Fermion

The Hidden Cost of Letting AI Decide Who Gets Hired

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 03:35:21 GMT

Where AI helps and where it quietly undermines your decisions

There is often a moment when a hiring decision does not quite sit right. It might happen after the interview when something feels slightly off, or months later when performance is not where it should be and engagement begins to drift. What makes these moments interesting is not just the outcome, but how often they trace back to decisions that felt logical at the time yet were shaped more by emotion than reason.

That tension is becoming more pronounced as artificial intelligence takes a more prominent role in recruitment . On the surface, the promise is compelling. Faster screening, lower costs and the ability to process large volumes of candidates with apparent objectivity. It feels efficient, even reassuring.

But candidates do not experience it that way.

Before a person ever joins your organisation, they are already forming a view of it. The process itself becomes the first signal of what it might be like to work there. When that process is entirely automated, impersonal and distant, it sends a message whether intended or not. It suggests that people may not matter as much as efficiency, that interaction is secondary to process, and that human judgment has been replaced by systems.

That interpretation matters because every role, regardless of how technical or operational it appears, exists within a social context. People work with others, respond to leadership and form emotional connections to their colleagues. When those elements are overlooked at the very beginning, it is not surprising that motivation and engagement suffer later.

At the same time, many organisations continue to absorb the cost of poor hiring decisions without ever truly seeing them. There is no invoice for a misaligned hire, no clear line item that captures the gradual erosion of team performance, the additional management time or the quiet impact on culture. Yet those costs accumulate, often far exceeding the perceived savings gained from automation.

This is where the conversation about AI in recruitment needs to become more grounded. Used well, it can improve efficiency in the early stages, particularly in screening and shortlisting. It can help reduce administrative burden and allow hiring managers to focus their time where it matters most.

Used poorly, it simply accelerates flawed decision making.

The effectiveness of any AI system is entirely dependent on what it has been trained to recognise and prioritise. If the underlying model of what good hiring looks like is incomplete or biased, the technology will reinforce those same issues at scale.

There is also a broader risk that often goes unacknowledged. When decisions are made without human interaction, accountability becomes less visible. It is easier to trust the output of a system than to question it, even when the outcome does not feel right. That instinct to question is important. It is often the first indication that something in the process needs attention.

The most effective hiring approaches tend to strike a balance. They use technology where it adds value, but they retain meaningful human interaction at critical points. They recognise that while data can inform decisions, it cannot replace the nuance of human judgment or the importance of connection.

Ultimately, hiring is not just a process to be optimised. It is a decision that shapes culture, performance and the future direction of a business. When that decision is reduced to a purely mechanical exercise, the consequences are rarely immediate, but they are almost always significant.

The focus of Fermion is "Psychometric Testing for Recruitment" and “Recruitment to Retention: How to Select Good Staff & Keep Them” . If you would like to learn how to select good staff and keep them, please contact us at Fermion.

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Internal vs External Candidates

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 06:28:30 GMT

Why the most compelling candidate is not always the safest bet

When a strong internal candidate is considered alongside a strong external candidate, the decision often leans toward the outsider, and while the reasoning behind that choice usually sounds measured and logical, the underlying driver is often something far less deliberate.

Most decisions start with a feeling, a sense that one person appears more compelling, more impressive, or somehow better suited to the role. It is only after that initial impression has taken hold that we begin to assemble the rationale that supports it, i.e., confirmation bias .

In that thought process, the external candidate holds an advantage. They arrive without history and that allows their story to feel clean and coherent. Their referees, selected with care, tend to reinforce the same narrative, and over the course of the process, a consistent and appealing picture forms that is easy to believe and difficult to challenge, even if the evidence beneath it is relatively narrow.

The internal candidate, by contrast, is seen in full. They are not a collection of highlights like a CV but are a known quantity within the organisation. This means their strengths are well understood but so are their missteps, their habits, and the moments where they fell short. People have seen how they operate under pressure, how they respond when things are uncertain, and how they influence others over time, and while this should create confidence, it often has the opposite effect.

Familiarity has a way of softening perceived potential. What is known feels less exciting than what is imagined, and the presence of visible flaws can weigh more heavily than a consistent record of performance. As a result, the internal candidate can appear less compelling, not because they are weaker, but because they are fully understood.

Internal candidates bring a depth of evidence that is difficult to replicate through any selection process. Their judgment has been observed across different situations, their integrity has been tested in real contexts, and their leadership impact has been experienced over time rather than inferred from short interactions. This kind of information is rarely perfect, but it is grounded in reality.

External candidates are assessed through a much narrower lens, where a resume, a series of conversations, and carefully managed references combine to create a picture that feels complete, even though it is often based on a limited set of observations. It is not that the picture is misleading, but it is incomplete in ways that are not always obvious at the point of decision.

This helps explain why organisations are sometimes surprised after an external appointment, when the individual who appeared so strong during the process turns out to be more complex or less consistent than expected. The gap is not necessarily a failure of the individual, but a reflection of how little was truly visible during the selection process.

There is also a more practical dimension that tends to receive less attention in these decisions.

Hiring externally brings a level of cost and delay that is easy to underestimate, with time spent attracting candidates, running processes, and onboarding someone who still needs to learn the organisation from the ground up. It can take months before an external hire reaches full effectiveness, during which the role carries an opportunity cost that is rarely measured directly.

An internal hire, on the other hand, starts from a position of context and connection, already understanding how the organisation operates, who the key people are, and how decisions are made. That familiarity shortens the path to impact and reduces the uncertainty that often accompanies external appointments.

It also sends a signal that is difficult to ignore. When organisations consistently look outside for their next leaders, employees begin to question whether opportunity truly exists within, and over time this erodes engagement, increases turnover, and weakens the very capability the organisation is trying to strengthen.

None of this suggests that external hiring is the wrong choice, but it does suggest that it should be made consciously rather than reflexively. The more important question is whether the decision is grounded in a balanced view of evidence or shaped by an emotional response to what feels new, polished, and full of promise.

We tend to think of hiring as a rational process, yet in practice it is often emotion that sets the direction and logic that follows behind to support it. When that dynamic goes unexamined, it can quietly steer organisations away from the most reliable choice and toward the one that simply felt right at the time.

While not all your hires can happen from within, internal recruiting is a strong component of any robust hiring strategy. Considering your current employees for new positions helps you to cultivate a culture of success that will serve you well in the long run.

Better hiring decisions come from better evidence. Psychometric assessment helps you understand how candidates are likely to perform, not just how they present.

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

The Case for a Pre-Interview Checklist

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 05:39:55 GMT

How to reduce bias and improve outcomes before the first question is asked

The interview is often treated as the decisive moment in hiring; the point where someone is either in or out. From the first moment you see a candidate, judgement begins. Not deliberately, not even consciously, but quickly. Within seconds, impressions form , and once they do, they are difficult to change. That’s where many hiring mistakes begin; not in what is said during the interview, but in how early assumptions quietly steer the conversation.

And yet, the stakes are high. Even a mid-level hire can represent a $100,000+ annual investment, recurrent year after year. Despite that, many organisations approach interviews with less structure than they would a routine operational task.

This is where a simple intervention makes a disproportionate difference: a pre-interview checklist.

Think of it like how pilots prepare before each flight and the goal is consistency in decision-making. For example, one decision to make upfront is whether candidates receive interview questions in advance. There’s no universally correct answer, but it should be a deliberate choice. Providing questions often leads to more considered, higher-quality responses. Withholding them may test spontaneity, but it can also reward confidence over capability. Either way, the panel should decide before the interview begins.

The same applies to your introduction and preamble to the candidate. Something as simple as acknowledging that the process is two-sided and that both parties are assessing their fit for the role. It invites honesty, reduces pretence, and ultimately leads to better information.

My favourite preamble is along the lines of, “I would ask you to be open and honest with your responses and in turn we will be open and honest to you. The recruitment process is a two-way process, and we are learning about you, and you are learning about us. It’s in both of our interests that if you were employed with us that it works out; it’s an important decision for both of us. Does that make sense?” Just be yourself. You don’t have to know all things to all questions and having areas for improvement is okay.”

But perhaps the most critical item on the checklist is this: actively suspend judgement.

It sounds obvious, but it’s rarely done well. Even experienced interviewers are susceptible to confirmation bias and forming an early view, then unconsciously looking for evidence to support it.

In an ideal scenario, the candidates would have already been screened and tested and that way you are only interviewing good candidates, which is easily the best selection process. But, it may also be the case that you are meeting a stranger and the only information you have is what they chose to give you. This is a bad selection process and whilst it will still identify good candidates, it will also identify bad candidates as good. But, regardless of whether the candidate has been screened or not, the panel needs to remind themselves to suspend judgements until the interview is over.

A checklist will reduce bias, and it reminds the panel that the goal isn’t to validate a first impression, but to reach a considered decision. In hiring, as in most complex decisions, structure isn’t a constraint, it’s a safeguard.

Christopher Apps is an Organisational Psychologist and the owner of Fermion. He stays updated on the latest psychology research and shares evidence-based insights. The focus of Fermion is "Psychometric Testing for Recruitment" and “Recruitment to Retention: How to Select Good Staff & Keep Them” . If you would like to learn how to select good staff and keep them, please contact us at Fermion.

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Better Hiring Decisions Means Better Business Results

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 07:14:45 GMT

The overlooked link between hiring decisions and business performance.

Most organisations don’t fall short because their strategy is flawed. On paper, the plan usually makes sense, but often things don’t go as planned and it’s rarely the strategy itself, instead it’s the people responsible for executing it.

It’s an uncomfortable idea, but an important one. You can have the best systems, the most sophisticated tools, and a well-articulated direction, but without the right people in the right roles, none of it translates into results.

The gap between average and exceptional performance is hard to ignore. Top performers don’t just do slightly better than their peers; they create significantly more value and typically between 40% and 67% more.

The problem is that most organisations aren’t set up to consistently identify those people before they hire them. Instead, they rely on the more traditional method of reviewing resumes and then interview and reference checks. This is a weak selection process that identifies good candidates, but also bad candidates as good. Decades of research show that these traditional approaches have very limited ability to predict future job performance.

What’s striking is that improving hiring outcomes doesn’t require a radical reinvention of the process. It requires a shift in emphasis from intuition to evidence .

Organisations that consistently make better hiring decisions tend to follow a more disciplined approach. Rather than relying heavily on interviews upfront, they begin by narrowing the field using objective criteria. Candidates are screened, then assessed using validated tools that measure the attributes most closely linked to success. Only those with the strongest potential progress to structured interviews, where their capabilities can be explored in a more focused and consistent way.

