People Skills: Can This Person Get Along with Others?

People are social creatures, which means hiring managers should consider a fundamentally human question during employee selection: will this candidate be rewarding to work and spend time with? Although this question is simple, it is often overlooked. Employers are often enticed by bright candidates. But when these people are incapable of getting along with others, or at least unwilling, they tend to erode organizational morale.

Tech guru Steve Jobs is a great example of someone who, despite being admired for his intelligence and creativity, was emotionally taxing to work with.² His inability to get along with others was apparent from the start of his career. During his stint at Atari, his employers assigned him to the solitary night shift so he would stop upsetting his coworkers. Atari cofounder Nolan Bushnell later said that Jobs “was very often the smartest guy in the room, and he would let people know that.”³ Jobs was suspicious, argumentative, entitled, impulsive, prone to setting impossible standards, and emotionally volatile. He did not value people skills, which curbed his ability to get along with people throughout the ranks. Workers at Pixar and Apple both admitted that working with Jobs required inhabiting an almost egoless state because they were subject to constant abuse and expected to be extremely deferential. Although his genius made him successful, his harsh behavior prevented him from becoming CEO at Apple and eventually resulted in his ousting from the company.

Organizations may clamour to have a genius in their ranks, but focusing on candidates with strong people skills is more beneficial. The majority of today’s leaders are people leaders managing employees with team-based jobs.⁴ When folks who occupy these leadership positions lack the necessary people skills, productivity can plummet. For the sake of those already working within the organization, employers should ensure their employee selection processes place people skills at the heart of the search.

Learning Skills: Can This Person Do the Job?

The accelerated development of new technologies means professionals must pursue education to improve at their jobs and adapt to the business world’s ever-shifting terrain. Hiring managers should look for candidates who display, in addition to occupational expertise, a high degree of inquisitiveness and a propensity for learning. Even at the C-suite level, learning skills should not be taken for granted. As Steven Berglas, PhD, points out in The Perils of Accentuating the Positive, “super smart and capable people” often “fail to use their abilities to continually adapt and instead resist new information when it is obvious that the old way is working against them.”⁵

Berglas illustrates this refusal to adapt with the story of Sewell Avery, the CEO and chairperson of the department store retailer Montgomery Ward & Co. Prior to his time at the helm of Montgomery Ward, Avery was CEO of the United States Gypsum Company. Having come of age in the depressed 1890s, Avery applied the economic attitudes of his youth to his business by running his company frugally and keeping it debt-free. This approach paid off when the Great Depression arrived. Many of Avery’s competitors were forced to close their doors, but the United States Gypsum Company continued to grow. J.P. Morgan was so impressed with Avery’s leadership that he asked him to take charge of the ailing Montgomery Ward & Co. department store. Avery remained steadfast to his frugal formula throughout the post-World War II economic boom. His approach was so inflexible that, despite warnings from his subordinates, he refused to follow consumers and open stores in the suburbs. His reasoning was that another Great Depression would arrive soon, but it never did. Consequently, Montgomery Ward & Co. fell behind its competitors and never caught up. If Avery had stayed curious and kept learning about the changing market, Montgomery Ward might still be around today.

Regardless of a job’s context, learning skills and openness to new experiences are valuable competencies. Employee selection procedures should focus on candidates who are willing to resist clinging to tried-and-true methods and instead flex their learning abilities. The recent changes wrought by COVID-19 have served as a reminder of the importance of approaching new business environments, organizational and team structures, and social situations with a healthy dose of curiosity and openness.

Work Ethic: Can This Person Be Motivated to Do the Job?

Socially skilled, bright, and adaptable candidates can still fail to fulfill their promise if they are not motivated to work hard. Motivation is formed by personal values that impact career outcomes. If a candidate does not buy into the vision for their role or the company, their work ethic is bound to lag in the long run. Therefore, hiring managers should look for an overlap between candidate and organizational values. A fictitious but helpful example of what happens when employees aren’t motivated can be found in the character Stanley Hudson in the American version of the TV series, The Office.

Although stone-faced Stanley has a history of hitting high sales numbers with Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, he no longer musters the energy to do anything beyond his immediate job description. Stanley’s recurring catch lines are “no” and “do not care.” He refuses to coach younger employees such as Ryan, always leaves the office at 5 p.m. sharp, takes naps during the workday, and does crossword puzzles during meetings. The show makes the reason for his disengagement clear: Stanley does not buy into the vision that his boss Michael presents to his employees. In season 2, Stanley vents his frustration to Michael:

What is wrong with you? Do you have any sense at all? Do you have any idea how to run an office? Every day you do something stupider than you did the day before. And I think, “There’s no possible way he can top that.” But what you do you do? You find a way, damn it, to top it. You are a professional idiot!

