As a company, it is important to improve your good hire percentage. Companies must invest to achieve certain results. For example, a construction company would never use a building material that has proven to be structurally sound only 40% of the time. A pest management firm would never choose a pesticide that kills its target pest only 20% of the time. No company would lease a copier that produces clear copies only 30% of the time. Choosing the right people to join your workforce is an important decision and should not be taken lightly. Companies make the mistake of making investments in the people they hire by using a process that is only marginally more effective than simply choosing people at random.
There have been dozens of academic studies that demonstrate unstructured interviews have very low validity when it comes to selecting the right employees. Despite these results, it is still the number one method organizations use to choose between candidates. So how can companies improve their hiring process?
First, they can convert to a more structured interview process. Those same studies have demonstrated that using structured, predetermined questions specifically targeted at the critical knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to be successful in the vacant job will increase the validity of the selection.
Second, they can add a benchmarked assessment to the selection process. A behavioral or personality assessment like DISC can help avoid poor hiring choices. Adding additional benchmarked assessments such as a cognitive abilities assessment and/or a motivating forces assessment will increase the validity of the selection process even more.
Without a structured interview process supplemented by valid assessments, you’re likely to be just as well off skipping the interview process and selecting your new employee randomly from a stack of resumes from candidates who have at least the minimum qualifications on paper.
You cannot expect change without investing in improvements to your company. If you want to keep those A players then invest in their knowledge, training and compensate them well. You want to treat them so well that they want to turn down or not even pick up the phone when those recruiters call. Over time, your company will build a strong reputation and recruiters will not try stealing your best employees.
To quote Golf Channel Instructor Martin Hall, “if you keep doing what you’re doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’re getting.”
Contact the Davidson Group to improve your percentage of good hires.