Psychometric assessments play a critical role in this process. Measures of cognitive ability have been shown to be among the most reliable predictors of job performance available. Personality assessments add another layer of insight, helping organisations understand how individuals are likely to behave, respond to feedback, and operate within a team.

Together, these tools provide a far clearer picture of future performance than traditional methods alone. They don’t replace human judgement, but they sharpen it and give hiring managers better information and a stronger foundation for decision-making.

That’s why the most effective hiring decisions focus not just on what a candidate can do today, but on how quickly they can grow into what the role will demand tomorrow. Cognitive ability, motivation, and coachability become far more important in that context than any single technical skill.

When organisations get this balance right, the results are not subtle. They hire people who learn faster, contribute more, and stay longer. In many cases, these individuals generate multiples of the value produced by their peers, progress more quickly into leadership roles, and are far more likely to be recognised as top performers.

There is also a broader benefit that is often overlooked. More structured, evidence-based hiring processes tend to be fairer. By reducing reliance on subjective judgement and increasing consistency, they open the door to a more diverse range of candidates.

All of this points to a simple but often underappreciated conclusion. Hiring is not just an operational activity. It’s one of the most powerful levers an organisation has to influence performance.

Every hiring decision either strengthens or weakens the system. Over time, those decisions compound.

Organisations that treat hiring as a strategic capability by investing in better tools, better processes, and better data put themselves in a position to consistently outperform those that don’t.

Because in the end, strategy sets the direction, but people determine whether you ever get there.

Small Changes, Big Results: The Tiny Tweaks That Transform Recruitment:

The small change that delivers dramatically better hiring decisions is simple:

Screen candidates first
Test second
Interview last

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

The Problem with AI-Optimised Candidates

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 03:20:43 GMT

How to identify real capability in an AI-enhanced hiring market

Generative AI has changed the hiring process, and not just for employers, but also for candidates. Resumes are more polished, cover letters are more compelling, and interview answers are more refined and rehearsed. On the surface, this looks like progress. Candidates are presenting better, applications are clearer and the overall standard appears higher. But beneath that, something important has changed.

Candidates are starting to look the same

AI is trained on what “good” looks like, so it produces variations of the same structure, the same language, and the same examples. What you end up with is a pool of applicants who all present well but are increasingly difficult to differentiate.

This creates a new problem for hiring. Traditionally, recruitment has relied heavily on what candidates choose to present: their resume, their cover letter, and their responses in an interview. Even then, this was a controlled narrative. Candidates selected what to include, what to emphasise, and what to leave out.

Now that narrative can be enhanced, refined, and in some cases generated, by AI. The result is not necessarily misleading, but it is optimised. The signal hasn’t improved; it has just become harder to interpret.

A hiring process that relies heavily on self-reported information becomes less reliable in this environment. You are still making decisions based on what candidates say about themselves and how well they say it, but the gap between presentation and actual capability can be wider than before.

This is where assessments become more important

Assessments shift the focus away from narrative and towards evidence. They do not rely on how well a candidate presents themselves, but instead measure how they think, how they behave, and how they are likely to perform.

They provide insight into areas that are difficult to infer from an application alone, such as how quickly someone can learn new information, what are their dominant personality traits, how emotionally intelligent are they and what are their strengths and areas for improvement. Importantly, assessments introduce information that cannot be easily curated or standardised by AI. Some require real-time problem solving, where candidates must engage, think, and respond in the moment. Others focus on personality and behavioural patterns, where there are no right answers, only alignment with the role.

With assessments, the candidate is no longer presenting an optimised version of themselves; they are demonstrating how they actually operate, and this is the shift as AI becomes more embedded in the hiring process. More candidates will present well, more applications will look strong and more interviews will sound convincing. The surface-level signals that hiring decisions have traditionally relied on will become less useful.

The organisations that adapt will not be the ones that rely more heavily on interviews or more detailed applications. They will be the ones that build processes capable of generating better data.

Better hiring decisions are no longer about asking better questions. They are about measuring the things that cannot be optimised by AI.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Why Your Hiring Process Still Lets the Wrong People Through

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 02:27:21 GMT

Why mishires aren’t random — they’re built into your process

A weak selection process will identify bad candidates as good, whereas a good selection process will identify good candidates as good, and bad candidates as bad. That’s the difference. And it’s a costly one.

The reason poor hiring processes persist is because they don’t fail all the time. They still produce good hires. They still create the impression that the process works, i.e., outcome bias. Over time, that becomes enough. The occasional mishire is accepted as part of the process — an unavoidable cost of doing business.

But it’s not the successful hires that define the quality of your process. It’s the mistakes.

A mishire is expensive for any organisation, but the impact is amplified in small to medium businesses. If you employ 20 people and two of them are underperforming, that’s 10% of your workforce not contributing effectively. That loss is felt in productivity, culture, and time. Larger organisations may absorb this more easily, but that doesn’t make it acceptable — especially when it is preventable.

To understand why this happens, you need to look at the typical or traditional hiring processes involve.

The typical approach begins with reviewing applications, whether by yourself or AI, and selecting candidates who present well on paper. These applications are carefully constructed to highlight strengths and minimise weaknesses, especially the AI ones. From there, candidates are invited to interview, where they present a refined version of themselves, supported by rehearsed answers and selectively chosen examples.

By the time the candidate walks into the room, they have already shaped the narrative. The panel, on the other hand, is meeting a stranger. First impressions form quickly, biases come into play, and decisions are made based on a combination of what the candidate has chosen to share and how they are perceived in the moment.

This process will identify good candidates. But it will also identify some bad candidates as good. And those are the hires that create problems.

A good selection process changes this dynamic. It ensures that by the time you reach the interview, the candidate is no longer a stranger .

Instead of relying on one-sided information, the process introduces structure and data earlier. A brief telephone screen clarifies key requirements, motivation, and expectations. Psychometric testing adds another layer, providing insight into personality, cognitive ability, and behavioural tendencies. Together, this creates a more complete picture of the candidate before the interview even begins.

The interview then becomes something different. It is no longer the primary decision-making tool, but a stage where hypotheses are tested, assumptions are challenged, and deeper insights are explored.

Importantly, this approach does not make hiring more complicated. It simply changes the sequence:

· Screen first,

· Test second,

· Interview last.

The outcome is not just that you continue to identify strong candidates, it’s that you significantly reduce the likelihood of the wrong candidates getting through.

Better hiring decisions are more than spotting talent in an interview, they are also about building a process that prevents costly mistakes before they happen.

About the Author:

Christopher Apps is an Organisational Psychologist and the owner of Fermion. He stays updated on the latest psychology research and shares evidence-based insights. The focus of Fermion is " Psychometric Testing for Recruitment " and “ Recruitment to Retention: How to Select Good Staff & Keep Them ”. If you would like to learn how to select good staff and keep them, please contact us at Fermion.

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

5 Advanced Hiring Strategies

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 02:42:52 GMT

Five practical ways to make recruitment decisions more objective and reliable

Recruitment is one of the most important decisions organisations make, yet the methods commonly used to select staff are surprisingly weak. CVs tell you where someone has been, not what they can do, and interviews are heavily influenced by bias and first impressions. There are much better ways to make hiring decisions.

Avoid Cutting Corners: This is an ever-present problem where people are required to follow a standardised process but over time start cutting corners and this typically increases over time. It is quite common. We train a new client on how to select staff, and they are eager follow the process because it works, but with time, people start cutting corners and eventually you are back to where you started with a hit and miss approach to recruitment.

Include Team Members in Interviews: Where possible, include someone in the panel who will be working directly with the candidate. The usual practise is for successful candidates to be interviewed by people who often have nothing to do with the new employee and the team is just given the new staff member.

Much better to include someone from the team.

This gives the team an opportunity to ensure they are compatible and it also sends a message to your staff that you value their opinion, and you want them involved the operations of the business. When you have a stake in a hiring decision you are much more likely to take ownership of the outcome and put effort into establishing and maintaining a cohesive working relationship.

Observe Behaviour Under Pressure: I have never tried this, but I have thought about it several times. Recently we had a client, and we were profiling for a COO role that was offshore, thus, getting the decision right was more important than ever. The candidate’s profile suggested they had a maladaptive way of dealing with poor performers and had a propensity for being aggressive and uncooperative. The client decided not to run with the candidate and when she told him this over the phone, he became rude and quite aggressive. This interaction proved our client’s decision not to hire this person was correct.

This story reminded me off using this approach with candidates where you are a bit unsure about the suitability. With most candidates there is a mix of strengths and areas for improvement, and if there is some doubt about their suitability, then consider telling the candidate they missed out and see how they respond. Perhaps they will be humble and polite, and this may be enough to change your mind, but if they become rude or aggressive then the decision is also confirmed.

One of the challenges with recruitment is reading between the lines, so to speak. I think it is safe to assume that all candidates play the game and prepare and practice for an interview and pour over their CV and application to make sure it is correct, however, if you create a situation whereby the candidates doesn’t know what to expect and therefore cannot prepare you get more “natural” behaviour. The approach of telling them they missed out on the role allows you to a sample of more “natural” behaviour.

Interview Last:

The small change that delivers dramatically better hiring decisions is simple:

Screen candidates first
Test second
Interview last

This is easily the single most effective change to your selection process that will yield amazing results. Try it.

Don’t Interview Strangers:

The typical recruitment method is a candidate replies to a job advertisement with their cover letter and resume, all of which is their best version of themselves in the context of the role. To use a fishing metaphor, their CV and cover letter is the bait that they are trying to lure you in on.

This bait may have taken them hours to write, or worse, they got someone else to write it for them. The bait also omits anything the candidate thinks is a negative and focuses on the positives, which is to be expected, but therein lies the problem. All you have of the candidate is their version of themselves and that’s all the data you have to decide whether they are worthy of an interview.

The next step is the face-to-face interview and the only information the panel has on this stranger is what they are prepared to share. That’s all. They are complete strangers who are controlling the narrative.

The candidate walks through the door and straight away your biases and first impression kicks in; do they present well, do they remind you of someone, or whatever it is, sure as the sun coming up each day, you will start to form an opinion immediately. So at this point, you have the candidate’s version of themselves and your biases and intuition – not a thread of objective data yet.

During the interview the candidate answers questions with examples they have rehearsed, and they avoid weak spots, and from that a decision is made on one-sided information. All you really have is what the candidate wanted you to hear and your feelings. We often disguise it as hard objective data and analytical decision making, but you are making a significant decision on very limited data.

There is a simple solution that is easy to implement and will dramatically improve your hiring decisions.

The solution lies in the wording of the job advertisement, telephone screening, psychometric testing and then only interview pretty good candidates. This is easy and effective.