The clash between Stanley and Michael becomes a running storyline in the show. Stanley’s disengagement eventually climaxes in season 5, when he has a heart attack due to stress from working in an environment he does not enjoy. Stanley returns to the office with a stress monitor that goes off whenever Michael approaches him. Although fictional, Stanley’s disengagement and resulting health issues are based in reality. According to a Gallup poll, 71% of Americans do not like their jobs and therefore do not work hard or show loyalty to their employers.⁶ Moreover, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health shows that people who work for employers with whom they don’t agree are at higher risk for cardiovascular disease and other health issues.⁷

Alignment with organizational values will almost certainly affect employee engagement with work, as well as health. In turn, job engagement and health affect whether employees work hard in their roles. Educational psychologist Lee Cronbach summed it up best when he said, “If for each environment there is a best organism, for each organism there is a best environment.”⁸

Success in Employee Selection: A Matter of Good Data and Perspective

While reviewing candidates and what they each have to offer, it is helpful to use these three competencies as a big-picture barometer of hiring success. Understanding where each candidate stands in terms of these criteria helps employers make the best hiring decisions possible, plus anticipate areas that might require special attention or training.

*This article originally appeared on Hogan Assessments.

The post 3 Skills to Guide Employee Selection appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

When job interviews are at their best, they can be used to assess whether someone’s skills, experiences, and other key characteristics are aligned with the job, which allows for better hiring decisions. This makes the interview a powerful tool for selection. However, the problem is that all interviews are not created equal.

Bias and Error in Job Interviews

When interviews aren’t designed well, bias and error can impact judgments made in the interview.^1,2 An interviewer who has a more favourable impression of the candidate, for example, will likely ask fewer questions compared to applicants for whom they have less favourable impressions.³ In addition, an interviewer’s opinion of an applicant can show through nonverbal communication, affecting the candidate’s responses.⁴ These errors, among others, can provide some candidates with an advantage or disadvantage over others. For example, the candidate who is asked more questions has more opportunities to show strengths or potential weaknesses.

One way to mitigate some of the potential for error in interviews is to consider the structure of the interview.⁵ Interviews fall on a spectrum between being unstructured and structured. Those that are unstructured typically follow a more organic or conversational approach. Using this approach, the interviewer asks questions they believe fit the requirements of the job. The interviewer may or may not provide a rating of the candidate’s responses to the questions. Interviewers adopting an unstructured approach likely don’t ask every candidate the same questions and think of questions as the interview progresses.

Unstructured Interviews

This unstructured way of interviewing is common in organisations. One reason for this is that an interviewer gets to ask the questions they think are relevant to the job. If you provide an interviewer with a set of questions beforehand and ask them to “stick to the script,” they might think the list of questions is missing important components of the job. Another reason interviewers might favour the unstructured approach is because they can ask candidates questions they believe are relevant to each person.

These reasons might seem to justify unstructured interviews, but they can create problems. While interviewers might want to ask questions relevant to the job, some of their perceptions about what is required could be erroneous. For example, interviewers might assume a candidate should have a certain skill prior to being hired for a job. But it is also possible someone who learns that skill on the job will perform equally as well as an incumbent employee who entered the job with that skill.

Another example could be an interviewer who has a preconceived notion about psychology majors lacking business savvy. This might lead the interviewer to hold an overall negative impression of an applicant with a psychology degree. The interviewer might be inclined to ask that candidate more questions about business yet ask fewer business questions of a candidate with a business degree. This is unfair. Worse, this overall negative impression could be communicated indirectly or even nonverbally, causing a negative reaction from the candidate.

These are just a couple of examples of how bias and errored thinking can influence the unstructured interview process and why it could be helpful to consider a more structured interview.

Structured Interviews

In contrast to unstructured interviews, highly structured interviews are typically guided by questions planned beforehand. The questions themselves are based on the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) that have been proven to be related to the job. The questions are typically asked in the same order for every candidate, and the rating options for each question are anchored with behaviours the ratings represent. Structuring the interview in these ways helps to mitigate some of the biased decision-making and other problems associated with the more conversational approach of unstructured interviews.⁶ When each candidate gets the same opportunity to respond to the same questions, the outcome of the interview is less associated with the structure of the interview itself and more with what you are trying to measure in the interview.

So, using structured interviews can be an effective way to assess whether someone will meet the requirements for the job. Each interview question is directly related to the job, each candidate has the same opportunity to answer the questions, and the interviewer has a clear and unambiguous way to rate each applicant. Using this type of interview gives our psychology major and our business major the same chance to be rated fairly.

Making the Most Out of Your Selection Process

While structured interviews are a great tool to use in hiring decisions, the interview is not the only tool you should use in your selection process. Valid, reliable personality tests are another tool that can add value to talent acquisition. Numerous studies have shown that personality is a key component for determining if someone will be a strong performer.⁷ Other research has demonstrated that gauging personality in interviews is challenging and can result in inaccurate assessment of someone’s personality.⁸ Hogan provides quality personality tests, which can be combined with an interview to better assess whether someone will be a good fit for the job.

If you have any questions about how personality tests can be used in conjunction with your job interview, feel free to reach out to our team.

