Think of the movie "The Blind Side".  The fascinating turnaround story of Michael Oher's triumph over a traumatic childhood and a homeless condition to become the first round draft pick in the NFL, highlighted the power of a caring woman and her family.  What did she do that you can too?  She tapped into his inherent trait of protection to place him, translate for him and motivate him.  
To achieve an evolution in fit, separate:
1.    What is truly needed
2.    What is required in traits and skills
3.    What can be learned (and taught)

As published in the Mar/Apr 2010 edition of HR Professional on page 19.

Historically, the challenge to hire the best person has been more of art than science, and with the inherent criticality, can be wrought with stress.  Making the best decision can be easier and concrete with some simple analytical tools adapted from process engineering. 

In the rebuilding of Marshall University’s football team, Coach Jack Lengyel recruited a kicker from the soccer team, later securing the game winning point.  Required talents, such as kicking, clearly separated from trainable skills and knowledge, such as the rules of football, provide a new clarity, accelerating better recruiting and selection decisions.  The talent of kicking weighs heavier in the decision than experience in the game of football.

Determine the Purpose

A valuable, groundbreaking decision requires clarity for the job function.   What are the major requirements for successful performance in the role?  In broad but explicit terms, determine the major functions of the role.  Scourge it for specifics – do you need someone who can kick a football, or do you need someone who can kick?  In a call center environment, successful performance of an agent includes providing accurate, helpful and speedy responses to customer inquiries, as opposed to simply answering the phone and answering questions. 

Of course, this requires some degree of role clarity, which may range from narrow and specific for front line staff to broad and general for higher level directors and managers.  Try to capture how future performance will be evaluated, with whatever criteria are currently known. 

Cultural elements and future team dynamics may also come into consideration.  An environment where decisions are made after passionate debate will require different skills than one where decisions are the result of detached analysis. 

Everyone is Unique

Where many people have had the role in the past or where many share the same title, what are the reasons why some are excellent where others may not be?  For the task of searching and providing the answer to customer’s questions, differences from one agent to the next can be due to individual determination, resourcefulness, and an aim to serve the customer.     

Filter Traits, Talents and Trainables

Where are inherent strengths and motivations the only way to create quality?  With regards to answer provision, the manager’s only insight into the agent performance is auditing and complaints: expensive, unreliable, and too late.  Without certain inherent traits, an agent could give up, and send the customer away or provide an incorrect answer, unknown to the manager, but frustrating to the customer.  This is where inherent traits become critical. 

Contrarily, being available to answer the phone requires timeliness in adhering to scheduled break and shift times.  This accuracy can be easily measured and managed, rendering timeliness a trivial trait.  Increase awareness of the criticality and management of schedule adherence through appropriate training. 

Not everything can be learned.  Despite extensive and repetitive training to handle irate customers, no change in performance seemed to result.  Some agents just seemed to have a knack for the exact thing to say.  This is where talent is required. When emotion runs high, training is forgotten, rendering training ineffective by design.  Where experience dictates, where training doesn’t help, required talents are revealed.

Focused Questions

Take behavioral based interviewing to the next level with a focus placed on determining the existence and extent of the required traits and talents.  Beyond assessing for gut reactions, applicable transferable experience and general positive attitude, interviewers can be armed with questions to root out specific traits as demonstrated through experiences.

Gap Identification

Scoring each candidate against each item on the list will allow for a simple calculation to reveal the best matched candidate.  Don’t like the answer?  Maybe there are subliminal criteria that need to be pulled into the open.  When the final candidate is chosen, a heads up to the areas for development is already determined to facilitate immediate coaching and focused evaluation.

Real Benefits

In this call center, attrition was reduced by 50%.  Further, as systems and requirements change, the checklist is modified.  Was this process responsible for the simultaneous increases in service performance and resulting industry awards?  Now that can be debated, but in the meantime can be leveraged by everyone.