The third step to successful hiring is to hire for high-performing behaviours specific to the job in question. Hiring for such behaviors, however, does not mean that you must suddenly become a devotee of the fashionable personality test approach to recruiting. Knowing where a candidate resides on the confidence spectrum is only significant to the extent that self-confidence is necessary to the role. Does the candidate, for example, require confidence to fuel the negotiation chops required to secure a complex lease agreement?

Talent management professionals need to re-evaluate the merits of the personality assessment tools they are using for critical hires. The most popular of these personality tests attempts to measure a broad range of basic traits, including emotional intelligence.  While they can offer useful insight about both individuals and teams (including gaps in a management team’s composite profile), psychological research has consistently proven that these personality measures do little to predict how well a candidate will actually perform on the job. This lack of predictive validity likely explains why so many executives balk at completing these tests. They have seen for themselves that identifying someone as an “idealist,” “counsellor,” or “analytical driver” rarely translates into something they can use in a real-world scenario. In the absence of role-based behavioural requirements, a personality profile is data without purpose. And many employment candidates, regularly subjected to such tests and thus well aware of their profile’s attributes, have already concluded that broad personality tests cannot provide a reliable path forward for their career plans. They have discovered for themselves that there is no correlation between these broad personality test types and successful on-the-job performance.

Personality testing can deliver valuable insights, but it doesn’t predict performance outcomes – unless the attributes it reveals are closely mapped to specific job requirements. If job performance is what’s at stake, then the goal of these assessments should be to uncover those metrics that best predict the individual’s ability to leverage pre-existing behavioural traits that can be applied to successfully execute on the specific demands of the position.

Knowledge can be taught, skills can be acquired, and experience can be fostered, but the behavioural profile necessary to be successful and happy in a specific role must be in place for the candidate to succeed. Seventy-five percent (75%) of employees in most companies don’t like what they do. Imagine the impact on the culture, productivity and profitability of a firm if senior executives were to reduce that percentage by a mere 10% simply by hiring people with behavioural profiles correctly matched to the job in question. Consider Southwest Airlines or WestJet as examples of what can be achieved when employees enjoy their work.

Our Western cultural upbringing teaches us to believe we can be anything, do anything, and achieve greatness simply by applying ourselves – the force of will. We’re taught that we can improve our lives by identifying and improving upon our weaknesses. Everything from Disney films to pop psychology bestsellers to executive coaching tomes insists that if we get to grips with our weaknesses, we can overcome all odds. And while addressing one’s weaknesses is a laudable goal, for many, the efforts may be mispent. From the career-planning standpoint, an individual may be better served by addressing only those vocationally specific areas that need strengthening. What’s more, the effort spent on addressing weaknesses might be more productively applied to enhancing strengths or those near-strengths that are applicable to an individual’s career path. A brand guru renowned for creativity and strategic insight may be better served strengthening her pre-existing big-picture prowess than trying to caulk the gaping holes in her analytical skills.Imagine the reduction in parental and child angst if your son or daughter not only knew which industry sectors they would most enjoy, but also which specific roles their behavioural profile and ability to achieve high performance correlate with. Offering vocational clarity by sweeping away personal doubt about what one can enjoyably achieve in life, provided one has the proper academics and access to experience, is a powerful insight to have at the start of a career.

After 25 years of interviewing, I have concluded that people are generally unable to radically change their behavioural profile. Rote patterns typically govern everything from personal to social and vocational decisions. People default to learned patterns of behaviour. They are what they were and will be what they are. And the latest science on the human brain indicates further that our behavioural traits are pretty much fixed by age 24, the age at which humans achieve the ability to exercise good judgment. So if you know someone who’s sitting in his parents’ basement drinking Pepsi and playing point and shoot games at age 24, there is a high probability that he will be doing something similar at 44 – although not necessarily in a basement anymore. Subject to the individual possessing the correct weighting of a spectrum of approximately 24 key performance traits out of a measurable eighty-four, this same 44-year-old may end up a highly effective digital warrior in the basement of the Pentagon. Similarly, if a 24-year-old woman who possesses the 22 key traits required of a high-performing CEO of a billion-dollar corporation, then the predictive accuracy is such (85%) that one would be wise to keep an eye on her progress – she likely won’t disappoint. In the real estate domain, the same math holds true for VP Retail Leasing or a broker – align the traits to the role, and the result is predictable high performance.