Small Changes, Big Results: The Tiny Tweaks That Transform Recruitment:

The small change that delivers dramatically better hiring decisions is simple:

Screen candidates first
Test second
Interview last

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

5 Evidence-Based Hiring Practices

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 03:55:43 GMT

Five research-backed recruitment methods that reduce hiring mistakes

Most organisations interview strangers. A candidate sends a CV, writes a cover letter and presents the best version of themselves. The interview panel meets them for the first time and quickly forms impressions that heavily influence the decision. It feels structured and analytical, but in reality, very little objective data has been collected. Here are 5 ideas to modernise your hiring process.

Don’t Use the Myer-Briggs for Hiring:

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a well-known personality test, has come under fire recently because a significant body of evidence indicates that the test’s results are largely meaningless. This is a classic case of the popular press (belatedly) catching on to something that has had consensus among academic psychologists for a long time. And yet the MBTI continues to be widely used by companies and college career centres across the globe.

The test’s enduring popularity isn’t surprising. The MBTI sorts each test-taker into one of sixteen tidy personality types, each made up of overwhelmingly positive personality traits. These results can be a jumping off point for individuals to think about their communication styles and to explore different ways of viewing the world. Many organisations continue to use the test for team building or improving collaboration between employees.

But what is clear is that the Myers-Briggs should never be used as a pre-employment test or to help inform the hiring process. Here are four reasons why:

· It’s based on outdated science

· The test is not reliable

· It isn’t predictive of job performance

· The MBTI’s publisher itself explicitly discourages its use

When selecting a personality test for pre-employment testing, always look for tests that are backed by present-day psychological research and that have been validated to predict job performance for the types of positions you seek to hire. At a minimum, employment personality tests should have solid reliability and validity - which rules out the MBTI on both counts. Personality tests can be incredibly valuable tools for finding the best talent in your applicant pool, and using tests that produces meaningful, predictive results in the hiring process is the key to getting the most out of testing.

Look for Conscientiousness

The job market is filled with a diverse array of jobs suited for an equally diverse set of personalities. A sales associate probably won’t have the same personality as a software developer, nor should they. There are very few personality traits that are predictive of success across every type of position. However, extensive research has demonstrated that one personality trait is correlated with success in just about every job out there and that trait is “Conscientiousness”.

Conscientiousness is one of the five traits in the Big Five model of personality: one of the most established and studied personality theories. The Big Five has been around for decades and is generally considered the gold-standard of personality profiles.

The Employee Personality Profile (EPP) is one test that measures Conscientiousness in job candidates, along with eleven other work-related traits. The test provides suggested score ranges for a number of different positions, but Conscientiousness is one of the most meaningful traits to look for when seeking insight into a job applicant’s work ethic and ability to excel in any position. What this means is that general personality tests that assess Conscientiousness are valuable for hiring just about any type of job.

Use a Pre-Interview Checklist: The first moments of the interview are when mistakes are made, and our unconscious biases come to the fore and hijack your thinking. The moment the candidate walks through the door your biases kick-in; do they remind you of someone you don’t like, are they presented well or did they do something you don’t approve of, albeit something that is nothing to do with the role. At this stage, conformation bias kicks in and if they made a favourable impression on you then you look for information to support this and ignore information to the contrary and the opposite happens if you formed a less than favourable impression, i.e., you focus on the negative and ignore the positive.

This is where a pre-interview checklist can help. A bit like a pilot’s compulsory pre-flight checklist, you could use one before each interview. This check-list would remind the panel, among other things, to check their biases and be aware of them and don’t make a decision until the interview is over.

Psychometric Testing for Recruitment: Incorporating psychometric testing into your selection process, especially before the interview, is a game changer and will take your interviews and decision-making to the next level. An excellent battery of tests that covers general intelligence, emotional intelligence and personality will give you significant amounts of data about each candidate that you simply cannot get from any other data collection method. This battery of tests will typically ask the candidate over 200 questions, which compared to the 10 or so you will ask in an interview, is a lot of data. Imagine having all the test data before the interview, instead of interviewing a stranger who has only shared with you information they believe will enhance their prospects.

Screen, test, interview – the game changer approach to recruitment.

Standardisation of Selection: This means your selection process is essentially the same for all candidates. They all go through the same steps and are asked the same role specific questions, albeit some different questions based on the candidate’s CV and other points that may arise during the selection process. However, apart from that, the process is the same for all candidates.

Standardisation allows you to more meaningfully compare candidates and make changes to your selection process if a poor candidate gets through. By having the same process it is easier to look back and see where improvements can be made. If your process is ad hoc and different for each candidate, you cannot improve your process. Standardisation also gives the hiring manager comfort in knowing that even if they are away the proper process will be followed.

Small Changes, Big Results: The Tiny Tweaks That Transform Recruitment:

The small change that delivers dramatically better hiring decisions is simple:

Screen candidates first
Test second
Interview last

This article is part of a series on modernising recruitment processes.
You may also be interested in:

5 Ways to Modernise Your Hiring Process
Stop Interviewing Strangers: 5 Advanced Hiring Strategies

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

5 Ways to Modernise Your Hiring Process

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 04:41:10 GMT

Practical steps to improve recruitment decisions before the interview even begins

Most hiring decisions are made using remarkably little information. A candidate sends a CV and cover letter — documents carefully written to present the best possible version of themselves — and shortly afterwards they are invited to an interview. At that point the panel is essentially interviewing a stranger and relying heavily on intuition and first impressions. Here are 5 ideas to modernise your hiring process.

CVs are Risky: Apart from the candidate controlling the narrative and only telling you what they think you want to hear, a CV tells you where someone has been, not what they can do. They obscure high potential candidates without traditional experience, and it introduce bias through the use of names, schools, addresses, credentials etc, all of which send a social signal that many people with unconsciously respond to. On top of that, now AI can generate "perfect" resumes and auto apply en masse.

Put Your Recruitment Process in the Job Advertisement: It’s a simple step but let’s the candidates know early on what your recruitment process involves. The more information you can get to candidates early in the process the better. For example, our clients recruit by doing a telephone screen, psychometric testing and then interview, thus, in their job advertisements they mention this so the candidates can be aware of the process and decide to continue or withdraw.

Wording of Job Advertisement: LinkedIn put out some research a few years ago about what job candidates look for in a job ad, as opposed to what the author thinks should go in the ad. LinkedIn offers 7 tips for writing job posts that attract candidates:

· Keep it concise: Write shorter job posts to get more applicants.

· Be careful of getting too casual: Don’t go overboard with a casual tone if you want to appeal to everyone.

· Let candidates know what’s in it for them: Focus on job details, requirements, and pay.

· Don’t spend too much time talking up your company: Don’t let your company become the focus of the job post.

· Define exactly what success looks like: Set measurable performance goals.

· Get your job post up early in the week: Expect to get most applications in the first half of the work week.

· Use gender-neutral words for greater diversity: Know that men tend to apply more readily than women.

How to Apply: Receiving lots of applications is very annoying and in amongst the dozens there could be a super star, but how do you find it in a time efficient manner. One idea is how you ask candidates to respond. You could ask them to write a one-page cover letter that covers the essential criteria and why they would be a good fit for the team. Alternatively, ask them to email you for an information and application pack. This approach allows you to easily cull applicants who don’t follow the instructions and discourages candidates who are simply applying to dozens of jobs. As a final note, I would also recommend you include a specific closing date with a time, and any late applicants are ignored.

Record all Interactions : Record all interactions you have with a candidate and sometimes a pattern will emerge. A candidate being slow to respond to your attempts at contact maybe a one-off and something to ignore, or if it happens more than once, then perhaps we have a pattern and a behavioural signal that indicates the candidate may be disorganised or care-free, or something else but either way, it’s free data about the candidate that is more natural or realistic when compared to an interview. Record everything.

This article is part of a series on modernising recruitment.
In Part 2 , we explore evidence-based hiring practices including psychometric testing.

Small Changes, Big Results: The Tiny Tweaks That Transform Recruitment:

The small change that delivers dramatically better hiring decisions is simple:

Screen candidates first
Test second
Interview last

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Great Interviews Don’t Equal Great Hires

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 05:15:25 GMT

Why the traditional recruitment process keeps letting the wrong candidates through

“They interviewed well and their reference checks were excellent, but…”

This is a phrase we often hear from new clients after one or two of their own mishires.

A mishire is costly for everyone: the candidate is unhappy because the job didn’t work out and they must start again, and the business is unhappy for the same reason. It’s costly in terms of money, but also emotionally. A mishire is a terrible, yet preventable, outcome.

A poor selection process will pick good and bad candidates, but a good selection process will weed out the bad candidates while identifying good candidates. This is the difference and why sometimes the “interview & reference check” approach works, but it’s the costly mishires you need to avoid, and you do that by having a stepwise selection process that allows you to see different sides of the candidate.

A traditional recruitment process can still produce good hires, but it also lets the wrong ones through, and that’s the real cost.

The Interview Is the Least Reliable Predictor of Performance

Think about it. You’re sitting across from a stranger, a stranger who chose what went on their CV, selected their referees, rehearsed their answers and studied your company online.

They control the information and you react to it.

If your hiring process relies heavily on interviews and reference checks, you’re making high-stakes decisions with low-predictive tools.

And that’s where a stepwise process, one that incorporates psychometric testing, into the process is the game changer.

The Smarter Way to Recruit: Flip the order → improve the outcome

The small change that delivers dramatically better hiring decisions is simple:

Screen candidates first
Test second
Interview last

By the time you get to the interview, the candidate is no longer a stranger, and you’re armed with data, behavioural insights, and context. That lets you ask sharper, more targeted questions and make significantly better decisions.

Modern Innovative Recruitment is About:

A standardised and structured hiring process
Screening and testing candidates before the interview
It’s a two-way process; you are learning about the candidate and they are learning about you and your business.
Only interviews good candidates
Incorporate evidence-based psychometric tests that have high validity and reliability.

Small Changes, Big Results: The Tiny Tweaks That Transform Recruitment:

The small change that delivers dramatically better hiring decisions is simple:

Screen candidates first
Test second
Interview last

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Stranger Danger: Why Are You Interviewing Strangers.

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 04:23:20 GMT

A Smarter Way to Hire Without Adding Complexity or Cost

The good news: This is easy to fix

There is a simple solution that that is easy to implement and will dramatically improve your hiring decisions.

The solution lies in the wording of the job advertisement, telephone screening, psychometric testing and then only interview pretty good candidates. This is easy and effective.

The essential criteria in your job advertisement is important. Keep it simple and have criteria that is as close to being objectively measured as possible, such as qualifications, experience, skills, travel and after hour requirements if necessary. Try to avoid criteria that gets the usual motherhood statements, such as “excellent communication skills”.

