As we saw in the previous articles of this mini-series, common methods of hiring staff are not sufficient. Pre-screening had a validity of only 18 % and personal interviews ranged von 5-25 % validity, while structured interviews allowed a validity of 30-40%. That means that in best case scenario, the decision whom to hire will be probably wrong in 60 – 70%.
In order to overcome this roadblock, psychology departments around the world have researched supporting measures to increase this number.
As this article is focusing on small and medium companies, I am limiting myself to solutions which can actually be used by small and medium companies for a reasonable price.
The solutions which should be added to your hiring process are part of the psychological diagnostics psychometrical assessments. Here, important variables of the human mind, important for fitting into a company, are researched and metrized. Metrizing means making non-countable things countable. For example the ability to be open for change or the ability to bear a lot of stress. These important variables of the human mind are being tested with scientifically validated tests. These tests differ from normal tests you do at Facebook (“which city am I”, “which character of Sex and the city am I”). Years of research are needed to create these tests, to make sure that they measure what they actually pretend to measure.
Out of these psychometrical assessments, three classes of tests can support your hiring process significantly with a combined validity of up to 80%!
Three classes of tests which let you science hack the hiring process
- Intelligence tests
- Personality tests
- Motivational- and interest tests
Research showed that testing the intelligence of your applicants in combination with personality tests and motivational tests help to determine the potential fit of your employee significantly. As research showed it can increase the validity of your hiring process to up to 80%. That is quite a jump from 5%-25% validity by just using personal interviews.
How to get these tests?
A licensed psychologist, focusing of psychological assessment, will know which personality or intelligence test to use and what motivational test to add. He/she will be able to conduct these tests with the applicant, and evaluate the results. The testing can be done either in person or also fully remote. The timely effort for the applicant, can be as low as 2-3 hours. And the cost is fully reasonable. I would advise not to use tests which are not scientifically validated or “based on ..”. Although they might have flashy websites, the test might not test what it pretends to test. And then you are back to your 5-25%.
I hope that this mini-series could shed some light on how to use sciene-hacks to improve your hiring process.
Goldblum consulting has its own digital test center offering small and medium companies the ability to add psychometrics (personality tests, intelligence tests, motivational tests) in multiple languages to their hiring process.