In order to do job analysis, i would conduct the following tasks:
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Collect information about the job: this can be through a variety of methods, such as finding standard job descriptions i.e. what are the roles and responsibilities of a server, by talking to subject matter experts e.g. asking a management consultancy about what are the different job requirements of someone in a managerial role in the food industry, and through data collection from interacting with existing employees, such as: via interviews, direct observation, questionnaires, checklists and job diaries.
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list the tasks required to do the job, and the competencies that someone in that role must have
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arrange teach task in terms of relative importance
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arrange the competencies according to relative importance and identify those that must exist at the time of entry into the job, and those that can be acquired via employee training.
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find the relationship between the tasks and the competencies, so that we can eliminate those tasks that aren’t critical to the role and those competencies that aren’t directly related to the job’s tasks
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identify those competencies that are critical to doing the job.
Appropriate methods for doing job analysis for each role:
General Manager: Interview and questionnaire. This is a high level role with complex duties that cannot be well defined. Fundamentally, the general manager will not have to deal with nitty gritty details but he should have a solid understanding of all of the general workings of a restaurant and be able to guide and manage all of the different sections of the restaurant such as the kitchen, the front staff etc. It is impossible to figure out the various dimensions of thise role simply through observation. Rather, doing an unstructured interview with the current general manager will reveal what his roles are. And then this information acn be further elaborated on via a questionnaire that asks what his roles are, how he spends his time, what are the most difficult aspects of this job etc.
Assistant Manager: Similar to the above, an interview and questionnaire should be done. Fundamentally, we have to figure out what tasks the GM delegates to the AM and what tasks he can do without the GM’s help and how he fits into the overall organizational structure. This can be understood via an interview and then we can further elucidate on this information via a questionnaire.
Head Chef: Interview. Since he is in charge of various people with various responsibilities that are all critical to the success of the restaurant and the deliciousness of the food, an interview will allow us to figure out what his roles are and what competencies are needed to manage the kitchen. Sous Chef: Interview. We have to understand what tasks he does and how they are different from the head chef. An interview will allow us to understand this. Line Cook: Interview. We have to understand what tasks he does and how they are different from the sous chef. An interview will allow us to understand this. Dishwasher: Observation. This is a low skilled role that doesn’t require any direct interaction with the employee.
Front of House Manager: Interview and questionnaire. Server, Lead: Observation. This is a simple job that doesn’t require direct interaction to understand. Server: Observation. This is a simple job that doesn’t require direct interaction to understand. Host: Observation. While this is an important role and restaurants require good hosts in order to gain the loyalty of customers, it is a simple job that doesn’t require much analysis.
Bar Manager: Interview and questionnaire. A bar is an important part of a restaurant and it’s important we understand the various dimensions of this role. We can do this via an unstructured interview with the bar manager, and then a questionnaire that directly asks about his roles and responsibilities. Cocktail Waitress: Observation. This is a simple role that should be thoroughly understood only via observation. Bar Back: Observation. A bar back should have a deep understanding of various drinks. But, it is not a difficult role to understand since the responsibilities are straightforward.
The future benefits of conducting a proper job analysis is that, if the restaurant grows in size and we need to go to a bigger location or a second branch, many of the new hires will simply be people in these roles, so we will understand exactly what is needed of the new hires and we can quickly move on to the hiring process instead of spending time on the analysis process. Furthermore, if any of the existing employees leave and we need to recruit replacements, we will understand the precise role of that employee and how he/she fits into the overall organizational structure, so the role can be quickly filled with an appropriate replacement. We can also avoid the possibility of a key person risk, where one person does so much or is so important to the organization that his loss will create huge setbacks for company operations. Our analysis will allow us to identify people like that, and then we can either divide up the tasks and get other people to also take up some of those tasks, or we can train more people in that role so that we have replacements if the key person quits etc.
