Filed under: Assessments, iApplicantsTracking, Management Skills, Skills Testing & FAQs | Tags: Assessing Skill Level, Hiring Top Performers, HR Systems, Job Fit, New World of Hiring, On-line Hiring Systems, On-line HR tracking systems, Sales People that can sell, Save time and money, Smart Hiring, Top Performers
“In looking for someone to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. But the most important is integrity, because if they don’t have that, the other two qualities, intelligence and energy, are going to kill you.”
He went on to summarize his lesson: “When you hire someone to run your business, you are entrusting him or her with the piggy bank. If these people are smart and hardworking, they are going to make you a lot of money, but it they aren’t honest, they will find lots of clever ways to make all your money theirs.”
Consider these facts:
In retail: Employee theft is estimated to be responsible for 47% of store inventory shrinkage.That ’s over 17 billion dollars per year! Employee dishonesty is the greatest single threat to profitability at the store level.
It’s not all money and goods: A recent national survey found that 59 percent of employees who quit or were laid off or terminated in the last 12 months admitted to stealing company data, and 67 percent admitted to using their former employer’s confidential information to find a new job.
Banks and Credit Unions: The banking industry reports losses of over one billion dollars annually because of employee theft, greater than the amount taken in bank robberies many times over.
Lots of ways to do it: Faking on-the-job injuries for compensation, taking merchandise, stealing small sums of cash, forging or destroying receipts, shipping and billing scams, putting fictitious employees on payroll, and falsifying expense records.
Across business types: Security experts predict that up to 30 percent of the nation’s workers will steal at some time in their career. Difficult economic times, lack of salary increases and the threats of downsizing and cutbacks make it even more tempting for employees to help themselves.
This threatens your existence! It is not unusual for a small business to be bankrupted by one employee’s theft . The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners reports that small businesses suffered a median loss of $100,000!
You just won’t know: On average, it takes 18 months for an employer to catch an employee who is stealing.
How can you protect your business?
As devastating as these possible losses are, two simple and inexpensive processes, inserted in your hiring system, can dramatically reduce the possibility that you will experience them:
Perform background checks before you hire. While background checking is far from flawless, it’s a valuable tool to learn about past problems and possible risks–and it doesn’t cost much!
Use an honesty-integrity assessment. A valid, predictive honesty-integrity assessment will help you avoid hiring someone likely to cause you this kind of problem–again, it doesn’t cost much!
Combine these two tools to help protect yourself from mostly preventable business disasters!
To learn more about using background checking and honesty-integrity assessments in your hiring process: Contact JLSeibly@gmail.com. We’ll show you the tools, explain the low costs and high benefits, show you real-life examples of how they work, and arrange a demonstration, if you like!
Written by John W. Howard, PhD
Contact us for further information:
- For a brief description of all our systems and tools, click here.
- For a flash demo of our simple and affordable online hiring and recruiting solution, click here.
- For a flash demo of our online performance management system, click here.
- For information on our simple, affordable online HRIS, click here.
- Or, for more information and a custom solution for your business, call or email!
Filed under: Assessments, Management Skills | Tags: Assessing Skill Level, Job Fit, New World of Hiring, Sales People that can sell, Skills Testing, Smart Hiring, Top Performers
A business owner recently made a typical statement about whether or not a candidate possessed the required core values for a job. “I’ll simply ask her if she has integrity, work ethic, and reliability, and if she does drugs. Then, I won’t need to use an assessment!”
Huh? Over 71% of people lie in their interviews and on their resumes. Why would this person be the exception?
Scientifically validated assessments have been a continuing debate for several decades. It can be difficult to discern from among offerings of over 3,000 publishers, which tools are available and to understand their inherit differences. The issue here is that thousands of test publishers do not go to the expense and trouble to validate and test for discriminatory impact. This shortfall is compounded by the hundreds of thousands of users who don’t follow assessment directions accurately.
The following are key points to consider when selecting the right tools required to hire the right person.
Not all assessments are created equal. Using the wrong tool, or no tool at all, is like tossing the dice and hoping for the best. Some tools are incredibility accurate, while others are simply fun to use in a seminar type setting. The problem is we often don’t understand the difference, and end up inappropriately choosing the fun ones for hiring purposes. Legally, you need to use the tool that has a window of predictive validity of more than several months.
One assessment can not address everything. There are different types of assessments; each validates specific areas:
- Skills Tests – measure actual competency within a particular skill set
- Core Values Assessments – gauge integrity, work ethic, reliability and attitude towards substance abuse.
- Job Fit Assessments – ascertain a candidate’s ability and commitment to get the job done in the manner you desire.
Passing one of these does not mean the applicant possesses everything else required to best fill the position. For example: although applicants have successfully completed skills and core values assessments, they may not have the interest, thinking style or core behavior to do the work. The reality is, the candidates may not have the willingness to do a good job – although, they may have the skills. Measuring these key factors is the purpose of job fit tools.
Assessments help you find and hire the qualified people. Using an interview process alone is only successful in one of eight hires! When you employ an objective process and hire the right person, it will make a significant difference in your own success, and your company’s bottom line.
How do you find and select the right assessments?
Insist on having the Technical Manual. It will describe precisely how the assessment has been validated, and how it has been tested for discrimination. It will also provide further information about study size, validation and reliability processes – important determinants. Predictive validity is the key! Are the results valid for a few months or five years? If the provider is unable or unwilling to provide a Technical Manual, move on to another provider.
