talent, developing leadership skills, personal initiative skills, planning skills, quality skills, relationship skills and safety, health and environment skills. There are at least 350 questions involving those areas that could be asked during an interview, according to DeCerbo.

The job candidate has no idea what questions will be asked and that could make it difficult - and quite uncomfortable - for the individual.

"It can be brutal if you have tried to embellish what it is you have accomplished," DeCerbo said. "If you are of integrity, and you really have a resume that is indicative of your accomplishments you are just going to come out wonderfully."

"I will know beyond a shadow of a doubt what you as an individual have done and not a committee, not two people above you, not a consultant that you hired, not a marketing firm," he added.

DeCerbo turned to baseball to compare making a choice to hire some one for a job.

"If I've got somebody that hit 30 home runs three years in a row compared to a rookie who has the potential of hitting 30 home runs, who do you want?" DeCerbo said. "I want the one who has the track record of doing it."

Bill Rogers may be reached at 386-5825 or wrogers@highlandstoday.com

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