Perfect People? Not When It Comes to Employee Selection

We all know that employees are one of the most vital parts of a successful business. We all want to hire great people, but how do we look for someone who is the best fit for the organization? This week, Greg Smith shares how you can use hiring and selection assessments to find the best candidates for your job openings and help your business thrive.

Perfect People? Not When It Comes to Employee Selection

by Greg “Maui” Smith

When it comes to employee selection, there are many of us in the human performance game who lose sight of our chief goal: staff our organizations with qualified individuals who will deliver “above average performance.” If we will only accept superstars, we’re in for a long wait. Everyone has strengths that work for them and performance blockers that interfere with the application of those strengths. Selection assessments measure both. They provide you with a hiring recommendation that provides real answers plus performance probability scoring. If you can avoid short-term hires, you are already way ahead of the game. Quality employee selection assessments calculate both the degree of applicant strengths and the degree of their blockers. They should also determine how much those blockers will interfere with their strengths. Based upon that ratio, they will provide you with the performance answers you are looking for, while not requiring you to decipher pages of disconnected data points. It’s important for us to remember that human performance is not a single measure. It’s based upon how an individual uses their qualifications and credentials to fuel informed choices. Choices that target desired results while also operating within the rules of the organization. Lastly, these individuals must be able to communicate those choices to other people (customers, co-workers and managers) in an effective manner. We’ve learned over decades of research that strong candidates consistently display above average critical thinking decisions, while simultaneously using their internal motivators to filter that decision-making. This is critical when pursuing solutions that are informed by experience. It tells them not only what will work, but also how to effectively communicate those solutions to others. Remember, on every championship team, there is only one most valuable player. When fleshing out the rest of your roster, don’t aim for the stars only to miss the goal post. Our teams only need to be comprised of individuals who consistently deliver satisfactory (above average) performance.

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Greg Smith has over 25 years in the human performance industry. First as an executive recruiter where he learned that “the candidate you initially see is NOT always the employee who shows up for work!”  It was those unexpected “first date recruiting misfires” that led him to begin the quest for performance technologies that were available to “see behind the interviewing mask” and identify those who had the best prospects for strong performance. After years of rigorous research and testing, It was obvious that the industry needed a better mousetrap.

Greg has also been a guest speaker at numerous corporate events dealing with leadership, sales and management capacities.  He has added to his formal university education with years of study with two of Nobel nominee Dr. Robert S. Hartman’s graduate students Dr. David Medford and Wayne Carpenter.  Greg is also a member of the Hartman Institute and has been an invited speaker at their national meeting. Additionally he’s a long time member of Chairman’s club, is a President’s Award winner and has spoken at several national performance conferences on the nature of superior performance.