Take The Guesswork Out Of Hiring

In my work as a HR Consultant working with a range of business clients, I find that a critical factor impacting both the ability and the pace of business growth is the extent to which the business can get and keep enough of the right people. However, when it comes to recruiting the right talent, many businesses are still relying on traditional interviewing techniques alone to make their hiring decisions. According to a recent HBR article, 80% of employee turnover is the result of bad hiring decisions – that’s an extraordinary statistic given the financial cost of selecting the wrong person, not to mention the negative impact on business productivity and team morale.

 

Relying on interviews alone when selecting staff is flawed for a number of reasons. Here’s just a few examples of what I’ve seen:

  • The interviewer suffers “the halo effect” where they’re overly impressed by one or more personal characteristics and therefore assume that everything else must be perfect
  • Depending on their personality, sometimes interviewers are looking for a reason to reject a candidate. I’ve seen negative responses given twice the weighting of positive ones, and candidates rejected after a single error, despite multiple positive responses;
  • I’ve experienced interviewers fall into the “recency trap”, where as a result of a few bad interviews in a row, the next person who performs satisfactorily has been inaccurately rated as outstanding. The reverse is also true.
  • Often candidates who “are just like me” (the interviewer) are automatically given higher ratings even though the job may not require someone “just like them”. 

There is a better way, a way that takes the guesswork out of hiring and introduces science to the process.

For a number of years now, I’ve been recommending to my clients to use assessment as part of their recruitment process. A word of caution though – not all assessment tools are created equally. For example, arguably one of the best known tools is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) developed in the 1940s. However, it’s reliability – getting consistent results over time – has been called into question by a number of research studies. Tools like MBTI demand that people fall into predetermined types, and that can be misleading as we know that most individuals actually vary in their approaches and reactions and can demonstrate a broad range of personality traits.

Norgay HR recommend the Harrison Assessment tool. Harrison uses predictive analysis to align candidates’ qualifications, wants, needs, passions and goals to the requirements of a business and to specific jobs. That translates to the business knowing how well the candidate will suit their work environment, how well they will work with their manager, and how to motivate, encourage and and retain new (and existing) staff. The evidence shows that having this insight increases hiring success rates, and employee retention.

If you’d like to learn more about how the Harrison tool can help you take the guesswork out of hiring contact us at [email protected]