Best Practices for creating Match Criteria

This article covers 

• Tips for a Strong Match Criteria
  
• Common pitfalls with the Match Criteria Survey and how to avoid them
  

Match Criteria are the behavioral requirements that you and your team set for a Job or Opportunity profile. 

Tips for a strong Match Criteria

1. Three to Eight Contributors.

Plum recommends having a minimum of 3, and ideally close to 8 expert contributors complete the Match Criteria Survey for a Match Criteria. This allows you to:

• Leverage the wisdom of the crowd.
• Leverage a diverse array of inputs.
• Reduce bias from a single judgment.
• Ensure that the Talents you choose are related to the job and not based on the person’s own Talents.

2. Invite true experts and top performers to complete the Match Criteria Survey. The best experts to complete the survey are those that know the job or Opportunity profile very well, which could include managers, HR stakeholders, leadership team members, and existing top performers in a role. Ask the people who perform best, and, therefore who know what it takes to be a top performer, to define what a top performer looks like.

3. Ensure high completion. Expert contributors’ input is critical to this process, so it is worth the time to follow up on their progress, remind them, and sell the value of taking the Match Criteria Survey. 

4. Consider whether to leverage an existing Match Criteria or create a new one. If you already have an existing Match Criteria that defines the job or Opportunity well, the Match Criteria can be leveraged again for other similar jobs or Opportunities.

It can be tempting to use the same Match Criteria for group roles, such as different sales roles, and complete one Match Criteria Survey for all of them. However, it is worth developing separate Match Criteria if there are differences across business lines or geographies. Our research has found that optimal Match Criteria differ due to these factors, even if the profiles are similar. 

5. Review and discuss the Match Criteria amongst the group of Expert Contributors. Identify and discuss areas of convergence and divergence. This can often be achieved in a dedicated meeting.  

6. Update your Match Criteria. If success metrics or job duties change, your Match Criteria may as well. 

We recommend setting a cadence to update your Match Criteria and ensuring that it is always representative of how the job or Opportunity has evolved. The updating cadence depends on how quickly the role and organization is changing. Changes in number of employees, new locations, new markets, investment, revenue, and products often means that the Match Criteria need to be revisited. 

Common pitfalls with the Match Criteria Survey and how to avoid them

• Selecting socially approved behaviors, even if they are not required for the job or Opportunity. Instead, think about the specific job or Opportunity and what behaviors are necessary to perform well in it. 
• Selecting behaviors just because they are similar to what you do. Reflect on whether your own approach is influencing your responses.  
• Attempting to "clone" one individual top performer. This approach can lead to over-indexing on behaviors that aren’t important for the job or Opportunity yet are prominent for that individual.   
• Having top performers complete the Discovery Survey in attempt to find consistencies across their profiles. Instead, invite the top performers as expert contributors.