We hired them for their abilities and fired them for their personality.

  I was recently working with a long-term client of Hogan when my contact made the above statement. As the discussion continued, the client cited behaviors such as arrogance, emotional outbursts, lack of decisiveness, stubbornness, poor interpersonal skills, inflexibility, and ass-kissing as a few of the reasons why their last senior-level hires did not work out. When we examined the company’s track record over the past two years in hiring senior level talent, more than half of the hires did not work out. How could this be? It’s a Fortune 500 company, a leader in its industry, and its hiring process was refined. The company used the best recruiters, was careful, involved many people in the process, and invested a significant amount of resources in finding top talent. What were they missing? Interestingly, during our entire discussion, not once did my contacts mention a lack of technical competency, education, intelligence, or general ability as the reasons for failure. Like most organizations, it was clear the hiring process focused on finding talent with the desired work experience and technical competence. In fact, the company was incredibly efficient at finding intelligent people who had a proven record of successful performance. These candidates were the best of the best, leaders in their field, and yet, over half failed miserably. Toward the end of our discussion, it was clear the organization did not understand how each of the candidates’ personalities fit the job and the organizational culture. They made the all too common assumption – if the candidate was successful at Company A and met the competency requirements, he or she will surely be successful in our company. Like many other organizations, they failed to understand what is happening under the surface – beyond the polished interview, impeccable resume, and solid performance record. It’s a story we hear daily at Hogan, and here are some of my key points to anyone considering using Hogan’s inventories in a pre-hire situation: PROVEN – Time and again, personality has shown to predict future job-related behavior as good as or better than interviews, cognitive measures, and simulations. From a statistical standpoint, validity coefficients increase exponentially when organizations supplement these hiring methodologies with a valid personality assessment. INSIGHTFUL – Hogan’s assessment battery provides unparalleled insights into a candidate’s day-to-day work style, derailment tendencies under stress, and core value drivers. As mentioned above, combine these insights with the other common components of the hiring process to develop a thorough recruitment and onboarding process. These insights can also be used to strengthen the behavioral based interview process by targeting specific areas of strength or concern which might have not been noticed earlier in the hiring process. ORGANIZATIONAL FIT – Hogan’s pre-hire solutions answer the following organizational fit questions for hiring managers:   How well does this candidate fit the critical success factors of the job or workgroup? Read More »

Going on a Which Hunt

When discussing the topic of selection assessment with human resources professionals, it can be rather easy to overwhelm a non-technical audience by carrying on about job analysis, criterion validation, correlations, legal defensibility, etc. A former colleague of mine who worked as a sales representative used to say I was getting “I/O-ish” (as in Industrial/Organizational psychology) when I started using such terminology. Keep in mind that I’m the first person to advocate the merits of assessment validation for ensuring effective talent management solutions. However, my colleague made an important point that sometimes, in an effort to provide the details behind the psychometrics of implementing an assessment for candidate selection, we may inadvertently add complexity to the conversation. 

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Workforce 2018: The Future is Now

The US economy is dragging and unemployment rates are at historically high levels, but this too shall pass. Carnevale, et al. suggest that the so-called Baby Boomers are rapidly leaving the labor market, and that by 2018, the US will face a serious shortage of people having the necessary expertise for the economy. This raises a couple of interesting questions. One concerns what the employers of 2018 will regard at the necessary expertise. A second question concerns what the high demand jobs will be in 2018.

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Excuse Avenue or Opportunity Road

A person completes a personality assessment. He or she then receives individual feedback on his or her personality profile. If the assessment is worth its salt, the person probably agreed with much of the interpretation and was challenged or surprised by the rest. For the feedback that resonated with him or her, the likely response was, “Yep, I knew that about myself. Now I have a test that validates it.” For the surprising feedback, the likely response was, “Interesting. I didn’t know I was being perceived in that way.” Now what? What does this person do with that information? The way I see it, the person now has an excuse for that behavior or an opportunity to improve it.

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Beware the Ides of March

You may not have realized, but March happens to be a very eventful month. Some noteworthy festivities this month include Mardi Gras (8th), St. Patrick’s Day (17th), Spring Break, Easter (some years), and the vernal equinox or first day of Spring (20th). Some lesser known, albeit random, contenders for March dates are: If Pets Had Thumbs Day (3rd), Multiple Personality Day (5th), Ear Muff Day (13th), Extraterrestrial Abduction Day (20th), and finally a holiday that seems to capture the theme of this blog, National Make up your own Holiday Day (26th).

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If your business can’t touch its toes, you might as well stay on the bench

  In today’s business arena there are so many variables that play into running a successful organization. First, you must have a product or service. It must be useful, provide value (at a cost people are willing to pay), and be scalable to meet the demands of the market. Next, you need to understand the consumers, cultural nuances, and business trends. Lastly, and most importantly, you must be able to execute a proper strategy. However, a company can achieve all of those success factors, but still ultimately fail. Why? Because it’s not only about the product or service, how well it’s positioned, its value, and the amazing business plan behind it. It’s about its ability to touch its toes – in other words exercise and demonstrate flexibility. Read More »