This blog post was authored by Hogan Consultant Mark Shoemaker, MA.

*This article was originally published by Hogan Assessments.

The post Getting the Most Out of Your Job Interviews appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

Recently on The Science of Personality, cohosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, and Blake Loepp spoke with George Randle, managing partner at Randall Partners and coauthor of The Talent War: How Special Operations and Great Organizations Win on Talent. A former US Army officer, George has more than 20 years of Fortune 100 and Fortune 1000 global human resources and talent acquisition experience and is also a Hogan-certified coach.

“Building elite teams became this burning passion for me,” George said. “Talent acquisition has been the best function I could ever hope for.”

Keep reading to learn about George’s passion for talent, how he uses Hogan, and why personality data is essential in both executive coaching and talent acquisition strategies.

Talent Acquisition Strategy

George and his coauthor, Mike Sarraille, a former US Navy SEAL, had a combined passion for talent. They used the lens of US special operations forces, known for their effectiveness, to evaluate how organisations defined talent. Their findings led to the conclusion that hiring the right people was essential—and they share techniques for it in their book.

The Right Talent

“Human capital is the only true competitive advantage that you can hope to achieve and maintain,” George said. All the other elements of organisations are highly subject to change and chance, but organisations have significant control over the quality of their talent resources. The best talent is what makes an organisation truly competitive.

The Right Seat

George explained that getting the right talent is the first step. Getting the right talent into the right seats is the second. He pointed out that two great American football quarterbacks, Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes, would have been much less likely to succeed if they had swapped teams. Different environments and roles require specific personality characteristics for success, in sports as in business.

Both the talent and the role need to be right for the hire to be successful. The Hogan assessments measure personality strengths, potentially overused strengths called derailers, and values and motivations. We refer to these as the bright side, the dark side, and the inside of personality. As a talent acquisition expert, George uses Hogan data to match people with opportunities by asking two questions:

1. Would the person be right for this opportunity?
2. Would the opportunity be right for this person?

Hogan Assessments provides the data-driven talent insights that reach the depth and specificity that effective talent acquisition strategies demand. Referring to other assessments he used before Hogan, George said, “They told you what colour the house was. They didn’t tell you how it was built.”

Personality Assessments in the Hiring Process

George has hired more than 85,000 people through the teams he has built, so he’s extremely experienced in assessing and interpreting human behaviour. A skilled interviewer, he nevertheless credited Hogan with improving his perceptions. “It added that scientific, data-based credibility to the work that I do,” he said.

In the hiring process, George first makes sure the client understands what success looks like in the team. In Hogan terms, this is an evaluation of what characteristics and values are likely to align with the team’s and organisation’s needs. Sometimes clients may be unclear or mistaken about what strengths are needed in a leadership role.

Next, George digs into the data. He uses pre-hire data to confirm or deny a candidate—or to reveal insights to explore before making an introduction. Depending on the target role, he might administer a more extensive assessment and debrief a candidate to understand their strengths, challenges, and motivations.

Avoiding Hiring Bias

A candidate’s behaviour during an interview doesn’t always reveal who they are. Hogan data helps talent acquisition experts avoid résumé seduction as well as reveal effective candidates who may be less likely to stand out. “Many times, I think I have a great candidate sitting in front of me, then I use one of the Hogan tools—and I missed something,” George said.

In some cases, “missing something” means detecting an unsuitable candidate who may have interviewed well but whose personality data showed inauthenticity or misalignment. A candidate with polish and charm could lack necessary collaboration skills, for example. In other cases, “missing something” means discovering that someone who may have interviewed indifferently has ideal personality characteristics for the role. A hidden-gem candidate might have been feeling too nervous to articulate their strengths during an interview.

By using objective, well-validated assessment tools, George matches candidates to opportunities based on data, not just impressions.

Personality Assessments in Executive Coaching

A great Hogan coach contextualises the Hogan results and assuages a person’s confusion or concerns about their data. A great Hogan coach will also explain that Hogan data shows a person’s strengths and opportunities. It shows how their values are aligned with their career goals and their organisation’s goals.

Leadership principles in the corporate world are similar to those in the military. Being able to train and coach others and develop cohesive teams were some of the key abilities that helped George transition from military service into his career in HR. “When you’re in the military, you don’t get to hire the people that you lead,” he said. That’s often true in business, as well.

Leaders who can build and maintain high-performing teams need strong socioemotional skills to develop the talent they have. When George coaches executives, he uses Hogan data to describe the importance of reputation and how strategic self-awareness can lead to behavioural changes that affect workplace reputation. He uses Hogan results to help leaders understand how they are being perceived and identify ways to adjust how their derailers manifest in the work environment. “We use the [Hogan tools] to make a plan for them to be the best version of themselves,” he said.

Talent Acquisition Advice

To George, personality matters more than technical skills. Recalling his time in military service, George said he could teach anyone to jump out of a plane, implying that technical skills can be learned. On the other hand, personality strengths like problem-solving, emotional intelligence, and innovation are key intrinsic characteristics.

