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?

• • How well do the candidate’s core values match those of the organization?

• • Are the candidate’s innate, unconscious leadership biases congruent with the long-term strategy of the company?

• • What are the most critical personality risks of hiring this candidate, and are we willing to put up with those risks?

• How can we maximize the onboarding process and what development opportunities should the hiring manager direct his or her focus?

AFTER THE HONEYMOON – Hogan provides a predictor of what will happen after the “honeymoon period” is over. When the pressure is on and your candidate is no longer a newbie, how will they react to the environment? Hogan’s report can provide insights into the potential areas of risk, and managers can take proactive steps to prevent a potential failure.

As leadership talent begins its great exodus from the workplace over the next couple of years, those organizations who can effectively strategically staff critical roles will hold a competitive advantage. It only makes sense that hiring managers and leadership selection teams use all available forms of information to ensure a candidate is the appropriate fit for the job and the organization.
 

You don’t have to be in the professional world long before you will likely encounter some form of a competency model in your organization. While the development of an effective competency model is no small task, the end result is simple, easy to understand, and very effective at establishing a framework for success. When developed correctly and with the support of the organization, a competency model can be an effective foundation for strategic staffing, training and development, and performance management. However, that is where the simplicity ends.

At Hogan, we can effectively measure an individual’s performance level against an organization’s pre-determined competency model. Hogan has developed a systematic, scientific approach, leveraging 30+ years of criterion evidence, to map just about any competency to the personality constructs measured in Hogan’s assessment inventories. As a result, our clients have responded positively, and competency mapping has become a routine service provided by our research team. These robust competency mappings can be used to help organizations strategically select new hires and develop incumbents.

It is important to understand that the intersection of competencies, personality traits, and the behaviors described can be very complex. I always suggest that the organization clearly define the role of the competency model and the desired assessments in the context of the selection, succession, and/or development process. The most effective implementations I’ve seen include elements of both tools, not simply one or the other.

Through Hogan’s research process, we can develop a scoring algorithm which will accurately predict someone’s innate ability based on their responses to our core personality inventories. If you don’t have clear understanding of what underlying personality traits and values are influencing an individual’s ability, development efforts will stall. Without these key links of behavioral development, simply knowing how someone compares to your competency model only tells half the story.

I live for pats on the back. They keep me motivated and are a much appreciated reward for a job well done. There are even times I resent not receiving my duly earned recognition, and therefore, as a manager, I do my best to ensure everyone on my team is recognized for a job well done. I do this through a variety of different mediums…verbally, publicly, in an email, a personal note, or through some type of gift. It’s a vicious animal; I appreciate when I am recognized, therefore work hard to receive said recognition, and I assumed everyone appreciates recognition as much as I do. I was an unconsciously competent manager.

We all have them, a set of innate preferences and intrinsic motivators which unconsciously impact our lives on a daily basis. This group of preferences is at the core of who we are as a person and largely dictates our managerial/leadership style. As leaders, we unconsciously create an environment around ourselves which aligns with our own motivators and preferences. As in the example above, I was managing my team based on my own preference for pats on the back, assuming everyone valued recognition as a motivator. It was not until I fully understood my own unconscious biases that I could understand the impact they had on my managerial effectiveness.

The concept of validity is at the core of any personality assessment. There are many approaches to developing a valid assessment, and unfortunately, in an industry with very little regulation, validity varies greatly between providers. From the user’s perspective, validity should be measured simply by the assessment’s ability to accurately predict what the publisher claims it will predict.

Of course all valid assessment providers publish in-depth technical manuals describing the assessment’s conceptual background, underlying construction, validity, normative sample, etc. So, my first recommendation would be to consult the assessment provider’s technical manual. While the technical manual should provide scientific foundation and alleviate any validity doubts, I often challenge clients and prospects to consider other components of the validity equation when exploring assessment providers. Take a closer look at the assessment provider itself and consider a few relevant points:

1. Who’s the publisher? More specifically, who created the initial items in the assessment and how are they maintained? Do they have any IO Psychologists on staff? Can you pick up the phone and speak directly with the author of the assessment? Is the assessment the core of the provider’s business, or is it just one of a thousand different products offered? What contributions have the publisher made to the scientific advancement of personality assessments?

2. Longevity? How long has the assessment been in use? Often times the size of the normative sample will provide insights to the longevity of the assessment. Has the assessment ever been legally challenged? Does the assessment provider have a solid track record and reputation in the industry? Do they have an archival database of assessment results and criterion data?

3. Purpose? Trace back the foundation of the instrument to its original intent; was the assessment designed to be used in the business world to predict business outcomes? Strategic self-awareness is only relevant if it is tied back to real business challenges and situations.

4. Relevance? Will the assessment provider’s offerings deliver the content necessary to meet the goals and objectives of your assessment initiatives? If an assessment provides nothing but glowing compliments to participants, it creates a false sense of validity; who is going to argue with an assessment that tells us how great we are? Do the constructs measured provide both strengths and weaknesses?

5. Depth of content? Does the provider publish multiple assessments to capture different aspects of personality? Can those assessments be combined to provide a holistic approach to managing talent? Does the provider restrict administration of their assessments to those qualified to interpret and understand the results? Does the provider offer a certification process?

6. Global Mindset? Has the assessment been adapted to today’s global business climate? Does the provider have a true global normative sample? Can you be assured participants are being measured with the same yardstick across borders? Do they offer local support for your global initiatives?

With over 3000 domestic assessment companies in the marketplace, due diligence is critical when selecting a provider. Any assessment provider can create clever marketing propaganda simplifying the assessment validity equation to a few bar charts, coefficients, or feel good comments. Evaluating your prospects according to the guidelines above, however, will provide a much clearer picture of whether or not those assessments will perform as advertised.