Candidates are Like Icebergs

In a recent HC Online article on Best Practice Recruitment the analogy of a candidate as an iceberg was used. What you see or can glean from resume and interview is possibly only 10% of the total picture.

I was intrigued by this comparison (in fact, it was made by one of my employees), but on reflection am convinced that this is true. But if the candidate represents an iceberg, does that make the employer a modern-day Titanic?

First the iceberg. It is completely understandable that traditional recruitment methods may reveal only a very small part of the relevant information about any applicant.

Take the resume for a start. Many are embellished, and at best, they only tell you about past jobs, not performance. References? If a candidate can’t find two or three people to say nice things, they’re really in trouble. And the interview? By definition, this is a person on their best behaviour. How long will that last? Will the person who arrives for on-boarding be the same individual? Do we react in interviews by favouring those who seem most like ourselves?

But the bigger risk is to the ship cruising these waters. A bad hiring decision could cause immense damage to the hiring organisation over an extended period of time. Will the new hire have the ability to do the job, to ‘get it’? Will they come to work? Will they be a “Planker”?

Ultimately there are two ways to find out. One is the much vaunted ‘gut instinct’ school, which may amount to hire and hope. The alternative, as outlined by HC Online, is to adopt best practice and assess your candidates using psychometric tests so you can find out as much as possible about what lies beneath their surface.

Watch out for those icebergs!

About this Post

This post was originally published by Onetests' CEO on our HR and psychometric testing blog.

Onetest Australia - www.onetest.com.au

Onetest UK - www.onetestexpress.co.uk

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Comment by Salih Mujcic on March 14, 2012 at 2:38am: Hi Maisha,

Studies of psychometric assessments across the world, and particularly in the USA, have found psychometric assessments to be the most accurate tools of predicting success in a role. These tools only come second to actually having the person come in and perform the role itself.

The number of studies we're talking about is copious and the sample sizes used to test the effectiveness of psychometric assessments range from thousands to hundreds of thousands. The evidence is fairly unequivocal in supporting the use of psychometric assessment in recruitment and selection processes and talent identification.

If you were interested in looking at information on this topic there is a short synopsis here: http://www.onetest.com.au/home/Psychometric-Tests that details one of the most cited studies within the field, the Schmidt and Hunter (1998) meta-analysis.

Comment by Ben McGrath on March 14, 2012 at 6:25pm: Salih,

I respect your fondness of psychometric testing and generally agree with the studies on the subject.

However, I hope that hiring authorities do not put all their stock in these test results. They are beatable and can be misleading at times.

All the best,

Ben

Comment by Salih Mujcic on March 14, 2012 at 6:52pm: Hi Ben,

As with everything (resumes, interviews etc) there is always going to be a level of embellishment or error, whether intended or not. Candidates gaming assessments is a very valid concern and fortunately the community has rallied to put in place multiple hurdles to reduce this type of behavior.

You are right though, any respectable practitioner would advocate that psychometric assessment is only one part of the puzzle. Using these assessments in isolation with no context or any other information is dangerous and not advised.

Salih