Job Fit = Lower Turnover + Higher Productivity
by Jon Morse, Recruiting Director
Making sure that there is a good fit between your organization and its employees is critical to productivity, morale and retention. Whether you are a small, medium or large firm, we are all faced with the challenge of how to identify and retain top performers.
So, How can we increase our odds of success? Our typical selection and promotion process looks at the candidate's:
History: We typically rely upon the resume, education, past employment, reference checks, and background checks to fill us in on the historical background of the candidate.
Current Situation: We commonly rely upon interview techniques that can vary in effectiveness. The interview process isn't fool proof. We may fall victim to our gut feeling, their appearance, and even their personality style. We should keep in mind that a SHRM Study reported in USA Today stated that: "63% of all hiring decisions are made during the first 4.3 minutes of an interview." Isn't it surprising how we can base our decision on how well a candidate can present a good first impression? But what's below the 'tip of the iceberg'?
Future: Future capabilities might include: assessing the candidate's thinking abilities, behavioral traits and occupational interests. Testing & job match patterns allow us to see below the tip of the iceberg.
We must learn to utilize all available resources to increase our success rate. Note how the following table illustrates the increased chances of a successful job fit when we apply additional processes:
Process Cumulative rate of job match success
Interview 14%
Background Checks 26%
Integrity Testing
Personality Testing 38%
Ability Testing 54%
Interest Testing 66%
Job Matching 75%
Psychological Bulletin Vol. 96, No 1, August 1994
Professor Mike Smith, University of Manchester
Background and integrity testing are necessary in order to determine if the candidate is accurate in their description of past activity. Affordable background checks are available and recommended prior to selection.
Personality / Behavior Testing has been around for many years. We are now able to determine components of personality through many paper and on-line instruments. I'm a big fan of instruments that measure optimism; particularly in sales positions. In addition, other measures such as energy level, assertiveness, sociability, manageability, decisiveness, accommodating, independence and objective judgment are critical to determining job fit.
Ability testing allows us to actually sample and/or observe work product. By providing a scenario and asking for written or verbal feedback, we are better able to see (or not see) the candidate's ability to perform job specific tasks. The more realistic the simulation, the more valid the observations may be. Perhaps you utilize ROI testing.
Interest testing provides us the measures of the candidate's occupational interest. It provides a long-term perspective and has an impact on retention.
Job matching has become more common place due to advances in technology. What used to be a long and paper intensive process of building a job match pattern has now become easier with web based tools that provide us the ability to quickly determine the patterns of our best and worst performers for any one job function.
We have made significant improvements in the hiring process for media sales by developing specific target goals for 4 thinking styles, 9 behavioral traits and 6 occupational interest groups.