Employee Selection

If a vacancy opens up a position in your company, how should you select which employee gets promoted? Even assuming you have the sole power to make hiring, firing, and promotion decisions, it may behoove you to consult your managers and associates before making a move. One extremely comprehensive form of employee assessment is known as the 360 degree feedback test.

The way a 360 degree assessment works is that the candidate in question gets evaluated by a number of people, including his direct superior, his associates, and even his customers. Since 360 degree feedback is costly and comprehensive, you may only want to use it when it comes to important, high-level hiring positions.

Selecting an Employee to Promote

That being conceded, why shouldn't you just use manager-direct feedback? The truth is that even the most objective managers have built-in biases. They may only see the perspective employee through a certain prism. If you base your evaluation on that person's sole judgment, you could miscalculate greatly, particularly if the manager has strong personal feelings about the applicant.

360 degree feedback automatically eliminates these biases by "rounding out" the noise. This makes intuitive statistical sense, yet surprisingly few recruiters employ multiple angle feedback. Regardless of how you make your final hiring decision, it's important to attend to the candidates who get passed over. You should make it clear to them why there were passed over, and give them pointers to help them succeed in the future.