Hire for personality and meet the people behind the CVs

For too long businesses have relied on limited information on a candidate’s CV, or their own gut feel from interviews to make hiring decisions. This can work out well. But most often leads to costly mistakes, wasting not just a business’ time, but the candidate’s too, by forcing both parties into a situation which doesn’t work.

The average cost of hiring a new employee is £3,000 in the UK – so many businesses cannot afford to get recruitment wrong. But when looking at the traditional CV, the most important asset to an employer – a candidate’s personality – is not evaluated until the final interview stage, or even considered at all – it can be easy to make the wrong hiring decision.

A candidate’s personality is a critical indicator for hiring managers for determining how well someone will fit into a role, and reveal their true potential. And it must be considered as an important factor for all hires if any new employee is to succeed.

Looking beyond the CV

Looking beyond the CV means one thing. You hire based on impact, rather than one’s ability. While CVs provide hiring managers with past experiences, hobbies and education, what they don’t show is how well candidates deal with pressure or confrontation. Whether they are highly-driven individuals with self-motivation or if they are well suited to gel with the rest of the team. All factors that sit under the personality umbrella. 

Personality is one of the most powerful indicators of workplace success. The better the fit of a candidate, the greater the benefit to the overall business – a more engaged worker and workforce, less staff turnover and greater job satisfaction on an individual level. 

By getting recruitment wrong and looking only at the CV, not only will businesses have a more unproductive workforce, but they will have to spend even more money hiring a replacement and more time finding another candidate – which might also not work out. Essentially they will be back to square one, with a position still to fill.

So, to hire successfully and measure personality, hiring managers need to have the right tools in place. 

How to prevent a bad hire

Psychometric assessments, such as personality tests, provide hiring managers with a deeper insight into the traits that drive the way people work. This includes things like goal setting, coping with stress, handling change, creativity, risk and competition. 

This insight helps hiring managers triangulate the best-fit between candidates, role and company culture. Knowledge of each trait leads to better understanding of an individual’s unique underlying characteristics and how that person works and interacts with those around them.

It also prevents wasting valuable time on job interviews with candidates that are not the right match and increases the chances of hiring right the first time round. From the candidate’s point of view, it also means they can get a better understanding of the company they are applying to and help them decide whether or not they will fit into the company’s culture.

Recruiting the best talent is never an easy process. There are so many things to consider when selecting the best and brightest person for a team. But one thing that is clear – any hire will not be successful if they are solely hired based on a CV. 

By harnessing psychometric tools, hiring managers will not need to worry about which university a candidate attended. They can hire based on impact and put new found confidence in their new hires.

Sabby Gill, CEO of Thomas