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November 16, 2008 at 07:00 PM
How can you tell if a promising job applicant has the qualities needed to become one of your top producers? Does he or she have the empathy needed to understand prospects, the drive to make cold calls time and time again and the resilience required to bounce back from rejection?
You’ve got to delve below the surface to find out if the first impression applicants make will be a lasting one or if they are what we call “interview stars:” people who know how to turn it on during a hiring interview, but never quite hit that level of performance again. The latter are individuals who, after months of coaching to improve their performance, you have to let go. And, as you try to figure out what went wrong, you say to yourself, “But they were so good in the interview.”
During the hiring process, applicants and employers are often so busy putting their best feet forward that they end up tripping over each other. How can you delve below the surface to determine if a promising applicant really has what it takes to become one of your top performers?
The unfortunate truth is that hiring people who will fit in with your company is hard. And hiring top performers is brutally hard. You can get a Masters in Business Administration from one of the finest schools in this country and not learn two of the most important things about running a business: (1) how to hire the right people; and (2) how to avoid hiring the wrong ones.
That’s why the insights gained from an in-depth personality profile can provide employers with the information they need to make a better-informed decision. The insights that a consultant can provide from a validated personality profile can provide a measurable, objective view of an individual. The consultants can also serve as a trusted advisor, a sounding board for discussing whether someone has the qualities an employer is seeking.
Will the individual fit in with your culture? Work well with others on your team? Connect with his or her manager? Those are the important nuances that can make all the difference as to whether an individual will ultimately succeed or not.
Developing an ideal profile
The starting point to hiring effectively is to be absolutely clear about the kind of person you are looking for to succeed in the job. You don’t just want a job description; you want a description of the person you are looking for.
You begin by gaining a clear understanding of the personality qualities shared by your top performers. No doubt, they are all persuasive, able to read others and can bounce back from rejection. But what else do they have? Is it high energy? Discipline? A strong need to accomplish? Or is that they are they bright? Assertive? Trustworthy? Are they responsible? Reliable? Capable of solving complicated problems?
Those attributes, once pinpointed, become the profile of your top performers. And that profile becomes the model toward which you hire. The closer your applicants match the ideal profile of your top performers, the more likely they will meet or exceed your performance expectations.
Personality assessments can provide the insights into applicants that resum?s, interviews and references cannot uncover. This approach to hiring is how enlightened employers are dramatically improving their ability to identify top performers during the hiring process and to develop their potential.