Review key determinants. The Department of Labor offers a publication on use and selection of assessment tools. They list 13 key determinants of whether an assessment is appropriate, and its proper use. Contact me for a copy of this publication. JLSeibly@gmail.com
Still in doubt? Ask the provider for a copy of their attorney’s legal opinion. Many sales people will tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to know. Get the company’s legal counsel to provide a written outline of how the tool works and how it can be used. Have your own attorney review for clarification.
Employers need to hire the right people the first time to turn their companies into profitable ventures. It makes good business sense to ensure successful hiring practices. Contact me today to discuss how you can use scientifically validated assessments to improve your hiring success. JLSeibly@gmail.com
©Jeannette Seibly, 2010
Filed under: Assessments, Management Skills | Tags: Assessing Skill Level, Skills Testing
Wouldn’t you rather know for sure?
The resume says they’re “proficient’ in MS Office, and “expert” in your specific professional field…wouldn’t it be nice, for about what an hour of their time, to know before you hire?
Would you take several thousand dollars of your company’s money, and place it on the line with only a one in eight chance of winning?
Probably not.
But that’s exactly what you do every time you hire someone based on their resume and an interview … statistics show that you have only about a 1 in 8 chance of getting a good long-term employee with that conventional approach.
The solution: Test for skills before you hire!
We offer over 1,000 validated, job-specific skills tests, internet delivered and user friendly, with prices that start at $25 and go down!
Click here for Lists of Skills & FAQs
Filed under: Assessments, iApplicantsTracking, Management Skills | Tags: Job Fit, New World of Hiring, Sales People that can sell, Smart Hiring, Top Performers
Selecting sales candidates who can actually sell is a huge challenge for any employer. Even if they sold the same or similar products or services for your competitor, it doesn’t mean they can adequately sell for you.
Many times future employers are “sold” or mis-led about an applicant’s sales abilities when:
- They have very good verbal skills (does not mean they have the personality and/or interests to deliver the results);
- They appear to be good team players (many good sales people are not); or
- They are able to sell themselves (does not mean they can sell your products or services).
The following interview metrics do not eliminate the need to use valid and objective assessments that actually (and legally) measure your candidates’ true sales capabilities (think, learning style, core behaviors and occupational interests). These questions simply provide you additional information to ensure you’re getting a true sales person, and not a “marketing-type person” who relies upon others to sell and close the deal. Your sales people create your company’s reputation, now and in the future.
- What was your candidate’s quota for his last employer(s) – did s/he hit it?
- What was the average size deal? (Dollars and re-sales)
- Did s/he make President’s club or receive other industry recognized “acknowledgement.”
- Does s/he have inside vs. outside sales experience? Which did they prefer? Why?
- What were the number of cold calls, conversations, presentations, etc that s/he made daily and weekly?
- What was his or her close ratio? (How many presentations vs. number of actual sales?)
- Where did his or her leads come from – were they generated by the person or were they given to them by others in the company?
- What were his or her day-to-day activities, including time at the desk and time in front of the potential customer? Or, in front of current customers, up-selling or cross-selling?
- What formal sales training has s/he had?
- What tracking system did they use to keep stats on lead generation, lead conversion, and repeat business?
- Do they plan their work and work their plan, effectively? How do they know?
- If they were to describe a sales person, what words would they use? (Remember, you’re looking for the positive attributes, not the age old “snake oil” descriptors.)
- If they were to use one word to describe his/her customer’s experience of working with him/her, what would that word be?
© Jeannette L. Seibly and John W. Howard, 2008
Jeannette Seibly, Principal of SeibCo, is a nationally recognized coach, who has helped 1000′s of people achieve unprecedented results. She has created three millionaires. You can contact her: JLSeibly@gmail.com OR http://SeibCo.com Jeannette is also the author of “Hiring Amazing Employees.”
John W. Howard, Ph.D., owner of Performance Resources, Inc. helps businesses of all sizes increase their profits by reducing their people costs. His clients hire better, fire less, manage better, and keep their top performers. He may be reached at 435.654-5342, OR JWH@prol.ws
The economy is improving, and your need to hire people that fit your job will increase. Traditional methods of hiring do not work, and have become costly in more ways than you can calculate. Now is the time to improve your hiring system, before you need to hire.
1) Get real about the cost of turnover. Calculate it! Write it down! This information will be critical in determining what you need to do.
2) Use valid pre-hire assessments that meet legal requirements. This includes core value assessments (interviewers will catch a lie only about 14% of the time) and job fit assessments, to assess thinking style, core behaviors and occupational motivation/interests.
3) Train your interviewers. We all have unconscious biases that we bring to the interview process. Successful job seekers know how to conform to those (the chameleon effect). Structure the interview format, and use questions obtained from the assessments to get the right person for the right job.
(c)Jeannette Seibly, 2010
Filed under: Management Skills
Recently, I talked with a business owner who simply wanted people to show up and do their work. “I know what needs to be done; they simply need to do what I tell them to do.” While this type of mindset worked decades ago, it will never create the loyalty (or level of performance) you wish to build.
1) They may have the answers. Put aside your automatic judgment that it can’t work and create five reasons why it could work.
2) Listen to both sides. When you authentically brainstorm new ideas, processes and procedures, you will come up with out-of-the-box solutions to age-old problems.
3) Open your mind to new possibilities. The way it has always been done will not work today. What can you add gradually, or fade out? Or, what needs a major overhaul. Start doing it now.
(c)Jeannette Seibly, 2010
