By Ron Price

Hiring has become more important than ever. Today we are not simply filling a job, but instead asking people to balance complexity and deal with ever-present change. We are not only looking for someone who is going to fit into the job today, but also grow into additional roles in the future, due to the pace of change in the world.

Today’s workplace dynamic of low unemployment and increased worker mobility has resulted in employees who no longer feel loyalty to a company because companies are no longer loyal to them.

This changing landscape can seem like a threat to hiring, but I prefer to see it as an opportunity. It is a chance to hire in a new way.

In our work with companies, we have been using a scientifically based and constantly evolving hiring tool for over 15 years that helps our clients understand the demands of the job and how it compares to the candidate. We call it matching talent to the job.

Here is how it works: Before we start looking at the candidates, we evaluate the job. We ask, what would this job tell us if it could talk? What would indicate superior performance in the job?

There are four areas we evaluate:

1. Key Relationships. What are the key relationships the person in this job will need to sustain? This includes connections with peers, managers and subordinates. We also ask if this person should have relationships with people outside of the company. Perhaps vendors, partners or others?
2. Key Activities. Next we ask, what are the key activities that need to be carried out in this job for superior performance? Maybe it’s planning and organizing, maybe analytical work, or holding productive meetings. It can be a number of factors.
3. Key Traits. The third consideration is the traits needed for the job. Which traits would guarantee success and make the candidate a natural fit? These can be either character or personality traits. Perhaps the candidate must be a self-starter or naturally analytical, or someone with great charisma.
4. Key Skills. The last area is defining the skills that are necessary for the job. Here we are considering technical skills, those that you learn, such as chemistry, accounting, persuasion, negotiating or listening.

Our hiring tool, which was created by TTI Success Insights, helps us create a blueprint for these four areas. It allows us to understand what kind of judgment patterns, traits, and behaviors we are looking for in a candidate. We end up with a blueprint for the job that features 61 different metrics outlining superior performance. This insight allows clients to see the job in a way they have never seen it before.

Then we move into assessing the candidate, through a combined series of sciences defined and measured by TTI Success Insights tools. We are able to determine their natural tendencies, their knee-jerk response to a situation, and how well their skills and behaviors fit with what is needed for the job.

We also consider what they are expecting from the job that will be meaningful to them. For some people it’s the work environment or the culture, for others it is how they can make a difference, for yet others it is opportunities to win, and for some it is their desire to validate a system of principles by which they live their life and work.

We then measure how well the job is going to both fit and fulfill them. We can predict with a high degree of success how engagement, retention, performance and fulfillment levels will play out.

We ultimately end up with a parallel set of scores that tell us how well the person will perform in the job.

Over the years, this method has proven to be roughly 80% successful in predicting superior performance. The other 20% is based on a person’s past experience and performance, which can be discovered through resume, checking references and the interview process. We give only 20% of the job’s weight to these factors because statistics show that 50% of resumes contain some inaccuracy.

This system, tools and methodology can be used for any job anywhere. It’s about the art of hiring, not just the science of hiring.