A high performer can deliver 400% more productivity than the average performer, according to McKinsey & Company. Your selection process is essential to your business success.
Despite this, most hiring managers use hiring processes and tools that are woefully biased and inaccurate for making crucial hiring decisions. The success of any given company starts with the people who work there.
Most organizations continue to use the traditional apprach to selection:
- Develop a posting based on the hiring manager’s education and experience requirements
- Advertise broadly
- HR screens applicants to the given criteria and presents the hiring manager with the top 10-15 candidates who meet the criteria
- Interview 3-5 people
- Make an offer to the best interviewee
The success rate of this process is about 50%, and few than one in five are great hires. Read our post Ouch, 50% Of New Hires Fail! 6 Ugly Numbers Revealing Recruiting’s Dirty Little Secret for additional stats. Please consider:
- How does your choice stack up against high performer in the role?
- Do your recent hires fit the mold?
- Did you just hire the best of the final group?
- Was there a candidate that was screened out who may have been a better hire?
- Did you assess if the candidate is a good fit — for you? For them?
- What other qualities did you assess when hiring?
Hiring experts, Deb LaMere, Ceridian and Alida Moose, The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, offer 10 Qualities All Great Hires Share. It sets out a set of behavioral traits that would be excellent to have in all employees. The challenge is in measuring these characteristics.
Scott Page of the University of Michigan in his article Why hiring the ‘best’ people produces the least creative results, argues that ranking people by common criteria produces homogeneity. Moreover, when biases creep in, it results in people who look like those making the decisions. The fallacy of meritocracy persists. Corporations, non-profits, governments, universities and even preschools test, score and hire the ‘best.’ This all but guarantees not creating the best team.
So, what’s the Problem?
We all have a unique talent stack consisting of our knowledge, skills, accomplishments and behavioral traits. Traditional selection fails to consider the candidate's full talent stack. It is narrowly focused on education, experience, and successes directly related to filling the given role.
Today, we need to look at the full talent stack of each candidate. It is highly unlikely that the job in three years will look the same as what you hire the person to do. We are seeking high performers. High performers share a common set of behavioral traits. Consider if you would be more successful if you used a validated benchmark of high performers across the industry to assess a candidate rather than picking one of the final three who made it through your selection process. You may be picking the best of a bad lot! Would it be helpful if you had a predictor of performance? We can predict the performance of each candidate and tell you if:
- Performance Expected to Be Exemplary (90-95% probability of “Exceeding” or “Meeting” expectations) — there is a 70-75% probability that individuals scoring in this range will be rated as “Exceeding” expectations and a 20% probability they will simply “Meet” expectations. There is only a 5-10% probability they will “Fail” to meet expectations in the role.
- Performance Consistently Exceeds Expectations (80-85% probability of “Exceeding” or “Meeting” expectations) — there is a 65% probability that individuals scoring in this range will be rated as “Exceeding” expectations and a 15-20% probability they will consistently “Meet” expectations. A 15-20% probability that they will “Fail” to meet the expectations in the role.
- Performance Typically Exceeds Expectations (75-80% probability of “Meeting” or “Exceeding” expectations) — there is a 55% probability that individuals scoring in this range will be rated as consistently “Exceeding” expectations and a 20-25% probability you will “Meet” expectations. A 20-25% probability that they will “Fail” to meet the expectations in the role.
Our prediction scale also presents the negative side too. Our analytics provide these predictions with a reliability of 85%, as validated by the American Psychological Association.
How many of your hires exceed expectations? For most organizations, it is below 20%. What would your organization look like if more than half your team exceeded expectations?
We are committed to helping your hiring managers identify and hire best-fit candidates for critical positions without the guesswork.
