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| Search-Consult Magazine, Issue 19, June 2004 |
It's a familiar scenario: you think you made a great hire. The guy's resume is fantastic, he did great things at his last position, and nobody's been able to dig up any dirt on him. The process took months but it was worth it; his experience is a perfect match.
But before you pat yourself on the back, flip a coin. Why? Because there's a 50/50 chance your fabulous new hire is going to leave or be asked to leave -- within a year.
Sound far-fetched? Fifty percent of newly hired executives either quit or are fired within the first 12 months, according to a recent survey conducted by the Corporate Leadership Council, Washington, D.C. |
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For today's hiring decision-makers -- whether you are a hiring manager or human resources professional -- the scenario is a painful one. Replacing a top executive is a pain most businesses just cannot afford, especially now when budgets are being squeezed more tightly and profit targets are more demanding than ever before. Early attrition is a critical but often undercalculated component of the total cost of replacing an employee -- as high as 150% of an executive's salary, according to research by the consulting firm Hay Group, Philadelphia.
Time-honored hiring techniques are simply not enough to ensure successful hires in today's pressured market. But implementing an innovative technique such as personality assessment can help provide the solution, by heightening the accuracy of the evaluation process and diminishing the risk of the unknown. Used alone or in combination with other proven approaches, the more scientific technique of personality assessment can radically eliminate the guesswork that plagues the hiring approach.
Personality assessment is standardized testing that identifies an individual's inner traits and motivation to determine if a person will succeed in a job, regardless of previous experience.
The seeds of this type of pre-employment evaluation were planted in the early 20th century, when the business world became interested in using knowledge of the human psyche to increase workplace productivity. So-called projective techniques -- where someone is presented with a situation on which to project his feelings and the way he sees life -- were translated into "pen-and-paper" inventories. Scoring became objective. Standardized personality assessment, as we know it today, evolved and was refined over decades of growing enthusiasm for this approach to improving individual performance and company productivity and profit. Now, hiring decision-makers are discovering that the attitude and aptitude of a job candidate may be just as important as experience -- if not more so, according to Bill Bliss, president, Bliss Associates, Inc., Wayne, N.J., whose firm helps companies improve the performance of their senior executives.
With more than twenty years experience in the business world, and a keen observer of emerging trends, Bliss says that for a company's goals and strategies to become reality -- and for the company to become successful -- an employee's key personality traits and commitment must be engaged. "Which leads us to the importance of finding out what motivates a person," he says. "And to discover what motivates a person, we must understand the personality of the individual."
A recent Business Week article about hiring practices today points out that the traditional face-to-face hiring interview is a fairly weak predictor of performance, with only a 7% accuracy rate in predicting performance. Personality assessment, however, has a 44% success rate -- nearly seven times more successful than the most typical hiring technique. When used together with the behavioral-based interview, these tools enhance each other for an even greater success rate. Unquestionably, professionals with hiring responsibility owe it to themselves and their companies to take greater control of the hiring process by looking into these new techniques.
The Princeton, N.J.-based Caliper test is one I have used as part of my search process. Bill Bliss also likes it, in part because responses cannot be faked (something personality testing as a field must be careful of). The Caliper profile is a "richer tool" than many others today, Bliss notes, because it measures more than 20 different traits, requires the test-taker to choose between four descriptors, and includes an aptitude component. "It's better than offering a 'yes' or 'no' option or a scale of one to seven, as other tests do," he says.
The testing also meets equal employment opportunity criteria, as any pre-employment test must: that the test is valid; that it is fair; and that it is job-related.
As the business environment gets tougher and tougher, organizations need to identify top talent that can change and grow as their positions do. Personality assessment can uncover the inner workings of a candidate to determine if they will be successful in a given job. It is also a valuable tool for predicting if a person will respond well to the demands and stresses of a particular company culture -- a fascinating and a cost-effective component of a comprehensive executive search.
Why "flip a coin" over something as crucial as a new hire, when by using a tool such as personality assessment you can diminish the risk and ensure the retention of a new executive's long-term growth and commitment with your company?
In other words, you can win, heads or tails.
Your toss! |
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