Suitability and Hiring Selection Success
Suitability and Hiring Selection Success
For most jobs, suitability/behavioral factors are about 50% of the reason people succeed or fail at a job. Therefore, effectively measuring suitability should be an essential part of any job fit or hiring assessment. The importance of assessing behavior during recruitment is evidenced by the fact that most organizations hire people for their eligibility and then try to develop their suitability. And in many cases, they fire them for their lack of suitability. Since behavior is fundamentally more difficult to change than eligibility, it is better to hire people who already have the right suitability for the job.
Suitability/behavioral factors are more difficult to assess because, unlike eligibility factors, there is no objective and verifiable information that is readily available. In addition, suitability factors are much more interrelated, and subtle balances between factors have significant implications for behavior. To make it even more challenging, applicants have a significant incentive to withhold or distort information that might hinder their job opportunity. This is highlighted by a recent study that determined that 80% of resumes contained lies.
Is your Board and executive team developing human capital strategies to gain competitive advantage and accelerate their business goals? Is your organization seeking new ways to positively impact engagement and retention? If so, they are not alone! Deloitte Consulting and Bersin identifies three primary areas of strategic focus in their Global Human Capital Trends report: Lead & Develop, Attract and Engage, and Transform and Reinvent. Among these strategic trends, leadership, retention and engagement, talent acquisition and reskilling HR were the top urgent needs to support business priorities and goals. Additional research by Aberdeen Group of Best-in-Class organizations demonstrates that top performing organizations, successfully utilize behavioral assessment as an enabler in each of the strategic talent needs.
November 11 proved we love our Veterans! There were many stories shared of heroes who humbly said they were just doing their jobs, like the heroic story from the Battle of Iwo Jima, of Hershel “Woody” Williams, the oldest living Medal of Honor recipient at 92. He only knocked out seven concrete enemy pillboxes and cleared the way for Marines to press the attack on the island – he was just doing his job along with 6,800 American service members who died and thousands more who were injured taking the island back from 22,000 Japanese defenders. 
Since the 1960s, outplacement has benefited millions of transitioning employees. By providing effective outplacement services their former organizations reaped tangible economic benefits. Those same benefits, both for employees and organizations, are needed today. In fact, the business case for providing outplacement is actually stronger today than in those early years of the fledgling career transition industry. To put it succinctly, whether recruiting or seeking to engage and retain those all-observant millennials, how you treat their friends in a layoff is only a text away from going viral! Given that reality, it is counter-productive that at best only 30% of companies offer outplacement and with declining program budgets and services. What gives?
Organizations like to focus on the positive when developing strategic plans based on the best business and economic scenarios, yet it is often the negative economic surprises that drive organizational change. After over 30 years in business, I recently developed a retrospective of the primary global, national and regional economic drivers covering over 50 decades. It is gripping to review the succession of economic downturns, mergers, reorganizations, natural disasters, war, disruptive global and workforce trends, technological change, and industry upheavals which impact organizations and their employees at the visceral level. (
The ticker tape parade in NYC last Friday was a well-deserved home coming celebration for our USA Women’s World Cup Soccer champions. Their amazing win against defending champion Japan on July 5 was a climatic burst of electrifying fireworks for our national holiday weekend celebration. After waiting 16 years to bring the trophy home again, this team could not be denied. When Wombach stated pre-match, “We have to bring the fire,” she was prophetic. The most watched soccer match in US history, this blow-out statistic will go down in the sports annals: 26.7 million US viewers. And by the way, the men’s World Cup drew only 17.3 million US viewers in July, 2014. Advertisers and promoters take note — women athletes can draw a crowd! This spectacular win is great for the team, the sport, women’s athletics and for the nation. We love winners and this World Cup team defines for us all what a true winner is. This team and the individual players provide a model you can emulate for your own success. What are the SUCCESS lessons?