Organisations that have strong talent strategies thrive. “The companies that have a talent mindset [. . .] are reinventing themselves,” he said. “They’re making sure that their number one investment is in their people.”

Listen to this conversation in full on episode 83 of The Science of Personality.

Contact us for more information Get Certified

The post The Talent War: A Conversation with George Randle appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

Not so fast.

Unless they’re the sole person you brought to the interview stage, chances are that there are a few (maybe even several) other candidates who didn’t quite make the cut. To avoid joining the ranks of companies that leave their applicants with a negative opinion (rejections are one of the biggest factors that lead to this), consider this option: the rejection letter.

To be clear, the purpose of the rejection letter is to deliver bad news, so you shouldn’t expect cheers of joy from the recipient. But that doesn’t mean that the letter can’t serve a constructive purpose.

How to Write a Rejection Letter to a Job Applicant

The key to a good job candidate rejection letter is being honest, kind, and compassionate. Your letter should build the candidate up and let them know that, even though they may not be eligible for this role, they will find more opportunities. Remember that this rejection reflects on you and the organisation as a whole. The tone you set will determine if the candidate will consider applying again in the future, and it also impacts your organisation’s reputation and employer brand.

Here are the four steps to write a job interview rejection letter that will send the right message.

Step 1: Thank Them

It should be self-explanatory, but thanking the candidate is a good idea. Studies show that saying “thank you” has ripple effects that directly and indirectly benefit the health and happiness of those who experience it. Remember that the applicant has given their time and effort to apply, take personality assessments, and interview for the role. Acknowledging this and showing your gratitude for their candidacy will cast your organisation in a more positive light.

Step 2: Break the Bad News

This is it — the hardest part of the entire letter. While it may not be possible to alter the essence of your message, the words you use to let the candidate know that they did not get the position are important. Of these two examples of a rejection, which do you think would be better received?

1. I regret to inform you that we have chosen a different applicant for the position.
2. After careful review and a difficult decision, we’ve decided to move forward with another candidate for the role.

If you chose 2, congratulations: you’re correct. The key here is that we’ve let the candidate know that it was a challenging decision and that their application was legitimately considered. Additionally, note the subtle difference between the phrasing, “chosen a different applicant” versus “decided to move forward with another candidate.” The latter gets the point across more gently.

Step 3: Explain Why

Still with us? Good. Now that you’ve broached the subject, it’s time to explain why they didn’t get the job. In most cases, it’s a best practice to be open and honest, but this should be determined by how your interactions with them went.

Good interview – As great as they are as a candidate, it’s possible that some factor meant that they just didn’t make the cut. Was it insufficient experience that made the difference? Let them know gently (follow a similar methodology to Step 2).

Bad interview – If the candidate made a negative impression during the interview, you shouldn’t call them out on it. Instead, say nothing and skip to Step 4.

Step 4: End on a High Note

We’re in the home stretch. After you’ve thanked the candidate, broken the news, and explained your decision, end the message positively. Ideally, you should highlight strengths that stood out in the interview and/or their personality assessment results, point out their valuable qualifications, and express your interest (if you have any) in keeping their application on file for consideration for future roles. Positivity in your closing note will establish a good foundation for any future conversations you have with them.

And that’s it. With those four steps, you will have a thoughtful, constructive rejection letter for a job applicant that may leave them disappointed but thankful for the experience and hopeful for future opportunities.

Contact us for more information Learn about the Hogan 360

The post New Year, New Hire, Part 6: How to Write a Rejection Letter appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

1. Leveraging Different Skills

   In the words of Marshall Goldsmith, “What got you here won’t get you there.” Recognise that the strengths that have enabled your success and the derailers that have hindered your effectiveness thus far are probably not the ones that will be important for a new manager. Your Hogan personality test reports are an ideal place to start on this analysis. Think through what strengths your new position requires and what derailers might get you into trouble. How will you alter your behaviours to accommodate these? Remember the importance of situational context (role, culture, manager, and team).

2. Becoming More Visible

   What you say and do matters more now. Because your position has changed, you are under greater scrutiny, and your words and actions have a greater impact. You might say the same thing in the same situation, but it carries more weight by virtue of your position.

3. Managing Former Peers (and Even Friends)

   Being promoted to a management position often means managing people who used to be your peers and, in some cases, your friends. Realise that your relationships with them have been inextricably altered. It’s OK to directly acknowledge this change — they are your direct reports. No matter how much you like them, you are now their manager, and the relationship between managers and reports is different from relationships between peers or friends. You can support them, advocate for them, develop them, provide advice and counsel, etc., but these need to be done from a manager perspective, not a peer or friend perspective. This may mean you’ll need to get out of the loop to some degree. Remember that you’ll also need to provide them with constructive feedback, performance reviews and salary treatment, and perhaps even discipline. These are managerial activities, not friend or peer activities.

