Association of Local Government Auditors

Select the Right People for Your Organization

While the need for recruiters to be persuasive is reduced in this economy, a robust recruiting process is still crucial to attract good applicants and select the right candidates. Making mistakes in hiring is expensive, resulting in lost productivity and other costs related to recruiting and training new workers. While there will always be a normal amount of turnover in any organization, it is important to determine the acceptable level of turnover and try to reduce excess turnover. 

It is also important to cast a broad net when recruiting, and to avoid limiting the applicant pool unnecessarily. For example, while you may desire applicants to have training in accounting or  quantitative analysis, these technical skills can be learned on the job or through continuing education. Some of the best auditors I know - those with excellent people skills - have degrees in humanities, yet most audit organizations would not have considered hiring them. 

The right candidate for your organization is not always the most intelligent or qualified applicant, but the one that will best fit your needs. For example, I once worked for an employer that liked to hire top students with graduate degrees from prestigious universities. However, the employer assigned new employees menial tasks and rigidly controlled their work. Because this was a public entity, the employer could not afford to pay high salaries. Not surprisingly, most new hires left after a year or two on the job. People with great educational pedigree have higher expectations for career progression and income than people with less lustrous backgrounds, and they have better opportunities available to them. The employer would have been better off hiring good students from the local state university instead. Such hires would have worked happily for six or seven years before moving on to other jobs, and so their ultimate value (ROI) to the employer would have been higher.

Implement a Formal Selection Process

Many of the qualities that we value in auditors are easy to discern in job interviews. For example, auditing requires good analytical and writing abilities, both of which can be tested through a scenario-based questions and a writing exam, respectively. A formal selection process is necessary to allow for comparability among applicants as well as to help you avoid common perceptual errors during interviews. Even "objective auditors" are not immune to these biases, and studies have consistently found them in many professions. One example is that a strong gender bias favoring men is present in orchestra auditions,  which is why most orchestras now conduct blind auditions. Another example is that medical school admission interviews have been shown to have zero predictive value on student performance in medical school.  So while the physician interviewers believe that they are able to discern promising students, the evidence suggests otherwise. A well-structured interview process will help you avoid hiring the wrong person because you bonded over baseball, found her attractive, or were reminded of yourself fifteen years ago.

Treat Applicants Kindly

I wish I did not have to write this section, as much of it strikes me as basic courtesy and common sense. However, I offer these suggestions for improvement in areas that I have found problematic in the recruiting processes of many organizations:

• Provide a good description of the position you are advertising. If you have to go through Human Resources, keep in mind that HR personnel do not always know what a performance auditing job entails, so you many consider writing the position description yourself. Long job and position descriptions only serve to confuse applicants who are not familiar with the profession.
• Simplify the application process. Complicated online application systems that require manual entry of dozens of fields will deter some people from applying.
• Tailor any supplemental screening questions to the position. For example, asking applicants for an audit director position about the purpose of a workpaper is silly.
• Treat applicants and candidates like customers. If they have a good experience with your hiring process, they will think better (and speak better) of your organization, whether they end up working for you or not.
• Acknowledge receiving an application as soon as you get it. Inform potential applicants about all the steps in the hiring process. Tell them when they can expect to expect to hear back from you.

Keep Employees Happy

Keeping employees happy is not that complicated. Even in these economic times when budget pressures have curtailed pay increases, managers retain a lot of power to improve the work environment.  

At a basic level, as long as employees feel that they are being treated respectfully and fairly, they will not be unhappy with their employer. Behavioral psychologist John Stacey Adams developed his Equity Theory to explain how people decide whether they are being rewarded fairly by comparing their salary to that of others. The "others" is usually their colleagues or people doing similar work in other organizations. The results of this comparison will usually either make them feel that they are fairly compensated or not. If the latter, they will either attempt to increase their pay or reduce their commitment to their job.

But employee pay is just one element of job satisfaction. Psychologist Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Fredrick Herzberg's Motivator-Hygiene theories provide some insights: If the pay is insufficient to meet an employee's requirements, the employee will look for work elsewhere. But once basic income needs are met, more pay will not have a long-term impact on job satisfaction or retention. Other factors such as achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, and advancement come into play-and most of these factors can be readily influenced by management.