Next, conduct a telephone interview for approximately 15 minutes. Cover the essential criteria, but also key areas such as motivation and expectations. The screening also addresses legal requirements, such as visas or driver’s license or any other requirement of the role. Your Code of Conduct and the Position Description are sent to the candidate before the telephone screen interview, and it is discussed. Set the tone early about your workplace culture.

If the candidate still seems pretty good (they don’t have to be 10 out of 10) arrange some psychometric testing that covers personality, emotional intelligence and aptitude. This is a comprehensive battery of tests that is useful for most roles. This is a minor expense compared to the cost of a mishire, but more importantly, these results, combined with the screening data, gives you a significant amount of information before the interview panel meets the candidate.

You are no longer meeting a stranger, and this approach allows you to generate hypotheses about the candidate beforehand and then test them during the interview, not afterwards.

Write. Screen. Test. Interview.

Simple. Structured. Evidence-based. And dramatically more effective than hoping the stranger across the table turns out to be who they say they are.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

What the NFL Can Teach Us About Recruitment Decisions

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 06:14:36 GMT

Why psychometric testing for recruitment leads to better hiring outcomes

While watching the NFL playoffs recently, a commentator made a remark that grabbed my attention: “a team and head coach are only as good as their recruitment choices”.

As someone who works in recruitment and workplace psychology, that comment piqued my interest immediately.

Comparisons between elite sporting teams and businesses are often overdone. Elite athletes benefit from genetics, resources, and full-time training that most people simply don’t have access to. Likewise, businesses don’t get to watch candidates perform their role live before making a hiring decision.

However, one comparison holds true across sport and business:

Recruitment decisions matter — enormously.

Why Recruitment Decisions Determine Business Performance

In Good to Great , Jim Collins uses the metaphor of having the “right people on the bus.” Without the right people, even the best strategy struggles. With the right people, organisations adapt, grow, and outperform competitors.

Elite sports teams obsess over selection. Businesses often don’t.

Instead, many organisations still rely on:

CV screening
One or two interviews
Gut feel

That approach forces you to interview strangers , armed only with information the candidate has chosen to tell you.

That’s not recruitment — that’s guesswork.

Why Interviews Alone Don’t Work

· A CV is marketing.

· An interview is performance.

· Neither reliably predicts on-the-job success.

· Candidates naturally present themselves in the best possible light. That’s understandable — but it leaves employers making critical decisions with insufficient data .

The solution isn’t more interviews.

The solution is better information before the interview even begins.

Psychometric Testing for Recruitment: A Smarter Approach

An effective recruitment process follows a simple structure:

Screen → Test → Interview

Psychometric testing for recruitment allows you to:

Understand a candidate’s personality profile
Assess cognitive ability (IQ)
Measure emotional intelligence (EQ)
Identify behavioural risks and strengths
Compare candidates objectively

This means you walk into interviews already knowing:

How a candidate is likely to behave at work
How they make decisions
How they respond to pressure
Whether they fit the role and culture

At that point, the interview becomes a confirmation tool , not a gamble.

You Don’t Have to Interview Strangers

With proper screening and psychometric testing:

Poor-fit candidates are filtered out early
Strong candidates rise quickly
Interviews become shorter and more meaningful
Hiring decisions are defensible and evidence-based

While businesses can’t recruit exactly like the NFL, they can adopt a more rigorous, data-driven selection process — one that consistently improves hiring outcomes.

Final Thought: Objective Data Beats Gut Feel

When we talk about “testing,” we usually mean psychometric testing for recruitment , but even role-specific assessments can improve hiring quality.

Any objective data point is better than relying solely on intuition.

Screen → Test → Interview.

Simple. Repeatable. Effective.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

The Small Big: How a Simple Change Leads to Better Recruitment Outcomes

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 02:20:58 GMT

Why your interview order is quietly sabotaging decision quality.

Small Changes, Big Results: The Tiny Tweaks That Transform Recruitment

What if the difference between poor outcomes and great ones wasn’t a major restructure, but some small tweaks?

There’s a brilliant book called The Small Big: Small Changes That Spark Big Influence, which explores exactly that; the small behavioural tweaks that dramatically shift results, and when applied to recruitment, yields significantly improved hiring decisions.

A Small Change That Saved Restaurants Thousands

One example from the book involved restaurant no-shows. The experiment tested a simple tweak during the booking call: Instead of saying “Let us know if you need to change your booking,” staff asked “Can you call us if you need to change the booking?” and then paused until the customer agreed, which they do, but the pause is important and the commitment from the customer makes the difference. We like to be consistent in our behaviour and many people will stick to a commitment to maintain that consistency. Not everyone, but a lot do.

That small adjustment resulted in a 37% drop in no-shows .

One sentence + one pause = huge impact.

While it perhaps sounds trivial, no-shows are far from trivial. In the UK alone, missed health appointments cost an estimated £800 million per year . A small behavioural nudge can save millions.

What’s the Small Tweak in Recruitment?

It’s this: Put the interview last.

Most organisations still interview strangers first, then run probity checks and then may test.
But interviewing people before you know anything meaningful about them is flawed. We can’t help it; our brains form early impressions and then we look for information to support those impressions, i.e., conformation bias. That is the single biggest reason why hiring mistakes are made.

Further to that, candidates increasingly rehearse their responses using coaching, rehearsed narratives, and most probably, AI tools. No wonder traditional interviews are such poor predictors of performance.

Flip the order → improve the outcome

The small change that delivers dramatically better hiring decisions is simple:

Screen candidates first
Test second
Interview last

By the time you get to the interview, the candidate is no longer a stranger and you’re armed with data, behavioural insights, and context. That lets you ask sharper, more targeted questions and make significantly better decisions.

One small change. One significant improvement in hiring decisions.

Sometimes the most powerful improvements don’t require more time, more costs, or more complexity — just a smarter sequence.

Put the interview last.

The results will speak for themselves.

About the Author

Christopher Apps is a Workplace Psychologist and the owner of Fermion . He stays up to date with the latest psychology research and shares evidence-based insights.

Fermion specialises in:

· "Psychometric Testing for Recruitment"

· “Recruitment to Retention: How to Select Good Staff & Keep Them”

If you would like to learn how to select good staff and keep them, please contact us at Fermion.

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Recruitment Integrity: Why Your Process Matters More Than You Think

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 06:17:48 GMT

The hidden risks of trusting self-reported candidate data.

A client recently asked about candidates using AI to help them complete their psychometric tests. Fortunately, there are many safeguards in place by reputable test providers, such as the one we use, Criteria Corp , and also even within AI. I asked ChatGPT to complete a test and it refused and couldn’t access the test platform.

While it is theoretically possible that other AI applications may attempt to bypass such protections, this raises a deeper question: What would a candidate even ask AI to optimise? Perfect scores? A particular personality profile? Most candidates have no real insight into the psychometric profile required for success in a specific role. In fact, an unusually “perfect” set of results is itself a red flag and should prompt further investigation.

Even if for some reason a candidate manages to cheat or misrepresent themselves, what good is it to that candidate if they win a job they aren’t suited for. Who really wins? No one.

However, I have never had anyone ask how reliable someone’s CV, written application and interview responses are. All of these sources of data are open to writer’s license and selective reporting. It is doubtful any candidate will put anything they believe could reflect poorly on them in their CV, written application or how they answer their interview questions.

Case in point; “ Man Faces Courts for Faking his CV ”. This person applied for a job paying $400,000 per year at Myer, for which he was nowhere near qualified, but he got the job. Or, “ Former SA public servant jailed for lying on CV to get job ”, or Victorian school principal Neil Lennie also lied about his qualifications , It happens.

Candidates putting their best foot forward is to expected; that’s part of the game, so to speak. However, it is the role of the hiring manager to try and see through this and have a selection process that allows that to happen.

Good recruitment practice never relies on a single data source. Instead, it looks for a convergence of data across:

Telephone screening
Psychometric testing
Structured interviews
Work history
Observable behaviour
Referee checks

Final Thought

As technology evolves, recruitment risk does not disappear — it simply changes shape. The greatest safeguard is not any single tool, but a well-designed, evidence-based selection process that demands data consistency and verification . When the data aligns, confidence increases. When it doesn’t, risk increases .

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

The Workplace Equation for Success

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 05:26:58 GMT

Hiring well is step one. Leading well is step two. Performance is the result.

Building a productive, loyal, high-performing team isn’t a mystery — it’s psychology, leadership, and smart recruitment working together.

High performance happens when people feel their basic human psychological needs are being met; these needs are connectedness, autonomy and mastery.

When employees feel connected to their colleagues in a meaningful way, when they feel like they have a say in how they do their job, when they are supported to grow their skills, they become intrinsically motivated and consequently, become more productive, more engaged, and more committed. They start to see their work as part of who they are, and that’s when high performance shines through.

Workers who are intrinsically motivated enjoy coming to work and find the work rewarding and satisfying. They want to do well, and they care about the outcomes. Team members back each other up, help each other, share information, and cover jobs for each other.

The quality of the work experience hinges on whether leaders create the environment where these psychological needs can be fulfilled.

Further to that, any job can be psychologically fulfilling. You can have an incredible job as a bank teller and a miserable job as a business analyst. In other words, the quality of your experience hinges on whether your psychological needs are fulfilled, and no one has more sway over the degree to which psychological needs are fulfilled than a team’s leader.

That said, even the best leadership approach won’t land with everyone. Some people simply won’t engage — due to arrogance, closed-mindedness, or incompatible values. This is why good recruitment decisions matter just as much as good leadership. Hiring people who are capable of thriving in a psychologically rich environment is the first step in building a high-performing team.

Good recruitment + meaningful work experiences + empowered employees + skilled employees = productivity & retention.

That’s the workplace equation for success.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

The Truth About Gender and IQ—and What It Means for Recruitment

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 06:10:04 GMT

Why confidence gets mistaken for competence, and how testing exposes the truth.

When asked to estimate their own intelligence, most people will say they are above average, even though this is a statistical improbability. This is a normal, healthy cognitive bias and extends to any socially desirable trait such as honesty and driving ability, just to name a few. This pattern is so common that it’s known as “the above-average effect”.

Despite people’s tendency to overestimate their own intelligence, individuals vary. Some doubt their intellectual ability while others greatly overestimate their talents. In general, though, when asked to estimate their IQ, men think they’re significantly brighter than they are, while women’s estimates are far more modest.

There are no gender differences in actual IQ

Psychology and intelligence researchers are unequivocal: men and women do not differ in actual IQ. There is no “smarter sex”. However, it was only with the development of objective measures of assessing intelligence that this notion was invalidated.

