Most companies make three common, yet major, mistakes in their hiring process

Assessing Cultural Fit

Most companies experience extreme difficulty in hiring the right people because of three common mistakes:

    *  They hire people for what they know and fire them for who they are                   

    *  They hire too quickly and fire too slowly

    *  They base their hiring decision on previous experience

These are all easily resolved with an appropriate assessment program, since it will show how the candidate will apply what they know.                                                                       

An assessment program measures work related traits that are inherent to all human beings as well as they are common to all positions in all companies. This allows decision makers to directly compare and contrast proper fit for the work or position set forth within the organization.

                                                                         

The major criteria:

1. Motivation:  What drives a person?  Some jobs require the person to be very self confident and competitively driven whereas other jobs require a person to be a team player.

2. Thinking:  How a person gathers information and goes through the decision making process.  Some jobs require a person to be thorough and methodical while other jobs require the person to be very time sensitive and deadline oriented.

3. Behavior: How a person does his or her job.  Some jobs require a person to work alone while others need people to work in a team environment.

4. Interaction:  How a person interacts with others.  Some jobs require a person to be proactive and decisive while other jobs need someone who is deferential and accommodating.

It comes down to this: Poor fit results in poor morale, decreased productivity, unsatisfied customers and costly employee turnover.

Preserve the culture

Lack of cultural fit is largely due to a misguided hiring process supported by ineffective execution. Even the best-intentioned organizations – those that focus on competencies and relevant behaviors, in addition to education and experience -- frequently don’t assess the issue of cultural fit accurately. Failure to do this minimizes the likelihood of arriving at a successful match.

Understand the position being filled

The seeds of the solution may be found in the roots of the problem. The hiring process should begin with a clear understanding of the position being filled. While this may seem painfully obvious, such an understanding is often only presumed. Consider the scientific perspective that an anthropologist might bring to the task of examining an employee’s role in an organization:

    * How does the person in this position perform their job, alone or in groups?

    * What supervisory style should the person use, authoritarian or inspirational?

    * What form of group interaction does the position have, as a leader or follower?

    * What authority does this position have? What responsibility?

    * What are the consequences of success and failure in this organization?

It’s important that the employer explicitly defines the answer to each of these questions before beginning the interview process; if you don’t know what you expect of a potential staff member, how can they?

Consider the cultural context

Thoughtful consideration to the cultural context of the position is essential to achieve a good fit. It may be easier to determine the requisite personal attributes of a successful candidate by enumerating those that would show evidence of a lack of fit. For example, do outspoken people not fit in? Unfortunately, the negative tends to attract more attention than the positive.

Strive for objectivity

Many attributes of fit reside in the obscure realm of personality and feelings. As such, it comes as no surprise that clarity about such issues may be clouded by the emotional state of the candidate. For example, someone who is unemployed and anxious to land a job may be less objective about his or her own fit than someone who is being recruited from a successful employment situation. Hence objectivity and the ability to discern subtle variations in the psychological landscape are critical elements of the evaluation process.

Assessment services can address these issues by measuring a candidate’s  motivation, traits, and values in a consistent and statistically valid way.