The purpose of this project
was to create competency-based job profiles for the positions advertised on the
Workopolis job board. It was the wish of Workopolis to have a tool where
potential job applicants would be assessed immediately for positions of
which they were applying and LSM Consulting was to provide the
behavioural science component for this project.
It was the goal of the LSM
team to work toward an on-line self assessment format. The content
needed to be sufficiently clear and straightforward for all applicants
which were to span a variety of jobs and educational backgrounds--12 job
categories with 25 to 250 different job titles within each category. The
sheer volume of material within itself presented quite a challenge in
producing the competency questions as we were required to be very
concise because of the limitations to the tolerance level an applicant
would have in answering an on-line 'questionnaire'.
The LSM project team was assembled based on their knowledge of competencies as well as their knowledge/access to one
or more of the job categories. Their activities were monitored and
coordinated via an administrative team member and regular e-mail tools.
Next, the job categories were broken down and prioritized and the
various team members were assigned a category. Content research for each job listed on the
Workopolis site was done by reviewing traditional job profiles from employers, resumes from candidates, university/college program/course material,
reviewing research databases and simply by meeting with persons
currently holding that particular position. Draft profiles were created
with a scope statement, business, relational and technical competencies. The business and relational competency dictionaries
were already in existence and competencies were pulled from these dictionaries as appropriate. A technical competency
'dictionare' was built for each new job category group. Once the draft profiles and the technical competency dictionary were created, a small group of job incumbents (four
to ten, depending upon number of jobs) was assembled to review and comment upon each profile. They assisted in setting the correct proficiency level for each competency for each profile.
Their revisions were incorporated and a final version created. The competency dictionaries and job profiles were entered to the Workopolis job board via proprietary software.
The outcome of this project, Workopolis' Competency Suite, is the only competency driven job board.