Historically, women were believed to be intellectually inferior as they had slightly smaller skulls. By the same logic, an elephant or blue whale should be the most intelligent mammals on the planet. Bigger is not necessarily better when it comes to brain size.

In the past century, gender stereotypes have changed . Today, when asked explicitly, most people will agree men and women are equally intelligent.

But there is quite a difference in implicit or unconscious beliefs about gender and intellect.

In a classic social psychology study , researchers asked parents to estimate the intelligence of their children. Sons were rated significantly more intelligent than daughters. This finding has been replicated across the world.

Parental expectations may be particularly important in influencing their children’s intellectual self-image and are also predictive of later academic achievement.

Gender differences in self-esteem might also be an important factor, as people with higher self-esteem tend to see all aspects of their life (including intellectual ability) more positively. Girls and women rate their general self-esteem significantly lower than boys and men. This difference emerges early in adolescence.

However, a recent study found biological sex remained the strongest factor: males rated their intelligence higher than females. Psychological gender was also a very strong predictor, with highly masculine subjects rating their intelligence higher (importantly, there was no association with femininity).

We observe this regularly in our work; male candidates who talk a big game and tell you how smart they are before they do the tests. Conversely, it is rare for females candidates to be so forthright in expressing their own brilliance.

Fortunately, tests give the real answer and sometimes the scores match the big talk, but usually they don’t and the scores are invariably lower than hinted at.

Implications for Recruitment?

Your person doing the screening calls and/or the interview panel, need to be aware of this and not be fooled by the big talk. Look for consistencies and inconsistencies, especially in the context of their work history and resume, to help validate their claims. Conversely, with female candidates perhaps assume there is some humble under-selling going on and encourage your female candidates to brag a bit more.

There are biases and implicit theories that affect all of us working in recruitment, with confirmation bias being the most damaging one. Awareness is the first step, however, even being aware of human biases doesn’t stop them from impacting on decision making. Indeed, a New York Times article in 2014 discussed how gender bias in education can worsen outcomes for both genders, sometimes even when policies aim to address it.

These unstoppable quirks of our behaviour need to be understood and because they are difficult to circumvent, the best approach is to have a recruitment process that factors our biases into account and use them to our advantage.

The only way to do that is to screen, test and then only interview good candidates. When you do this, you can use your instincts, gut feelings and biases to your advantage.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Improve Your SMB Hiring Process in 3 Simple Steps

Mon, 10 Nov 2025 04:20:10 GMT

How SMBs Can Hire Smarter and Reduce Turnover

Bringing in people who will contribute to the overall performance and reputation of your business is one of the most important decisions that you will make.

Hiring the wrong person, or someone who doesn’t stay long or whose performance isn’t up to scratch might be relatively easy to recover from for a larger business, but for a small to medium size business the impact of getting it wrong can be significant, not only financially, but in opportunity costs and possibly team morale, depending on the circumstances.

From just a financial perspective, it is reasonable to assume the cost of a mishire is the area of 50% to 60% of their yearly salary, at the minimum.

Some of the common hiring mistakes that small to medium size businesses make include the following:

· Hiring the friend of a friend

· They don’t ask their employees for recommendations

· They hire someone they like

· The interview is an informal chat

· They have unrealistic expectations

· They take candidates at face value

· They hire too quickly, or too slowly.

Fortunately, there are a number of steps any business can take to significantly improve their hiring process and decisions; with the single best thing you can do is screen, test and interview, in that order.

Conduct a 10-to-15-minute telephone screen to confirm key pay and conditions of employment, the candidate’s motivation and do they meet the technical requirements of the role.

If the candidate is deemed as good enough, then refer them to Fermion for profiling and testing.

You then have significant data on the candidate to decide if a face-to-face interview is warranted and worth the time and resources. If you decide to interview, you then use the screening data, test results and their CV to compliment your interview.

Having all that data gives the interview panel far more material to work with than you would ever have if you just called the candidate in for an interview.

That 3-step process (screen, test and interview) can be done by any size business, and it can’t but not improve your hiring decisions. Even if you are interested in a friend of a friend, still put them through the same process.

The bottom line: if you are tired of hiring the wrong person, or you want to build a high performing team, you need data about each candidate before you interview; use the test results to compliment your interview.

A typical battery of tests that covers IQ, EQ and personality will ask the candidate over 200 question – imagine using that data to enhance your interview.

Telephone screen and then psychometric testing and then only interview good candidates. Try this approach and your hiring decisions will improve significantly.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

General Intelligence in Action: How fast did you answer?

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 04:47:50 GMT

Understanding How Intelligence Drives Workplace Performance & Smarter Hiring Decisions

Some people will answer this question relatively easily and quickly. Whereas others will take a bit longer, and others will solve it but only with some help, and there will be a remainder of people who can’t solve it all.

The process of solving this is intelligence in action. The example used is a relatively complex problem to solve and your intelligence determines whether you can solve it and how fast.

Intelligence in relation to recruitment and the workplace is about how quickly people learn new information, processing speed, and dealing with cognitive complexity.

This is important in the workplace as it relates to a candidate’s training needs and whether the intellectual demands of the job match their intellectual capacity. Do they have the intellectual ability to do the role to a high standard, or the opposite, are they way too smart for the role.

Fortunately, intelligence is not difficult to assess and in the context of data sources during the selection process, it is the most objective piece of data you will get. Majority of the data gathered during any selection process is subjective; from the candidate’s CV and written application, to their answers to interview questions, and the panel’s rating of this data; it’s all subjective.

Whereas intelligence testing, and other aptitude and skills testing, is objective.

Being aware of a candidate’s intellectual capacity can help you generate hypotheses about a candidate; will they hit the ground running; what resources do I need for their training; is their score consistent with their work history; does their ambition outweigh their ability.

Without this data, you are just guessing as to their intellectual capacity. If a candidate has a good vocabulary they will be judged to be “intelligent”, but that doesn’t mean they are; it just means they have a good vocabulary. Conversely, a shy and anxious candidate, could be well above average intellectually and a real talent, but you may miss them because they don’t interview well.

General intelligence is the single most effective predictor known of individual performance on the job. There are other kinds of talent and abilities, and aspects of personality and character that influences a person’s chances of success and happiness, but there is abundant evidence that general intelligence is the single most valid predictor of productive work behaviours and training performance. In more complex jobs, it does so better than any other single personal trait, including education and job experience.

The importance of general intelligence in job performance is related to complexity. Occupations differ considerably in the complexity of their demands, and as that complexity rises, higher general intelligence levels become a bigger asset and lower levels a bigger handicap.

I recall reading a letter to the Editor from an Australian University Professor about the role of general intelligence in life:

“It has been established for more than a century now that general mental ability, or IQ colloquially speaking, is by far the dominant predictor of whether the individual will go on to do a higher degree. The work by J.E. Hunter in the 1980s has conclusively shown that IQ is the best predictor of career success.”

A typical battery of tests that covers IQ, EQ and personality will ask the candidate over 200 question – imagine using that data to enhance your interview.

Telephone screen and then psychometric testing and then only interview good candidates. Try this approach and your hiring decisions will improve significantly.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Answer: $80

Numerical Reasoning: More Than Just Numbers

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 04:46:10 GMT

Why understanding numbers defines smarter decision-making

We often hear candidates say, “I’m not a maths person.”

But numerical reasoning isn’t about being a mathematician. It’s not about solving complex equations or calculating the trajectory of a rocket. It’s about understanding numbers in context — interpreting information, recognising trends, and making sound decisions based on evidence.

Numerical reasoning is the ability to understand, interpret, and use numerical data to solve problems and draw logical conclusions. It’s about looking at a set of figures: maybe a sales report, an operational dashboard, or a marketing performance chart and being able to extract what matters.

And that’s why numerical reasoning tests have become a core part of modern recruitment and selection processes. These tests don’t just measure someone’s ability to crunch numbers, they assess how well they can use numbers to think.

In fields like finance, operations, logistics, consulting, and even marketing, numerical reasoning is an important function of the role and being aware of the candidate’s ability in this area is important. It reflects critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making under pressure.

When you use psychometric assessments early in the hiring process, we’re not just testing skills, you are uncovering how candidates process information and approach complexity.

Because at the end of the day, numbers don’t make decisions, people do, and the people who can interpret numbers well are often the ones who make the right ones.

Answers:

¼ x ½ = 0.125

5! = 120

Five consecutive whole numbers add up to 55. What is the smallest of the five numbers? = 9

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Leadership Mishire Case Study: The Cost of a “Safe” CEO Hire

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 06:10:07 GMT

How a Capable Insider Became the Wrong Leader for the Right Company

When John Flint became CEO of HSBC Holdings in February 2018, it seemed like the perfect appointment. An internal candidate with 30 years of experience and Flint knew the organisation intimately. He was trusted, competent, and widely respected.

But within 18 months , he was gone. The official reason? “The Board believes a change is needed.”

No misconduct. No scandal. Just a quiet, decisive end to a leadership mismatch.

The Real Cause: Misfit, Not Misconduct

HSBC faced a turbulent market — digital disruption, regulatory shifts, and growing geopolitical pressure. The bank needed transformation: faster decision-making, sharper strategy, and a more assertive leadership tempo.

Flint, by contrast, brought steadiness and caution — qualities that once defined strong banking leadership, but which clashed with the urgency of a rapidly changing industry. His leadership style was competent, but not context-fit.

This is what makes the Flint story so revealing. It wasn’t a case of poor ethics or low intelligence. It was a mismatch between leadership capability and business need — the essence of a CEO mishire .

The Strategic Lesson: Hire for the Future, Not the Past.

Flint’s short tenure underscores a powerful truth in executive recruitment :

“The safest choice can be the riskiest one when the business context changes.”

Boards often favour continuity — long-serving insiders who “know the business.” But deep experience can blind decision-makers to a candidate’s change capacity . In fast-moving industries, adaptability, pace, and cultural agility are non-negotiable.

Without them, even a capable leader can stall progress.

Sometimes bringing in an outsider is needed, however, an outsider is a stranger, so profiling and testing is an essential part of the selection process and not relying just on their CV and presenting well at the interview(s).

We also recommend adding the Honesty–Humility Test to your interview schedule:

Responses to these questions can uncover how candidates handle failure, take responsibility, and grow from setbacks — all traits tied to ethical leadership.

�� Please describe a time when you made a mistake at work.

�� How did you feel when this occurred?

�� What did you do?

�� What, if anything, did you learn from this experience?

��Be wary of any applicant who claims to have been the sole driver of significant changes or successes at their last workplace.

��Be especially alert to failure to acknowledge the contribution of others or seemingly overstating their position or role.

