Determine Competencies
When it comes to roles in Operational Excellence (OPEX), Continuous Improvement (CI), and Quality, resumes and interviews can only reveal so much about a candidate’s true potential. The very nature of these disciplines requires professionals to thrive in ambiguous situations, quickly analyze complex problems, and implement creative solutions.
This has led forward-thinking companies to explore innovative hiring techniques specifically tailored to assess the essential competencies for OPEX, CI, and Quality roles. Moving beyond the traditional hiring funnel, these approaches aim to provide a more authentic glimpse into how candidates approach challenges and drive transformation.
Case Studies
A growing trend is the use of operational case studies and simulations in the interview process. Rather than simply asking candidates how they would respond to hypothetical scenarios, they are immersed in real-world business challenges pulled from the company’s operations.
This could involve reviewing process maps and data to identify waste and inefficiencies. Or they may be tasked with analyzing a customer complaint, diagnosing root causes, and proposing preventative measures. Some organizations even put candidates through team-based simulations to evaluate their ability to build consensus and influence cross-functional stakeholders.
Skills Assessment
The core premise is to provide an experience mirroring the types of situations OPEX, CI, and Quality professionals face daily. This allows companies to gain powerful insights into key attributes like structured problem-solving abilities, comfort with analytics and data visualization, business acumen, and communication skills.
Another creative technique seeing increased adoption is the use of work samples and skill assessments earlier in the hiring process. Rather than waiting until the final stages, companies are challenging candidates to actually demonstrate their expertise through hands-on skills tests.
Process Simulations
For OPEX roles, this could involve mapping out an existing process and identifying opportunities to streamline hand-offs and reduce waste. CI candidates may be asked to develop an A3 report for a hypothetical problem scenario. Those pursuing quality roles may need to draft CAPA plans or analyze test data to troubleshoot issues.
The simulation procedure is not just about the end deliverable, but also observing how candidates approach their work. Do they ask clarifying questions and gather relevant information? What lean/six sigma tools and frameworks do they apply? How do they prioritize and structure their approach?
Beyond these pragmatic assessments/simulations, companies should still thoroughly evaluate soft skills like intellectual curiosity, flexibility, emotional intelligence, and change leadership capabilities. After all, success in OPEX, CI and quality hinges on rallying teams around a shared vision and nurturing an organizational culture of continuous improvement.
Leveraging Technology to Assess Candidates
Some leading organizations are also leveraging technology and data science in their hiring processes. By analyzing traits and experiences that have predicted high performance in previous hires, they can build custom algorithms to help identify top candidates from initial resume screening through final interviews.
At the end of the day, hiring elite OPEX, CI and Quality talent is both an art and a science. By tapping into immersive assessments, work samples, and innovative screening techniques, companies can gain unparalleled visibility into how candidates will perform on the job. This will empower more informed hiring decisions and accelerate the identification of game-changing operational excellence professionals.
The war for OPEX, CI and Quality talent is sure to intensify in the coming years. Organizations able to market compelling opportunities, streamline hiring, and tap into new talent pools will gain a formidable competitive advantage. In this quest for operational excellence superstars, recruiters need to get creative and companies need to double down on their employee value propositions.
