Improving talent identification

Many of the companies we are working with describe a recruitment assignment that is typified by a lack of quality short-listed candidates and recruitment consultants willing to cut corners to get a result. Common examples include inadequate candidate screening, cursory reference checking and a tendency to use the current talent shortage as an excuse to hide sloppy recruitment practices. Consider all this against the backdrop of high transaction costs and the argument for bringing recruitment in-house becomes increasingly attractive for many organisations. But is this option always the best solution to address this increasingly costly and challenging exercise?
 
We are finding that companies are increasingly turning to psychometric assessment to obtain more objective candidate data in a cost effective way. This provides some insurance against what is often a sizable recruitment cost, particularly for senior managers and specialist roles, and regardless of whether recruitment is done internally or externally—an expensive exercise when new hires don’t work out. Some search and selection specialist have caught on and are using psychometric assessment as a screening tool to improve the quality of candidate shortlists.
 
A well designed selection of psychometric tools can help identify potential candidate issues well before one makes the decision to hire. Recent advances in personality research means that we can more accurately understand how people are likely to respond in certain situations far more effectively than a behavioural interview and reference checking alone. In addition, the selection of various abilities measures provides information on how effective people are at problem solving, influencing and strategic thinking. These results combine to provide considerable insight into how well candidates are likely to work with others, manage teams and perform under pressure.
 
In December we completed a 12 month study with a listed Australian company to assess the critical individual traits that directly contribute to success in various roles. In this particular study we collected psychometric assessment results for almost 400 staff and candidates from CEO to Graduate level. The results from this study will be presented early in 2008 and clearly highlight the role that psychometric assessment can play in better understanding the key attributes that impact workplace performance. Already we are seeing preliminary results that challenge some existing myths relating to personality, leadership effectiveness and job-fit. Increasingly we have found that behavioural interviews and reference checking alone are least effective in identifying this data. It comes as little surprise that both internal and external recruiters suffer from observer bias and are equally prone to over and under-estimating these critical factors—often to the detriment of both the organisation and the individual candidate.