…to see behind the masks many of your candidates are wearing
Considering your recruitment:
- Have you ever recruited someone who turned out to be better than you expected?
- Have you ever recruited someone who turned out to be worse than you expected?
- What was the difference between the two processes?
Most organisations we talk to say there is no difference. It’s the luck of the draw. Sometimes they get it right and other times not.
Why might that be?
- 53% of applicants lie on their resumes. a
- 63% of interviewers decide about a candidate within 5 minutes (and spend the rest of the interview justifying the decision). b
- 58% of interviews don’t adequately (if at all) address candidates’ soft skills (i.e. how well they will fit in). c
- 18% of interviewers don’t know the best questions to ask. d
- Most candidates admit to ‘putting on a performance’ at interview. e
- As a result, 80% of employee turnover is caused by poor hiring decisions. f
Why does it happen?
- Anyone can omit details from/ lie on their CVs (and most checks don’t pick it up).
- Most candidates can put on a good performance for a 45-minute interview.
- Less experienced interviewers (and sometimes experienced ones) can be caught out.
- Inexperienced interviewers will often struggle to ask meaningful questions.
- Technical skills and experience are relatively easy to evaluate. Soft skills not so much.
Why does it matter?
Because every time an organisation hires someone that isn’t the best fit for the role:
- If they leave (or are fired), it will cost around 50% of their annual costs to replace them. Even for minimum wage roles this can cost up to £10,000.
- If they stay, they will probably underperform, reducing the ROI on the investment the employer makes in employing them.
Poor hiring is expensive – but the more (and better) information an organisation has, the more likely it is to hire well.
Why does it keep happening at an organisation level?
- Few organisations measure the cost of getting it wrong.
- Managers/organisations accept too easily that average/poor employees are a fact of life for them.
- Accepting underperformance means not having to admit making a wrong decision.
- Many organisations don’t understand what makes their top performers so good. As a result, they have limited ability to select new people who will also be top performers.
But we use assessments – why aren’t they helping?
A lot of recruitment assessment tools:
- Measure the wrong things. If you measure the wrong things, you get the wrong answers. If you base your recruitment decisions on the wrong answers, you’ll recruit the wrong people.
- Are not able to identify the key criteria and ensure future recruits have them.
- Are too complex for the role and cannot be varied to fit simpler roles.
- Are not used for more junior roles because they are too expensive, even though the bulk of employee spend is there.
- Are not validated to predict a candidate’s ability to do the role (but are sold to do it anyway).
So what can we do?
If you use recruitment assessments but you’re still having recruitment problems, perhaps it’s time to review what you use.
- If your current assessments no longer provide the information you need, you’re using the wrong assessments.
- However much you’ve invested in accreditation, training and systems, if you’re using the wrong assessments, there’s an underlying cost that will go on and on.
The assessment world has changed. If you haven’t reviewed it for a number of years, you could be pleasantly surprised.
Don’t let a lack of information sabotage your recruitment. Find the right cognitive assessment tools, get the right information, recruit the right people.
Well-informed Managers make better people decisions.
a Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) May, 2015
b British Psychological Society, Research Digest, May 2015
c Your Prime Recruitment
d LinkedIn Talent Blog, Jan 2018
e Remember your last interview?!!
f Harvard Business Review, 2014
