Predictive Success Blog

With Rob Murden Shared Services Intern Predictive Success

The ultimate goal of successful business owners is to improve efficiencies and increase profits. Great people are at the core of great companies. Hiring the right people is essential in sustaining a thriving business. The impact of a mis-hire is significant; the cost of a mis-hire is 1x base salary (ADP 2013). If data-verified systems were used, and the right candidate was hired on day one; how much extra revenue would they have produced for your company?

Fernandez-Araoez, in his HBR article, “The Big Idea: 21st-Century Talent Spotting”, uses five categories to define a “high potential” candidate – motivation, curiosity, insight, engagement and determination.

Motivation– Business leaders need to align individual motivations and drives to their overall organizational vision. The ability to extract motivating drives and behaviours is crucial when starting the conversation. What motivates this candidate? What are their behavioural drives? What are their needs? How can we benchmark this candidate to the role itself? What is the match between the PRO (Professional Requirement Options) and their individual PI? – When we have data that answers these questions, we’re giving ourselves the opportunity to place the right people in the right roles at the right time while accounting for fits and gaps.

Curiosity– Curiosity comes in many forms. We want to hire people who are passionate about growth, development and learning regardless of position, title, experience or personality. Curious people ask the right questions and utilize their skills in a way maximizes growth and development. Once we stop learning and growing, we stop developing and our value-adding potential reduces. A lack of curiosity signals a lack of passion, interest or engagement and can stand out as a red flag during our recruitment process.

Engagement– We’ve taken a strong interest in analyzing what makes a “Happy Employee.” From our research, we know that 70% of employees are not engaged in the workplace. We want to find the remaining 30% who feel fascinated and engaged in their roles. Disengaged employees can have a domino effect. How many times have your colleagues with a sour attitude or mood influenced your day? We want to set our teams up for success by finding and retaining those far and few engaged employees. It’s no secret that when they right people are placed in suitable roles they will feel engaged. We need to set our employees up for success by providing them with roles that are stimulating, challenging when appropriate, and applicable to their behavioural drives.

Insight– High potential candidates can process new information and learn from trends at a more rapid rate. How many of your candidates have that “get it” factor? How many are quick to absorb new knowledge? Cognitive aptitude assessments, such as the Professional Learning Indicator (PLI), can speed up this process. We can now identify a candidate’s trainability and runway to new knowledge.

Determination– High potential candidates persevere through adversity. In stressful or challenging situations, companies need to be able to predict how a given candidate will react. Interestingly enough, many structured/unstructured interviews allow candidates to describe how they react in a difficult or tense situation and favour opinion over objectivity and workforce analytics. We know that evidence beats opinion and our tools can create valuable insights into an individual’s responses to external stimuli.

The above factors and our data-driven products create a valuable toolkit for designing and implementing a successful recruiting process. Smart organizations recognize that their people are their best asset. Better people reinforce a positive organizational culture and will enhance your organization’s value proposition. Take the time to develop a process that uses these factors to highlight the candidates with the most potential. You’ll notice an increase in the quality of your employees that will translate into notable business results.

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