4. Taking the Party Line

   Unless you’re being asked to do something illegal or immoral, you need to take the party line, even if you don’t agree with it. It’s fine to express disagreement when you’re discussing decisions with fellow managers, but once a decision is reached, the managers need to be a united front. You can’t say, “Well, I didn’t agree with this, but I was outvoted.”

5. Liaising Between Organisational Levels

   As part of management, you need to provide a buffer between your direct reports and senior managers when your direct reports don’t like a decision or question a policy. Typically, the decision-makers have more information, which influenced their decision, than the people questioning the decision. In other words, you need to be part of the solution and avoid fuelling discontent or conflict. Don’t justify your desire to disagree by telling yourself that you’re not being authentic if you’re supporting a decision you don’t completely agree with. Reframe it as something you need to support because of your role.

6. Using Team Input Effectively

   You need to gather input and gain buy-in, but don’t let this result in “management by consensus.” With too much compromise, you can end up with a decision that no one supports. At some point, you might need to make the decision yourself, and it might not be popular with everyone, but at least it will be supported by some. As a manager, you are accountable for the success of the team, and as a result, you are also responsible for the decisions being made.

7. Making Challenging Decisions

   Sometimes you have to decide between right and right. It’s easy to decide between right and wrong, but it’s hard to decide between right and right. On occasion, you’ll be faced with several alternatives, all of which are right. You will need to decide among them and communicate the decision. Sometimes it may feel like there is not a right answer, so try thinking about these two things: First, what is the right answer for the business? Second, what is right for the customer? When these areas align, the tough decisions are easier to make.

8. Adapting Management Style to Employee Needs

   All direct reports are not created equal, and fair treatment does not mean identical treatment. An experienced veteran requires a very different management style from you than a new hire fresh out of college. As long as there’s no hint of favouritism, different treatment can be effective. Keep in mind that the way you previously communicated with someone on your team might need to be altered (that is, if you were formerly peers).

9. Providing Useful and Timely Feedback

   The longer you wait to give someone feedback, the more difficult it will be. When feedback is provided close to the time the coachable behaviour was exhibited, everyone involved recalls more details, making it easier to provide coaching and change behaviour. Also, it is far easier and more comfortable to receive one small piece of feedback than a lot of feedback that has accumulated over weeks or months. Practice daily (and balanced) feedback.

10. Keeping the Pace of Work

    Speed is your friend. Work will always expand to fill the time available, for both you and your team. Set aggressive deadlines, do the tough tasks first, and follow through consistently.

11. Asking for Help

    Don’t forget you have resources available. You don’t have to make this transition on your own. Utilise other managers and HR for support when you meet a challenge, regardless of how small or large the issue may seem. Your success is measured on the success of your team, so ask for help when you need it.

Congratulations on rising to meet these challenges! Leadership is not for the faint of heart, and some days it may feel like you are running in circles, but what you are doing is important work. Every seemingly minute conversation with a team member helps build trust and provides an opportunity for deeper connection, development opportunities, and growth.

Contact us for more information Learn about the Hogan 360

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A job interview goes both ways. While the employer is gauging the applicant’s qualifications and their potential alignment with the organisation’s objectives and culture, the interviewee is trying to get a feel for the type of working environment they might expect and the personality and working style of the hiring manager.

Wondering how to interview someone for a job while making a good first impression? We’ve compiled a list of tips that interviewers can use to win candidates over.

Tips for a Good Job Interview in Person

Choose a Good Location

Location, location, location — its benefit isn’t reserved only for real estate. The location of the interview sets the tone and should be chosen thoughtfully and carefully. A quiet, well-lit space that is free from distractions — without feeling sterile — is the best environment for a constructive interview.

Be Relatable and Relaxed

As serious as an interview’s outcome may be, the language you use and the direction in which you drive the conversation should always be relaxed and conversational. It’s easy to sound too direct as the interviewer, so don’t skip the small talk and informalities. Intimidation isn’t going to win anyone over, so be personable.

Come Prepared

Just as you would expect the candidate to come prepared for the interview, your level of preparedness will speak volumes to your organisation’s culture and your level of interest. Here is a short checklist of essentials:

• Your list of questions
• A copy of the candidate’s résumé and (if applicable) cover letter
• A pen and notepad for taking notes
• A copy of the job description to reference

Virtual Job Interview Tips

If you’re interviewing a remote candidate, a couple of considerations can make a big difference.

Be Prepared

Preparedness, as it relates to virtual interviews, is based largely on one thing: making sure your video-call technology is working properly. Whether you’re using Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or any other conferencing platform, there’s no faster way to set a bad example than by running into technical difficulties when trying to connect to the call. Take the time to test the process so that you run the smallest risk of incident, while also being considerate of any issues the candidate may run into when connecting.

Don’t Get Distracted

It’s easy to get distracted when working from home. Whether your phone notifications are sounding or a team member is messaging you, the candidate will assume you lack interest and commitment if you allow yourself to be distracted. To be respectful, turn off any secondary monitors and set your phone to Do Not Disturb.