For managerial jobs, we will focus mainly on the interviews. Professional and managerial jobs are more complicated to analyze and require longer interview, parts of which are structured and other parts unstructured. Then, there ts the problem of bias. Bias can exist both in the interviewer and the interviewee, and it important to identify and eliminate these biases. However, an interview can still be effective since it involves talking to the job holders who are in a good position to describe what they do, as well as the qualifications needed to perform their duties in a competent manner.
- When a recruiter first reaches out, it is via a phone call, so it is somewhat an unstructured interview where they try to learn about the candidate, so this can somewhat be considered an interest inventory i.e. does the interests of the candidate align with the company and the job? Then, they have structured interviews that are more geared towards the job itself. For programming roles, they will have coding interviews that can be considered tests of achievement. Finally, they have onsite formal interviews where a candidate must demonstrate their abilities – this can also be considered a test of achievement. The questions they ask are vetted and tested so they should meet the HR requirements to be considered valid and reliable. They don’t ask “brainteaser questions” (i.e. general aptitude tests) because their research show they aren’t useful. Their interviews attempt to use standardized rubrics that are consistent across tests and candidates. Overall, they are looking for people with 4 qualities: i) general cognitive ability i.e. intelligent people who can think on their feet and can come up with smart solutions to difficult problems ii) role related general i.e. demonstrations of achievement that show they are qualified for the role being applied for iii) leadership i.e. the ability to take on and assume responsibility for the work you produce, projects you are part of and teams that you may have to direct iv) Googley-ness: this is an x-factor type quality that shows whether candidates are the right fit for Google’s world renowned work environment. The candidate also gets an opportunity to learn about the company from the people they meet during the time of the onsite interviews
Finally, the hiring committee collates all of the information from these various sources. They don’t directly interact with the candidates and haven’t met them, in order to keep the process unbiased. Finally, a senior leader makes a final decision. This final layer provides an additional assurance of objectivity.
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The hiring committee looks for those people whose personal interests and skills match the job. In other words, they want candidates who are actually interested in the job (and not just the paycheck and the prestige etc) and have a self-driven interest to succeed and are motivated by their own passions.
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The jobs have certain minimum qualifications, and other preferred qualifications. So, there are certain minimum skills and competencies that are non-negotiable and candidates must have in order to be a googler.
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They don’t require degrees from specific universities or a degree at all in some case. In other words, they are looking for candidates who can actually do the job rather than those who have flashy backgrounds. They also mention that GPA isn’t the focus, and only matters when you are a recent graduate.
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After application submission, their recruiters try to match whether the candidates past experience will match the roles that are being recruited for.
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They want a diverse set of employees with wide backgrounds in order to bring fresh perspectives into their work environment.
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The recruiters focus on the candidate rather than the application i.e. so they are people oriented.
Some problems with their are as follows:
- it seems the process is very tedious and demanding. 4 sets of interviews, all asking similar questions, just to vet the candidate is a difficult process. Human beings have a tendency to get some things wrong and being presented in front of interviewers increases the chance to make mistakes. By repeating the process so many times, it is entirely possible that they are undervaluing candidates who are otherwise great engineers and great programmers, but don’t do well under stressful social situations. In computer culture, the trope of “lone wolf hacker” is very common – there are some godly programmers out there who can literally do magic with their keyboards. Would such a person be able to succeed in a Google interview? From what can be understood from watching the video, it is very doubtful. It seems that they care more about getting people who are good at social situations rather than people who are just pure computer wizards. But if they really care about diversity and different perspectives, perhaps some of these people should have been included as well. In every facet of its business, one would be hard pressed to say that Google is doing as well as it could be. The younger generation apparently uses Instagram and TikTok for searching instead of google (Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/nearly-half-genz-use-tiktok-instagram-over-google-search-2022-7). Google Plus (its competitor to Facebook) was phased out and they no longer have a significant presence in the social media space. In fact, its core product – search – is considered much worse than it used to be. According to the Atlantic “Google Search might be worse now because, like much of the internet, it has matured and has been ruthlessly commercialized. “ (Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/06/google-search-algorithm-internet/661325/). A simple use of the product can confirm this. There was a time when results were relevant and interesting. Now, everything is highly commercialized. If I am searching for Humayun Ahmed, maybe I want to know about his life, his ideals, his history etc. But the first thing that will come up is a stream of ads about where to buy his books. This inane commercialization has removed the human element from the product and made it worse. Clearly Google is not doing as well as it could be and this could possibly be improved by improving their hiring process.