The John Flint case is not about failure of intellect or ethics. It’s a cautionary tale of leadership fit — and why even the best resumes can hide future-fit risks.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

“Must have the ability to multitask.”

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 06:22:49 GMT

Multitasking is a Myth

You’ll still find it on job ads and position descriptions everywhere, but here’s the thing:
The human brain? Terrible at multitasking.

We don’t run on parallel processing, but the human brain processes information serially, i.e., one task at a time; we switch between tasks and every switch costs us.
⚠️ More mistakes
⚠️ More stress
⚠️ Less depth

So when we write “ability to multitask”, what are we really asking for?
�� The capacity to be interrupted constantly?
�� To juggle priorities without dropping the ball (or burning out)?
�� To do many things... poorly?

It might seem like a harmless phrase — but it signals the wrong things and it attracts the wrong behaviours.

A better ask?
✔️ Able to prioritise
✔️ Stays calm under competing demands
✔️ Manages focus and transitions well

Let’s stop pretending “multitasking” is a strength.

It’s not how great work gets done.

About the Author:

Fermion specialises in psychometric testing for recruitment. Please contact Fermion to discuss how a test of IQ, EQ and a personality profile, or any other psychometric test, can help with you your recruitment decisions.

Christopher Apps is a Workplace Psychologist and the owner of Fermion. He stays updated on the latest psychology research and shares evidence-based insights. The focus of Fermion is "Psychometric Testing for Recruitment" and “Recruitment to Retention: How to Select Good Staff & Keep Them” . If you would like to learn how to select good staff and keep them, please feel free to contact us at Fermion.

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

When Leadership Culture Goes Wrong

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 02:48:34 GMT

A Costly Leadership Mis-step

The CEO of Parramatta Council is negotiating an early exit from her $515,000-a-year role following a string of controversies.

At recent all-staff events, Connolly asked employees about their marital status, teenage crushes, and even made innuendo-laden jokes. Employees described the tone as “gross, nudge nudge, wink wink.”

This wasn’t an isolated incident. The council has spent millions removing staff, lost legal cases against its own councillors, and staged a $340,000 staff conference featuring massages, motivational speakers, and public remarks about “happy endings.”

The outcome? Damaged trust, eroded culture, and a workforce questioning whether respect and professionalism matter at all.

The Recruitment Lesson

Recruiting leaders isn’t just about technical ability—it’s about judgment, values, and emotional intelligence. A capable leader who undermines culture through poor behaviour is far more damaging than one with a few technical gaps.

This case underscores the importance of psychological safety in the workplace. Employees should feel respected, not trivialised. Leadership style sets the tone: when the tone is off, the entire organisation pays the price.

How Psychometric Testing Helps

At Fermion, we believe this type of recruitment failure is preventable. Psychometric testing offers an objective way to assess not just what a candidate can do, but how they will lead .

IQ – problem-solving & learning ability
EQ – teamwork & leadership potential
Personality – cultural fit & long-term success

Psychometric testing won’t eliminate all risks, but it will dramatically reduce the chance of a costly recruitment failure, especially when combined with structured interviews.

The Takeaway

Recruitment failures at the top are expensive. Parramatta Council is now facing another leadership transition, millions in costs, and lasting reputational damage.

�� The lesson for every organisation? Don’t just hire for capability. Hire for character, values, and the ability to nurture a healthy culture.

Want to improve your hiring process? Contact Fermion for expert psychometric testing solutions.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

The Morality Factor in Hiring: Why Honesty-Humility Matters

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 02:41:45 GMT

Why Morality Belongs in Recruitment

For decades, hiring managers have focused on skills, experience, and intelligence. But research now shows that moral character is equally important in predicting job performance and leadership success. Traits like honesty-humility, conscientiousness, and guilt proneness are strong indicators of whether someone will contribute positively to a workplace or cause long-term harm.

At Fermion, we often remind clients that competence alone isn’t enough. A technically brilliant hire who lacks honesty and humility can cost an organisation far more than they contribute.

From the Big Five to the HEXACO Model

Traditional recruitment tools often relied on the “ Big Five” personality model: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. But this model overlooked a crucial factor— honesty-humility .

The updated HEXACO model adds this sixth dimension, capturing whether a person is:

Truthful vs. deceitful
Modest vs. arrogant
Fair vs. manipulative
Loyal vs. exploitative

This factor shines a light on the moral compass of candidates—something the older Big Five model failed to measure.

Why Honesty-Humility Predicts Success

Research shows that employees high in honesty-humility are less likely to engage in workplace deviance such as theft, manipulation, or absenteeism. They are also more likely to:

Volunteer for extra assignments
Mentor colleagues
Act ethically when faced with difficult decisions

In leadership, high honesty-humility correlates with ethical and trustworthy management , while low scores often predict reputational risk and toxic cultures.

Practical Honesty-Humility Interview Questions

How can employers assess honesty-humility in practice? Adding a few behavioural questions into interviews can provide invaluable insight. Here are some examples:

“Please describe a time when you made a mistake at work. How did you feel about it? What did you do to address it?”
“Tell me about a situation where you could have taken personal advantage but chose not to. What guided your decision?”
“How do you handle giving credit when a project succeeds? Can you share a recent example?”
“Have you ever disagreed with a manager’s decision? How did you handle it?”

These questions reveal whether a candidate feels genuine responsibility for others, demonstrates humility, and shows ethical decision-making under pressure.

The Recruitment Takeaway

Hiring for technical competence alone is risky. The evidence is clear: employees with high honesty-humility, conscientiousness, and guilt proneness are more likely to be ethical, productive, and effective leaders .

When building selection processes, organisations should combine psychometric testing with honesty-humility assessments and behavioural interviews . The goal isn’t just to find someone who can do the job—it’s to find someone others will trust to do it.

At Fermion, we help clients integrate these measures into recruitment so they can hire with confidence and build cultures grounded in trust.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

AI in Recruitment: Is AI Screening Candidates a Zero-Sum Game?

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 07:14:56 GMT

AI Screening AI in Recruitment

The latest Criteria Benchmark Report revealed a fascinating shift in recruitment technology.

Today, more candidates are using AI tools to generate CVs and applications . At the same time, more employers are turning to AI in recruitment to screen those very applications.

The result? AI screening AI.

While efficient, this raises questions about fairness, authenticity, and whether human qualities are at risk of being lost in translation.

The Risks of AI Screening Candidates

When both sides optimise with algorithms, hiring risks becoming a zero-sum game. Candidates “game” the system with AI-generated CVs, while companies use AI hiring tools to filter through the results.

This makes it harder to identify the qualities that truly matter:

Authentic motivation
Problem-solving ability
Personality and culture fit

In other words, AI vs human hiring decisions is becoming a balancing act.

Recruitment Best Practices: Keeping It Human

AI can support hiring, but it shouldn’t define it. Employers can bring authenticity back into recruitment by:

Requesting a one-page cover letter that specifically addresses the role’s criteria – and making it clear AI-generated responses are not acceptable.
Providing an application pack via email so candidates must actively engage rather than rely on generic input.
Combining AI hiring tools with psychometric testing and structured interviews to uncover real skills, intelligence, and cultural fit.

These evidence-based methods prevent over-reliance on algorithms and ensure candidate authenticity in hiring.

Our Take on AI in Recruitment

At Fermion, we believe recruitment should never become a battle of machines. AI in recruitment is valuable for efficiency and scale – but the best hiring outcomes still come from structured processes, psychometric testing in hiring , and meaningful human interaction.

AI should assist recruitment, not replace human judgment.

✅ Ready to improve recruitment outcomes with evidence-based methods? Get in touch with Fermion.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

The Cost of a Mis-Hire

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 02:13:00 GMT

How avoiding recruitment mistakes saves money, time, and productivity

Hiring the wrong person is one of the most expensive mistakes a business can make. While it’s easy to underestimate the financial and cultural impact of a bad hire, research shows the costs can range anywhere from a year’s annual salary to more than 30 times that figure—depending on the role and seniority.

At the CEO level, a poor hire can damage strategy, culture, and performance, with costs running into the millions. At the entry level, the dollar figure may be smaller, but the disruption to team productivity and morale is still significant.

A Hypothetical Scenario: How One Bad Hire Costs $30,000

Imagine you’ve just won a contract and hire 10 employees on $60k salaries. It takes three months to train each person before they reach full productivity.

Now, let’s say one hire is a poor fit and you only realise after three months:

$15,000 in salary has already been lost to unproductive time.
Recruiting and retraining a replacement adds another three months of salary.
Total cost: $30,000—5% of your salary budget—gone.

And that’s a conservative estimate. Add in reduced team morale, productivity loss, and management time spent addressing the issue, and the hidden costs escalate quickly.

Why Mis-Hires Hurt More Than Just the Bottom Line

A mis-hire doesn’t just cost money—it drains energy from your business:

�� Lower productivity across the team
�� Negative cultural impact and morale issues
�� Time wasted on performance management
�� The risk of repeating the same hiring mistake if the process doesn’t change

How to Avoid Recruitment Mistakes and Mis-Hires

The good news is that mis-hires are preventable. Recruitment doesn’t need to be a “hit and miss” process. With evidence-based recruitment methods— including psychometric testing in hiring —you can:

Improve the accuracy of hiring decisions
Reduce the frequency and cost of employee turnover
Build stronger, more productive teams
Protect your business from unnecessary financial losses

The upfront cost of doing recruitment properly is fixed—whether the role is $60k or $250k. Compared to the potential cost of a mis-hire, it’s a small investment that pays dividends in productivity, culture, and profitability.

Final Thought

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

If I Was in Charge of Your Recruitment

Mon, 08 Sep 2025 05:15:54 GMT

Why Structure Beats Guesswork in Recruitment

The difference between a bad hire and a good hire isn’t luck — it’s process. At Fermion, we believe structured recruitment, backed by evidence, leads to better hiring decisions. Here’s the step-by-step process we use to consistently hire the right people.

Step 1: Write a Job Ad That Works

LinkedIn analysed how millions of real members interact with job posts and conducted a study to see what candidates look for in your job description. They boiled it down to seven simple tips to help you make your job posts more effective. The job ad should also include:

Recruitment process
A clear deadline
Ask for a one-page cover letter against selection criteria

These steps filter out timewasters and sets clear expectations.

Step 2: Application Review

Use a scoring matrix to rank candidates quickly and objectively.

Step 3: Shortlist Call

Contact your short-listed candidates to arrange a telephone interview and confirm their continued interest and clarify:

Salary expectations
Visa requirements, travel, location
Recruitment process timeline

Send them the Position Description and Code of Conduct ahead of the telephone interview and ask them to review them.