Conclusion

The interview is a vital part of the hiring process, and it’s a chance for both the interviewer and interviewee to distinguish themselves from their respective competition. These are just a few tips to get you started in considering how to prepare for interviews to convince top talent that your organisation’s open position is worth their time, investment, and loyalty.

Of course, the questions you ask are important too, and organisations that use personality tests in hiring tend to structure their interviews with better questions. To name just a few benefits, these interviews are a more productive use of everyone’s time, they minimize the potential for unconscious bias, they make a better impression on the candidate, and they lead to more successful hires (and fewer bad hires). Stay tuned for upcoming content on how to conduct a structured interview effectively, as well as Part 6 of our series, which will cover rejection letters!

Contact us for more information Learn about the Hogan 360

The post New Year, New Hire, Part 5: How to Impress Candidates in an Interview appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

How to Get a Pool of Qualified Job Candidates

A good hiring process will lead to a pool of qualified candidates from which you, the employer, can select. While it’s true that the hiring environment is competitive, you can use a few key elements to filter.

The Job Posting

Make no mistake — much of the difficulty finding candidates for a job comes from a poorly written job posting. This introduction of your role to prospective applicants is the face of your company and the first good impression you can make. Beyond this, though, the job posting is key in outlining the exact kind of candidate you want to hire. When writing a job description, be sure to mention specific qualifications, skills, and competencies that the role will require, and avoid vague language that can leave room for misinterpretation. When prospective candidates read your posting, it should be explicitly clear whether their skills align with your criteria.

The Interview

Much like the job posting itself, the interview is an integral step in finding candidates who love their job. Make sure to structure your interview with questions that are specific enough to the nuances of the role while leaving enough room for the interviewee to elaborate on their relevant skills. Be careful — if your questions are too open-ended, you run the risk of either confusing the candidate or receiving answers that won’t illustrate the candidate’s skills.

One way to ensure your interviews will be effective is to incorporate scientifically validated personality tests into the hiring process. This is helpful because interviews, especially when they aren’t structured, are subject to bias and therefore are not very accurate in identifying the best candidates. Using personality tests prior to interviews can help you minimize interviewer bias, target your interview questions to explore candidates’ potential strengths and shortcomings as related to the role, avoid hiring ineffective but charismatic candidates, and even predict which candidates are most likely to be engaged in your organisation.

Put in the Work

Although the methods you use to find qualified job candidates may differ based on the industry you’re working in, the fundamental idea is the same: provide the candidate with detailed information about the role and ask pointed, guiding questions to learn more about them. While these may seem obvious, they’re among many common hiring mistakes that run the risk of scaring off top talent and ineffectively weeding out unqualified candidates.

Contact us for more information Learn about the Hogan 360

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Combing through an applicant’s résumé is key in gathering an understanding of their work history, contributions, and specific skills. In addition to revealing professional assets, résumés can also reveal warning signs. While there are many potential red flags on a résumé, we’ve chosen the top five you should know.

What Are the Top Résumé Red Flags?

1. Grammatical Errors and Spelling Mistakes

As shocking as it may seem, it’s estimated that more than 50% of adults struggle with spelling even simple words. That means one of the most identifiable red flags that can be found on a résumé is the presence of spelling mistakes or simple grammatical errors. Did the applicant spell the name of a previous employer incorrectly? Has punctuation been misused? Are words capitalised incorrectly?

Mistakes happen, but these kinds of errors can suggest the candidate typed up the résumé hastily and didn’t take time to proofread it to ensure quality.

2. Gaps in Employment History

Another important — and easily spotted — red flag is a gap between jobs on a résumé. A few weeks? It could simply mean they took time off before starting their new role. A few months? It’s worth inquiring about what led to that period away from work. A year-plus? That’s a large amount of time that, unless otherwise explained, should be seen as a legitimate red flag, because it may indicate a detachment from the pulse of the industry.

3. Job-Hopping

Short of contract work, which is becoming more common, employers expect to retain employees for more than a brief stint. While it’s not unlikely or unacceptable to make changes to your career path and job in order to find a more appropriate fit for your skills, a pattern of job-hopping is a red flag. Has the employee spent less than two years at multiple organisations back-to-back? Depending on the industry, that may indicate a lack of commitment. Considering the cost of onboarding a new hire, it’s in your best interest to choose a candidate who will stay long-term.

4. Inconsistent Information Compared to Other Sources

Résumés are no longer the only source of employment history available to the HR professional. Social media, and more specifically platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook, are popular places to keep up to date on where someone has worked. As a general rule, it’s advisable to cross-reference a résumé with a candidate’s social media to ensure that the dates, contributions, and other important details match up. To put it in perspective, one study found that 75% of HR managers have found a lie on a résumé before.

5. Embellishment or Résumé Padding

How far back should a résumé go? How many jobs should be on a résumé? What jobs should be included to be industry-relevant? These are subjective questions, to say the least, but they’re important in differentiating a padded résumé from an unpadded résumé. Too few jobs, and an applicant might have a lack of relevant experience. Too many, conversely, may show that the candidate is either making up for a lack of experience with volume or unsure of which roles are most relevant to highlight.