The interview is being administered as a one-on-one, face-to-face interview. This is a good approach to really getting to know a candidate and also reduces the possibility of the client being overwhelmed if they have to face an entire committee of interviewers. One-on-one interviews help establish rapport and really allows the interviewer to get to know the candidate.
The interview is mostly structured, since it seems that the interview knows precisely what questions to ask and what touch-points to go over that are relevant to the job although the delivery is slightly conversational because the dynamic between the two is kept friendly and it seems the interviewer modifies the questions slightly based on what the interviewee says.
There is a mix of situational questions i.e. what would she do if there is a budget crisis? And some behavioural questions i.e. give an example of a time where you had to accept responsibility.
Problems And Potential Solutions
The interviewer was giving too much info, so the candidate can Taylor their answers according to what the interviewer expects. E.g. he didn’t have to mention that the job requires a lot of consultation with other departments, because of-course at that point the candidate will say that they are good at consultation. When asking about planning, he asks a series of questions and doesn’t really give the candidate a chance to answer. Furthermore, the candidate doesn’t really elucidate on her response and just gives a very terse “yes” and that is somehow sufficient for the interviewer. He should have asked a question, stopped, waited for the candidate to answer, and then based on that answer try and probe the candidate for more information. In no way, shape, or form is a simple “yes” sufficient to know the candidates skills and competencies for that position. Also, the questions are very “loaded” i.e. asking “are you good keeping to time scales” is not useful, because everyone will answer “yes”. If instead, he asked, “tell me about your approach to time management” or “what do you do during a crunch period when there is too little time and deadlines are fast approaching?” to understand what the candidate would do. In other words, the interview could be improved by making it more situational.
Similarly, when asking about cost controlling, he should have asked “what is your approach towards controlling costs in your department?” instead of just asking whether she is good at it or not. Of-course she will reply that she is. Furthermore, the interview should have asked more opened ended questions instead of just yes/no questions. The whole point of an interview is to get an opportunity to really know the candidate. Asking yes/no questions and simply being satisfied with the answers instead of probing further is simply a waste of a good interview. But, what we need is more detail with regard to whether or not she has well defined strategies to keep costs down and an overall commitment towards keeping costs low for the company, and the only way to know this is to let her give an elaborate response that we can further analyze. Similarly, the situational question about what she would do if there is a budget problem already had the answer embedded in the question. I.e. she should come up with the answer herself i.e. give warnings to upper management, but the question already contained this answer. Similarly, when asked the behavioural question about what she did when she previously faced a budget problem, when she was unable to answer, the interview should have just accepted this. By pushing her, it is entirely possible that she would come up with a fabricated answer on the spot just to have something to say, and the interviewer was callous to simply just accept the answer instead of questioning her further to get more details.
Furthermore, when asked whether she could have given an example of an incident where she accepted responsibility, this is a fairly critical question that could give good insight into whether she would actually make a good manager. She wriggled out of having to answer the question – she didn’t give an example of a specific incident and instead just said “oh yes, of course as a manager i have to accept responsibility”. The interviewer shouldn’t have been satisfied. He should have pressed further “ok that’s great, but now please tell me a specific case where YOU took responsibility”. If she has previous managerial experience, it is a given that she would have faced such situations in the past. Either she doesn’t want to look bad by showing what mistakes she previously made, or she actually doesn’t have much managerial experience in the first place. Either way, it is the job of the interviewer to get to the bottom of this so that we can determine whether she is actually a right fit for the job.