Step 4: Telephone Interview

Conduct the telephone interview and use an interview schedule that is already prepared with questions that are consistent with the essential criteria. Decide whether to continue to the next step, which is some form of testing, or cull the candidate.

Step 5: Testing

For most roles, we would recommend psychometric testing that measures IQ, EQ and personality :

IQ – problem-solving & learning ability
EQ – teamwork & leadership potential
Personality – cultural fit & long-term success

However, you could create your own task or test for the candidate to complete. That said, it is difficult developing an ad hoc test that is reliable and valid and has predictive validity, but you could still create a task that simulates an aspect of the advertised role.

From the testing, and telephone interview, decide to cull or proceed to the face-to-face interview.

Step 6: Face-to-Face Interview

Conduct the face-to-face interview and use a prepared interview schedule and see how the candidate goes. By this time, you are only interviewing good candidates and this frees up the panel to use their intuition and gut feel to their advantage. By the end of the interview, you should be able to decide on the suitability of the candidate.

Step 7: Referee Checks

Use a structured set of referee questions to validate skills, behaviours, and performance.

Step 8: Decision + Onboarding

The process ends with a confident hiring decision. Effective onboarding and retention strategies will turn a good hire into a great employee.

Why This Works

✅ Less bias
✅ Stronger hiring accuracy
✅ Time-efficient
✅ Better retention

Recruitment doesn’t need to be messy or uncertain. With structure, testing, and evidence, you can consistently hire the right people.

�� Ready to improve your recruitment outcomes?
Contact us today to design a process that works.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Why the Face-to-Face Interview Should Be the Final Step

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 04:38:55 GMT

Evidence First. Opinion Second.

At Fermion, we see it all the time: organisations still leading with the face-to-face interview.

It feels intuitive, but it’s a trap.

When the interview comes first, unconscious biases take over. A candidate’s handshake, appearance, or small talk can influence the decision before any objective evidence is gathered. This bias in recruitment is one of the biggest reasons for poor hires and costly recruitment mistakes.

The Smarter Recruitment Process

A more effective, structured hiring process flips the order:

1️⃣ Telephone Screen

A quick, structured phone call confirms motivation and baseline suitability. It filters the basics without overinvesting time.

2️⃣ Objective Testing

Psychometric testing in recruitment provides measurable data, from general intelligence to personality and emotional intelligence. Role-specific tasks and objective candidate assessments give you a clear view of ability and fit. This is data you can rely on, rather than guesswork.

3️⃣ Face-to-Face Interview

Only now does the face-to-face interview happen. With evidence already in hand, the interview adds the human layer without drowning out the data. Subjective impressions have a place, but not the first place.

Why This Recruitment Strategy Works

This sequence changes everything:

Better hiring outcomes – decisions grounded in objective candidate assessment, not gut feel.
Fairer process – candidates know they’re being judged consistently, which strengthens your employer brand.
Reduced hiring mistakes – interviews no longer dominate decisions based on first impressions.
Best practice recruitment strategy – data first, then opinion, aligned with global hiring standards.

Put simply: fewer mishires, stronger hires.

Time to Rethink Your Recruitment Process

If your hiring process still starts with the interview, it’s time to re-evaluate. Sometimes the smallest change — moving the interview to the end — delivers the biggest impact.

�� Recruitment is too important to leave to chance. Start with evidence, finish with opinion, and hire with confidence.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Why 200 Questions Beat 20 Interview Questions Every Time

Mon, 18 Aug 2025 03:19:15 GMT

Why Psychometric Testing in Recruitment Matters

When it comes to recruitment, most organisations still rely heavily on interviews. A hiring manager might ask 15–20 questions and hope to gain enough insight into a candidate’s intelligence, personality, and emotional intelligence.

At Fermion, we’ve seen the limits of that approach. That’s why we use psychometric testing in recruitment — structured assessments that measure IQ, EQ, and personality . In fact, every candidate answers around 200 questions in our pre-employment psychometric assessments.

The Advantage of 200 Questions Over an Interview Alone

While 200 questions may sound like a lot, they’re not random. Every response is organised into meaningful scores and insights that show:

How candidates process and analyse information (IQ).
How they understand and manage emotions (EQ).
How their personality traits align with your workplace culture.

This structured insight gives hiring managers far more depth than a traditional interview ever could.

Why Testing Before Interviews Works Best

We strongly recommend completing psychometric testing before the interview . Why? Because it allows you to:

Enter the interview with data-driven insights already in hand.
Ask targeted, smarter questions instead of relying on gut feel.
Confirm or challenge what you observe in person with objective evidence.

This combination of data and dialogue leads to more reliable hiring decisions — and reduces bias in the recruitment process.

Psychometric Testing Complements, Not Replaces, Interviews

It’s important to note that psychometric testing for hiring is not a substitute for interviews. Instead, it’s the perfect complement. Interviews reveal how a candidate communicates and engages in real time. Psychometric assessments reveal the underlying cognitive ability, emotional intelligence, and personality traits that drive long-term performance.

Together, they create a structured hiring process that significantly improves your chances of selecting the right candidate.

Final Word

If you’re looking to improve hiring decisions, reduce guesswork, and make your recruitment process more reliable, consider IQ, EQ, and personality testing as part of your selection strategy.

With over 200 structured questions analysed into meaningful insights, you’ll know far more than you ever could by relying on an interview alone.

�� Learn more about Fermion’s approach to psychometric testing in recruitment and how it can transform your hiring success: Contact us today.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Why General Intelligence is the Engine of Workplace Performance

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 08:34:05 GMT

Understanding General Intelligence in the Workplace

Want to improve workplace productivity? Start testing for general intelligence; it’s one of the strongest predictors of workplace performance and it’s easy to measure.

General intelligence — sometimes called g— reflects an individual’s ability to reason, learn quickly, solve problems, and adapt to new situations. In a business environment, these abilities are essential for productivity, innovation, and long-term success.

A Racetrack Analogy

Imagine a racetrack and three well-built cars, albeit with different size engines:

Car 110 (IQ 110)
Car 100 (IQ 100)
Car 90 (IQ 90)

The track is mostly smooth with gentle curves, but there’s one challenging section: a steep hill with a complex chicane — the workplace equivalent of a difficult, multi-step problem.

Lap Times: How Engine Size, or Intelligence, Affects Performance

Car 110 : Navigates the chicane with ease, completing a lap in 2 minutes .
Car 100 : Handles it steadily but takes 3 minutes .
Car 90 : Gets through with help, completing the lap in 4 minutes .

Productivity Compounds Over Time

Over one hour:

Car 110 completes 30 laps .
Car 100 completes 20 laps .
Car 90 completes 15 laps with assistance.

All the cars can do their job, however, there are marked differences in their performance and productivity.

When your workplace faces “complex chicanes” — big challenges, new systems, unexpected problems — the capability difference becomes obvious.

Even small differences in performance per lap become significant over time. This mirrors how workplace productivity gaps widen as tasks become more complex. Over time, small differences in capability turn into large differences in output.

Why This Matters for Hiring and Development

General intelligence is like the engine in a race car:

Higher intelligence means faster learning, better problem-solving and processing speed.
Lower intelligence often requires more support, more time, and more resources to complete the same work.

The Business Impact

When your workplace hits its own “steep hill and chicane” — unexpected challenges, complex systems, urgent problem-solving — higher intelligence allows employees to:

Adapt faster
Maintain output under pressure
Handle complexity with less support

General intelligence testing isn’t about labelling people and lower intelligence doesn’t mean someone can’t contribute — but it often means they’ll need more time and resources to get the same job done; it’s about understanding capability so you can:

Hire the right people for the right roles
Identify high-potential staff early
Reduce costly performance gaps over time

�� Contact Fermion to learn how general intelligence testing can give your organisation the edge.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Why IQ Testing Should Be Mandatory When Hiring for the C-Suite

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 05:02:03 GMT

Because Intelligence Isn’t Optional at the Top

The stakes are high when organisations set out to hire for the C-Suite, and so is the failure rate. Global studies suggest that 30–40% of C-Suite hires fail within their first three years, and up to 50% of senior leaders underperform or prove ineffective.

Why does this happen? It’s not a lack of experience, technical skill, or commercial acumen that causes leaders to fall short. It’s the absence of intelligence, as well as four other core traits — traits that can’t be coached or taught on the job.

The five non-negotiable factors for successful C-Suite executives:

Intelligence (IQ) ��
Integrity ��
Humility / Conscientiousness ��
Curiosity / Agreeableness ��
Health and Energy ⚡

These factors are the necessary foundations for effective leadership and they can be measured. But, just focusing on IQ testing, we know that intelligence, as measured through IQ or aptitude testing, is the single strongest predictor of success in a senior leadership role. Yet, in many organisations, especially at the board level, cognitive testing is skipped entirely. “We just assume they’re smart — they’re already senior,” is a common view.

Boards often feel uncomfortable asking senior leaders to complete assessments. There’s a perception that it’s “beneath” someone at that level — or that it signals a lack of trust. But the real risk lies in not testing.

Assuming something is not due diligence and that mindset often results in costly mis-hires, especially when candidates look sophisticated on paper, interview well, and offer glowing (self-nominated) referees, but may lack the intellectual horsepower required to lead complex organisations.

A candidate who interviews well doesn’t necessarily think well. Boards are often swayed by presentation, confidence, and experience — all of which are visible and easy to assess. But traits like strategic thinking, mental agility, and problem-solving under pressure? These require deliberate testing. Without it, boards are blind to critical risk factors in a candidate’s leadership profile.

Relying on intuition, gut feel, charisma, and experience alone is not enough. If you want more successful C-Suite executives, and fewer costly leadership failures, you must test for what really matters.

Stop assuming, start measuring and make it a standard part of the executive hiring process.

Want to improve your hiring process? Contact Fermion for expert psychometric testing solutions.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Want to Improve Your Hiring Success Rate? Start Screening for “Honesty-Humility”.

Thu, 19 Jun 2025 00:08:56 GMT

What Is Honesty-Humility?

In today’s competitive hiring environment, organisations can’t afford to overlook character. While skills and experience will always matter, one trait consistently predicts ethical behaviour, effective leadership, and long-term cultural fit: honesty-humility.

What Is Honesty-Humility?

Honesty-humility is a personality trait recognised in the HEXACO model of personality , a framework gaining traction in organisational psychology. It describes individuals who are:

Humble , not boastful or status-driven
Fair , avoiding exploitation or manipulation
Genuine , transparent and sincere in their interactions

This trait is emerging as a powerful predictor of ethical leadership . Leaders high in honesty-humility are less likely to engage in workplace misconduct and more likely to foster trust, collaboration, and accountability within teams.

