Blog Post
The Brilliant Disaster: How Do You Avoid Hiring the Wrong Leader? [Part Two}
2/20/2020
The Process
Job analysis
The job in question is evaluated with that job’s immediate boss. We identify the job’s critical success factors and understand who succeeds and who fails in this role.
Interview
The candidate spends two to three hours in a structured interview with a consulting psychologist.
Computerized testing: Cognitive abilities
The candidate is administered a battery of tests, tailored for the job in question. Tests used assess numeracy, verbal skills, critical thinking abilities, and mental alertness. Norms used by our expert systems are specific to the job class.
Computerized testing: Personality and vocational inventories
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The cost of training one technician averages $70,000 and averages $200,000 for an air traffic controller.
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The other portion of the tailored assessment battery generates insights into goodness-of-fit issues such as thinking style, motivators, emotional maturity, work style, interpersonal orientation, and influence style. Norms used by our expert system are specific to the job class.
The Information You’ll Have About The Candidate
Career outlook: evaluation of career history, personal mission, and job motivators and de-motivators.
Cognitive abilities: in-depth description of critical analytic skills, reasoning abilities, verbal and numeric skills, and mental quickness.
Use of cognitive abilities: receptivity to ideas, problem-solving aptitude, and practicality/creativity of thought process.
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“We’ve found your assessment to be extremely reliable in determining critical competencies. Your expert system is a tremendous tool for determining the strengths and weaknesses of our applicants. We wouldn’t make a hiring decision without it.”
– Vice President of Human Resources Financial services corporation
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“When staffing key positions, we feel it is absolutely essential – for the best results for our company and the highest probability of success for the new hire – to use all available information, including your expert system (ASSESS), which is an in-depth psychological evaluation system. This is also a tool that’s been invaluable as a developmental instrument to help ensure the availability of qualified personnel to meet our future staffing needs.”
– Chief Executive Officer National retail organization
Work style: energy, pace, approach to planning and thinking, need for recognition, need for organizational freedom, attention to detail, orientation to action, work ethic and conscientiousness.
Emotional style: optimism, restraint over feelings, objectivity about feedback, handling stress, management of strong emotions, resilience and composure.
Interpersonal factors: sociability, assertiveness, first and lasting impressions, perceptiveness, competitiveness, agreeableness, acceptance of diversity, and service orientation.
Management and leadership style: desire to persuade and influence, approach to persuasion and influence, approach to managing relationships and conflict, communication style, and adverse factors that could impact relationships.
And more: a graphic profile of 21 personality traits plus selected cognitive ability measures; topics for special consideration and their implications; management advice; specific follow-up interview probes to pose to the candidate and another set of questions to ask of references; and the ability to reanalyze the same data set and produce an in-depth developmental report.
Hire by design. Improve the odds.
Rule of thumb: There are no “bad” or “good” employees. But, there are people who end up in the wrong job, which does a disservice to everyone. Consequently, the hiring process is better viewed as a compatibility study than a thumbs up or thumbs down process