Selection Assessment
Nearly half of all new employees fail within the first 18 months, according to research conducted by Leadership IQ.
The reasons included:
- 26% failed to accept feedback
- 23% showed an inability to understand and manage their emotions
- 17% lacked motivation
- 15% displayed personality characteristics incongruent with the job
- Only 11% lacked necessary technical skills
Choosing the wrong candidate can have a devastating impact on an organization and its people. The costs to organizations are widespread and can have far-reaching consequences.
Possible costs of a bad hire:
- Up to multiple times the salary of the candidate
- Onboarding and training costs
- Productivity drain when projects are interrupted
- The negative impact of their poor decisions
- Lowered morale for the rest of the team
- Reputational risk due to dissatisfied customers
- Possible legal costs from defending unlawful termination or discrimination claims
- Missed opportunities by passing over the right person
Hiring managers may think they know good talent when the see it, but the research would disagree. Even when structured behavior-based interviews are used, the standard tools and approaches to selection run the risk of missing candidates’ skills gaps and hidden derailers that interfere with performance. References only reveal how people performed in the past and do not easily translate to future challenges in different or bigger roles.
Organizational psychologists have expertise to highlight what lies beneath the surface by:
- Identifying how candidates will behave after the “honeymoon period” is over.
- Utilizing multiple tools to measure personality, motivation, and problem-solving capabilities.
- Providing organizations with more and better information about candidates’ strengths and limitations.
- Giving hiring managers insight into how to best set up new hires to succeed.
Thus, assessment is one investment with multiple returns. In addition, assessment results can be aggregated across multiple people to yield themes that can give managers or senior leaders insight about how to optimize performance within teams or the entire organization.
I have 25 years of experience in using organizational psychology to help make wise hiring decisions. Please contact me for more information.
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