A large public sector client recently asked me if I could design a training programme to help them avoid recruiting people who go off with stress.

What Was the Problem with This Request?

There are various reasons as to why individuals may fail to perform well in a job and one of those reasons concerns psychological risk e.g. an individual’s ability to cope with pressure.  We know that stress has an impact on our performance but we also know that stress is a state not a trait, which means that we will all experience stress reactions at some point in our working lives. It is impossible to recruit people who will never experience high or prolonged stress levels but there are steps that you can take within your selection process to filter out people who would not thrive in that role. So how do we recruit people who will be able to cope with the pressures of the job? The trick is to have a better understanding of the potential stress involved in various roles alongside a better understanding of individual stress factors and the coping strategies that potential candidates use.

Six Steps to Recruit Candidates Who Can Cope with Pressure

In order to recruit people who can cope with pressure it is important to ensure that your selection process takes account of job stressors at all stages.

1, Job Analysis

Use your job analysis to identify the essential stressors involved in carrying out the role and describe the need to cope with these stressors as a key competency for the role.

2, Attracting the right candidates

Provide clear job descriptions that emphasise the types of stressors found in the job perhaps with case studies/video. This will enable candidates to determine whether that level and type of stress is something that they feel that they can cope with.

3, Use Personality Instruments

Psychometric personality instruments can be helpful in providing information about candidate’s emotional responses. Use BPS recognised personality instruments to provide insights into candidates’ ability to cope with pressure and under what circumstances.

4, Use the Interview to Find Out How Candidates Cope with Pressure

Design interview questionnaires that give an insight into people’s stress thresholds, emotional resilience and coping strategies.

5, The importance of induction and training

Newly selected employees take time to get up to speed with the job and the early phase of employment constitutes a critically important part of successful integration into the workplace culture and development, as a fully functioning worker.  This can be a very stressful time and thought should be put into how best to manage this final stage of the recruitment process.  Managers need to be briefed on how best to support new staff whilst they get up to speed with the requirements of the job.

6, Ongoing organisational support

The organisation has a responsibility to ensure that workplace pressures are manageable. Make sure that the new employee’s Manager understands the pressures of the role that you have recruited to and that s/he is able to support the new job incumbent as they progress in the role.