How to Explain Red Flags in a Résumé

To put it plainly, red flags may come up in a résumé for many clear and understandable reasons. Specifically, disruptions related to COVID-19 are extremely common, with hundreds of millions of jobs affected over the course of the pandemic. As a hiring manager or HR specialist, it’s important to factor these nuances in when reviewing someone’s résumé, realizing that life may interrupt career trajectory.

Although certain red flags may point to a need to rule out a candidate, red flags are often just signals that further investigation is needed. Incorporating other evaluation methods into the talent acquisition process can help meet this need. While a résumé can provide an idea of what a candidate has done, well-validated personality tests offer an objective look at who a candidate is — their strengths, weaknesses, values, and unconscious biases. Using personality tests in tandem with a thorough résumé review and a structured interview, it’s even possible to predict how a person is likely to perform in a given role.

Contact us for more information Learn about the Hogan 360

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In order to accomplish this, hiring managers often turn to two elements of an application: the resume and cover letter. While it’s hard to debate the value of a good resume, the cover letter is a far more controversial part of the modern application routine. From an employer perspective, it’s not necessarily helpful in providing accurate insight about the candidate. In fact, 68% of recruiters think cover letters are unimportant. From an applicant perspective, it can be a time-consuming step and slow the overall job search.

If both sides dislike cover letters, then why are they used at all? First, it’s important to understand where cover letters came from and why they may or may not be necessary for talent acquisition.

A Brief History of the Cover Letter

The cover letter is believed to have existed for hundreds of years, with speculation that Leonardo da Vinci wrote the first-ever cover letter in the 1480s when he applied to work for the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza. In it, he described his eagerness to work for the Duke and listed his applicable skills and the ideas that he would implement if hired for the role. You can read the full letter here. Not only did his cover letter get him the job, but it also led him to be commissioned by Sforza to paint The Last Supper.

Although the subject matter of da Vinci’s cover letter may not be relevant to today’s workforce, the structure and talking points he includes are still commonly used. This similar format has been present throughout history in one form or another, and for many, it is weighed as heavily as the resume itself in determining a candidate’s worth.

Should You Require a Cover Letter?

While the cover letter worked for Leonardo da Vinci, how necessary are cover letters in 2022? Due to the unique demands of certain job roles, some hiring managers may find them to remain a necessary part of the hiring process. But for most, they’re not needed.

Cover letters are often a barrier for even talented applicants who are legitimately interested in a certain role because of the time and effort they require. Standing out in a competitive job market requires removing as many barriers as possible to allow the prospective employee to apply quickly and easily.

The best litmus test is to consider the job seeker’s perspective: if you were to find similar open roles at two different companies, would you take the time to apply to the one that requires a cover letter or one that does not?

The Alternative

In the absence of a cover letter, how can you measure a candidate’s likelihood of success? The most proven method is through scientifically valid personality tests. Simple to administer and easy to complete for the candidate, personality tests can make the hiring process more efficient and more effective.

By reducing the likelihood of bias and the potential for human error, personality tests make the hiring process more objective and improve the odds of making a successful hire. A well-validated personality test can give hiring managers insight as to how a candidate is likely to perform on an everyday basis — for example, how they will be likely to interact with others or how they will approach organisational and personal objectives.

Cover letters have served their purpose in the workplace for hundreds of years, offering applicants the opportunity to elaborate on their unique skill set beyond the limitations of a resume. However, in today’s fast-paced and competitive hiring landscape, more refined solutions for talent acquisition exist that yield better results, making cover letters a thing of the past.

Contact us for more information Learn about the Hogan 360

The post New Year, New Hire, Part 2: Are Cover Letters Necessary in 2022? appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

The category for Jeopardy! is Bias in Hiring. Your clue: the talent acquisition process that led to Mike Richards being named as the new Jeopardy! host may have been influenced by this psychological phenomenon.¹

If you answered “what is unconscious bias?” you are spot-on.¹ Of course, unconscious bias can be hard to prove, but there must be some explanation for Sony to have chosen an internal candidate with a documented history of racist, sexist, and offensive comments, despite a diverse hiring pool that included Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, Reading Rainbow’s LeVar Burton, and Big Bang Theory’s Mayim Bialik, PhD.¹ While the exact cause of the Jeopardy! hiring debacle will likely remain a mystery, this high-profile example of a subpar internal candidate winning out over more qualified ones presents a good opportunity to examine bias in hiring, specifically unconscious bias.