A further example as to why one should hire for behaviour relevant to the position is to mitigate the impact of stress on corporate productivity. A few of the attributes associated with dealing with ‘life stresses’ are behaviour-based; some coping attributes, but not limited to, are one’s orientation to ‘being a workaholic, or prone to addiction, the need for intimacy or exercise.’ Knowing the coping attribute one is likely to default to is critical to understanding their ability to succeed in a particular stressful role. What firm, big or small, hasn’t had to budget for stress leave?

Behavioural psychology has come a long way since the days when guidance counsellors subjected us to tests authored by alchemists and wizards. Unfortunately, many of those assessment tests are still in circulation; some are more granular in the number of attributes assessed, many shouldn’t be used for hiring, and few can claim accuracy beyond 70% validity. For instance, the validity of the Myers-Briggs, the workhorse of Personality Testing, is in the high 50s, yet it covers fewer than 30 attributes. It’s a cheap and cheerful placebo for hiring process thoroughness.

Consider a slate of candidates for a critical hire, a scenario you deal with regularly – there is some variation to each candidate’s knowledge, skill and experience but not enough to radically change the selection math. Now imagine the financial impact on your business if you had the wherewithal to predict within 85% percent accuracy not only a candidate’s potential for “career success” but also handicap the prediction to include “career satisfaction.”  This capability exists.

Rutherford International has the capacity to predict present and future performance in over 600 specific executive and staff roles, including retail leasing and brokerage. By the end of Q2-2014, with the assistance of our corporate sponsors, we expect our behavioural scientist to complete the research on the balance of occupations within the commercial real estate industry.

With a high degree of certainty, our benchmarks enable us to compare candidates to other “highly successful” individuals in career roles relevant to the position our clients are seeking to fill, and to establish a succession plan or determine who will benefit most from career development courses. The corollary of our actuarial approach to measuring high performance is that we can predict the probability of failure with similar accuracy. The ability to predict the potential for success or failure through our behavioural benchmark counters the need to “narrow frame” the experiential or academic requirements of the position. As referenced in the first article regarding the potential for human rights complaints, you now have an empirical-based response grounded in actuarial science.

You improve the probabilities of better hiring outcomes by making better decisions. It need not be a crap game, nor is it rocket science; rather, it is an exercise in combining behavioural science with actuarial science.I hope this series of articles helps you improve hiring outcomes and provides insight into the scope of services we offer our clients. Please don’t hesitate to call me should you require additional details. The international number is 1-855-256-5778. Alternatively, my email is forbes@rutherfordinternational.com.

The Rutherford Group of Companies comprises a vertical of specialized recruiting firms that complement one another at various stages of the recruiting value chain. Each firm offers clients a varied approach to talent acquisition at different cost-per-hire rates. Pricing ranges from ‘Least’ to ‘Most’ and depends on the urgency of your hiring need.

By adapting your point of entry onto the “recruiting value chain,” our methods let you ‘test the waters’ before jumping completely into the talent pool. Depending on urgency, your first point of entry can be to run an ad on our international job board (www.rejobnet.com) at a very low cost.

Alternatively, you can engage our ‘job ad agency’ (www.retalentselect.com) to implement a job marketing and employer brand management strategy to target market your position to relevant candidates.

If your need requires immediate resolution, your third option is to engage our team of experienced recruiters, who will proactively source talent within your target talent market (www.nextalent.ca).

Properly employed, the cost savings are significant; a job advertising and employer brand marketing campaign through REtalentSelect.com is equal to the cost of an average career ad in the Wall Street Journal.