What is unconscious bias?
We all have unconscious biases because we are all driven by values.Values are part of the human condition.They define our identities, our goals, and our decision-making processes. Our values come from our environment and are consistently reinforced by our family, neighbourhood, school, peer group, and larger culture, often without us realising it.² These values powerfully shape the way we work, play, and manage relationships.² So, what is unconscious bias? Unconscious bias occurs when we project our values onto others and therefore hold them to unfair (and often unknowable) standards.² These inclinations affect how we handle conflict, what type of behaviour we reward or punish, our ability to form and maintain a cohesive team, and yes, who we hire and promote.²

The perils of unconscious bias
People who make hiring decisions based on their unconscious biases unsurprisingly tend to hire candidates who closely match their own values.² Furthermore, leaders who mold work environments according to their unconscious biases will probably make employees with dissimilar values feel silenced and underappreciated, leading to disengagement and turnover.²

Enron, a company responsible for one of the largest bankruptcies and audit failures of all time, is a clear example of what happens when leaders are led by their unconscious biases.² When Jeffrey Skilling took over the company as CEO, his disposition toward risky behaviour in the name of competition and big rewards became the company’s prevailing ethos.² He hired candidates who pandered to this approach and terminated those who didn’t.² Considering Enron’s fate, this approach was clearly mistaken. If there was ever an office that needed a dissenting opinion, it was his. This brings us to our next peril of unconscious bias …

Your clue: a cursory glance around the office can sometimes (not always) diagnose this organisational deficiency related to unconscious bias in hiring.

If you answered, “what is a lack of diversity?” you are spot-on. Sustained diversity in race, ethnicity, gender identity, disability, and age is an outward sign of an employer’s efforts to reduce bias in hiring. In many societies around the world, diversity and inclusion are not naturally self-sustaining and must be continually nurtured.³ Employers in the United States, for example, have to contend with the fact that women are dropping out of the workforce en masse because of issues related to childcare and pay inequality.⁴ Meanwhile, people of colour say they prefer remote work because it helps them avoid in-office microaggressions, and people with disabilities prefer it for more easily navigating accessibility issues.⁵

Workplace diversity goals
Although no cure-all exists for diversity and inclusion efforts, using well-validated personality tests during the talent acquisition process can promote fairness in selection and create a foundation for a more inclusive workplace.⁶ Our research shows that personality is a strong predictor of job performance, but there are no meaningful subgroup differences across members of protected classes.⁶ In other words, well-validated personality tests don’t discriminate based on race, gender, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability status.⁶ As a result, personality can help level the playing field so organisations can hire the best talent without discriminating against any group.⁶

Employers should treat fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace as a daily goal. As a committee in apartheid South Africa once concluded when comparing integrated and nonintegrated colleges: “Diversity contributes to the discovery of truth, for truth is hammered out in discussion, in the clash of ideas.”⁷ Indeed, diversity holds the same strategic importance in the business world — organisations with more diversity and inclusion practices tend to have fewer gaps in knowledge, absenteeism, and turnover, but better organisational innovation and performance.⁶ This is why it’s not enough to control bias in hiring; it’s also critical for leaders to make sure their unconscious biases do not undercut an inclusive atmosphere.

Workplace inclusion goals
An inclusive workplace makes people feel safe, valued, and fully engaged. It provides an atmosphere where they can be fully themselves in ways that recognise and appreciate their full range of social identities.⁶

Leaders who want to foster inclusive work environments can incorporate personality tests into their talent acquisition and development strategies to ensure they select and promote people whose behaviors will be inclusive. People who take personality tests such as Hogan’s Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory, or MVPI, can get insight into their peer and lifestyle preferences, their aversions, and their beliefs. These characteristics greatly influence the type of work environment they will create.² When leaders become aware of their core values and motivations, they can manage their biases to make more informed personnel decisions.² Personality data can be useful in making these decisions because it ensures that the final hire is the person most competent for the role and not someone who appeals to the hiring manager’s biases.²

Contrary to popular misconception, using personality for talent acquisition does not create a workforce of people who have the same personality profile, even when creating a more inclusive organisational culture is the goal.³ Selection profiles are usually specific for each job and change across jobs.³ Furthermore, personality profiles for a particular job typically only screen for a few personality characteristics that are key to success in the role.³ Other personality characteristics likely will vary substantially among people within the same role.³ Using personality data in hiring decisions, employers can trust that they’re hiring people whose personalities are alike in ways that will positively impact their job performance but who will be unique in their other qualities and behaviours.

Practical tips
Rooting out unconscious bias from talent management processes will help organisations thrive and avoid hiring ineffective candidates. So, what are some practical recommendations for employers to limit the effects of unconscious bias in the workplace? First, use personality tests in talent acquisition to improve diversity in hiring. Second, use well-validated personality tests to assess and develop leaders who will foster an inclusive work environment. Third, provide development feedback to employees to enhance their awareness of their people skills, their shortcomings, and their core values and unconscious biases. And finally, understand that while these strategies can help you progress toward creating more objective talent acquisition and development processes and a healthy organisational culture, they should be part (not all) of a comprehensive diversity and inclusion program.

For over 30 years, Peter Berry Consultancy (PBC) has been using an evidence-based approach to candidate selection and development to ensure success for its client organisations. To learn more, contact us.

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