Why It Matters for Hiring and Leadership Development

Research shows that honesty-humility , along with conscientiousness and guilt proneness , correlates with:

Lower instances of workplace deviance
Higher organisational citizenship behaviours
Stronger team leadership and performance outcomes

In other words, hiring people with strong moral character isn't just the “right thing” to do — it’s a strategic advantage .

The Interview Question That Can Reveal Character

One of the most effective ways to evaluate honesty-humility during an interview is to ask a structured, open-ended question designed to probe character, not just competence:

“Please describe a time when you made a mistake at work. How did you feel when this occurred? What did you do? What, if anything, did you learn from this experience?”

When people respond to this set of questions, they often communicate information about their guilt proneness, honesty-humility and conscientiousness, which in turn can be used to predict ethical decision making and behaviour.

Strong answers will show:

Emotional accountability (guilt, not defensiveness)
A genuine sense of responsibility
Recognition of the impact on others
Clear reflection and personal growth

�� Be cautious of candidates who:

Gloss over the question or offer vague, rehearsed answers
Claim they’ve never made a significant mistake
Fail to acknowledge the contributions or support of others

�� Also beware of responses that overstate personal accomplishments without context or collaboration — these can be subtle red flags for low honesty-humility.

You’re Not Just Hiring for Today — You’re Shaping the Future Culture

Screening for honesty-humility isn’t about perfection. It’s about seeking individuals who will bring integrity, humility, and a genuine commitment to team success into your organisation.

By integrating behavioural interviewing techniques and screening for ethical leadership traits , HR teams and hiring managers can make more informed, future-focused hiring decisions.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Sans Forgetica

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 05:14:50 GMT

How to get Staff to Cleanup

Every workplace kitchen has a version of this sign — and it rarely works.

So how do you make a message stick?

Enter Sans Forgetica — a font designed by behavioural scientists and designers at RMIT to help people remember what they read. The font introduces just enough friction to make your brain pause and engage more deeply — boosting recall.

�� Try posting your usual kitchen sign in Sans Forgetica.

People will look twice — and maybe even grab the sponge.

Beyond kitchen etiquette, this typeface has broader applications anywhere you want attention and retention.

Sometimes, solving a messy problem starts with making it a little harder to read.

Avoiding Hiring Mistakes: How to Learn, Adapt & Improve

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 22:31:36 GMT

"Lessons from the Field: Building a Better Hiring Process"

Hiring the right person is one of the most important decisions businesses make and getting it wrong can really hurt , but there’s a silver lining to every bad hire. They provide a learning opportunity, encouraging you to reflect on your current hiring process and make changes that will set you up for future success, or at least reduce the chance that you’ll make the same mistake again.

Every hiring mistake presents a learning opportunity that can refine and improve your recruitment strategy, which is why it’s important to standardise your hiring process. This approach allows for tweaks and changes as needed.

Why Hiring Mistakes Happen

Hiring managers often work under tight deadlines and make quick decisions based on resumes, interviews, and references—none of which provide a full picture of a candidate’s potential. Here are some common reasons hiring mistakes occur:

Lack of Proper Screening: A weak vetting process can allow underqualified candidates to slip through.
Over-reliance on Resumes: Candidates may exaggerate or misrepresent their skills and experience.
Ignoring Cultural Fit: A candidate might have the right skills but struggle to adapt to your company’s environment.
Rushed Hiring Decisions: When positions are vacant for too long, companies may prioritise speed over quality.
Failure to Test for Skills and Learning Ability: Many companies don’t leverage pre-employment assessments that evaluate real-world problem-solving capabilities.
Inexperienced or Poorly Prepared Interview Panel: Interviewing is a learned skill and some people are good at it and others aren’t, thus, the panel’s inexperience or lack of preparation may lead to a poor choice.
Too Much Weight Put on Intuition or Gut Feelings: Many people believe their judgement of people is almost a super-power, but in reality, most people are about as good as chance as picking people based on their intuition.

The Cost of a Mishire

A hiring mistake isn’t just an inconvenience—it has measurable costs. Some of the most significant consequences include:

Financial Impact: The cost of recruiting , onboarding, and training a new hire can be substantial. Some estimates put it at around 60% of the employee’s yearly salary. Either way, it is costly to the business and the individual.
Decreased Productivity: A poorly performing employee can slow down projects, requiring additional resources to manage their inefficiencies.
Low Morale and Team Disruption: A bad hire can negatively impact team dynamics, causing frustration among colleagues and even leading to higher turnover.
Reputational Damage: In client-facing roles, an unqualified employee can damage customer relationships and hurt your company’s credibility.

How to Learn from Hiring Mistakes

A hiring mistake can be frustrating, but it’s also a chance to improve. Here’s how to turn a mishire into a growth opportunity:

1. Conduct a Post-Mortem Analysis

Examine why the hire didn’t work out. Was it a skills mismatch? A cultural misalignment? A misleading resume? Gathering feedback from managers and team members can provide valuable insights.

2. Identify Early Warning Signs

Once you determine the reason for the hiring failure, think about how you can spot these red flags earlier in the process. If a candidate struggled with training, consider requiring relevant experience or implementing skills assessments. If they lacked cultural fit, refine your behavioural interview questions.

3. Strengthen Your Hiring Process

Based on what you’ve learned, tweak your recruitment strategy:

Use Pre-Employment Assessments: Evaluate cognitive ability, problem-solving skills, and cultural fit before deciding.
Improve Job Advertisement: Ensure your postings clearly define essential and desirable qualifications to attract the right candidates.
Implement Structured Interviews: Standardised interview questions help reduce bias and improve accuracy in candidate evaluation.

4. Measure Hiring Effectiveness

Track your hiring success over time. Are fewer employees leaving within the first six months? Is overall team performance improving? Data-driven insights help ensure that process changes lead to better hiring outcomes.

Standardisation (The most important aspect of your hiring process)

The entire process, from screening to testing to interviews, needs to be the same for all candidates. There are some minor differences depending on the candidate’s CV, however, these questions are done in the same manner for all candidates.

Standardisation allows you to then look back at your hiring process and identify what was missed or what could be added to reduce the likelihood of another hiring mistake. It also allows you to remove elements of the hiring process that isn’t adding anything or is a waste of time. Standardisation is crucial for all hiring processes.

Preventing Future Hiring Mistakes

While you cannot eliminate bad hires, you can reduce the likelihood of their occurrence by adopting a proactive approach:

1. Build a Talent Pipeline

Reactive hiring often leads to rushed decisions. Maintain a pool of pre-vetted candidates so you’re not scrambling when a position opens up.

2. Align Job Requirements with Business Needs

Avoid using generic job descriptions. Work closely with department heads to define the exact skills, experience, and personality traits needed for success in each role.

3. Optimise Your Hiring Funnel

From initial screening to final interviews, your hiring process should be consistent, efficient, and predictive of job performance.

4. Leverage Data and Technology

AI-driven tools and predictive analytics can help assess candidates more accurately, reducing human bias and improving hiring outcomes.

Summary

No hiring process is perfect, and hiring mistakes will inevitably happen. However, the key to long-term hiring success is learning from these mistakes and continuously refining your standardised hiring process. By identifying the reasons behind bad hires, making data-driven improvements, and proactively strengthening your hiring process, you can increase your chances of finding the right candidates—every time.

Want to improve your hiring process? Contact Fermion for expert psychometric testing solutions.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

How to Improve Job Interviews: Reduce Bias & Hire the Right Candidate

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 03:09:43 GMT

Bias in Hiring: How to Improve Interview Reliability and Fairness

Hiring decisions are some of the most important decisions any organisation or business makes. It is costly to get it wrong. But it is also an important decision for the candidate, thus, having a fair, efficient and effective hiring process is important for all parties. Ironically however, while the Australian economy has seen amazing innovations and productivity growth over the last 50 years there has been limited innovation in hiring methods. It is still the case that many organisations continue with the “traditional” recruitment method of review CVs, interview and reference checks.

Why Traditional Interviews are Unreliable

This traditional approach is unreliable and a poor way to predict good future employees. There are many reasons why they are unreliable, but one of the main reasons is due to selection decisions being made on first impressions, gut feel and the confidence many have in their own flawless judgements.

Humans are hardwired to make decisions based on emotion before reason. That that does not mean we cannot over-ride these behaviours and develop hiring processes that factor in our hardwired behaviours and use them to our advantage. Every human being on the planet has cognitive biases and they evolved for a good reason, however, in the modern workplace these biases need to be understood and accounted for in your decision-making processes; we don’t have to be slaves to our emotions.

Face-to-face interviews have long been viewed as relatively inconsistent and unreliable. To add to that, interviews often have the reputation as make-or-break-moments in the hiring process, when in fact, if they are not done properly, are the weakest link in the hiring process.

Interviews tend to conflate two very different questions: “Would you want to work with this person?” and “Would this person be a good worker?” Interviewing a candidate may give you a helpful answer to the first question but frequently offers little insight into the second. A personable candidate doesn’t always make a great employee.

Interviews Should be an Exchange of Information

Nevertheless, the face-to-face interview isn’t going anywhere, nor should it. Whilst there are flaws with interviews, when done properly, they are fundamental to the hiring process. Interviews are more than just getting information from the candidate; it is a two-way process; it is an exchange of information. We want to give candidates enough information about the role so they can make an informed decision, and that the role matches their expectations.

Structured vs Unstructured Interviews

Interviews can be split into two general categories: structured and unstructured . A structured interview asks a specific set of questions in a standardised format. This creates a uniform experience for both the interviewer and interviewee. Unstructured interviews, on the other hand, take a more improvisational approach; the conversation is meant to flow organically but can lack direction. These are particularly ineffective predictors of success, allowing employers to unknowingly build false narratives around their perception of the interviewee.

Because structured interviews help to minimise bias by standardising the interview process, they are widely regarded as a more productive way to predict actual job performance than unstructured interviews.

The Gold Standard Hiring Process: Steps to a More Effective Hiring Process

What is the most effective, fair and efficient hiring process? It starts with the job advertisement.

Clearly Define Your Hiring Process in the Job Advertisement

Include the hiring process in your job advertisement so candidates know before they apply what is involved. The job advertisements we do for our clients always includes the following:

Recruitment Process:

· A brief telephone conversation to confirm details of the role and arrange a telephone interview.

· Telephone interview.

· Online psychometric testing.

· Face-to-face interview.

· Reference & probity checks.

Document Preparation

In the spirit of the selection process being an exchange of information, there are some documents that we would recommend you send to candidates early in the process. Aside from having an interview schedule prepared, it is important to send candidates some information about the organisation, the hiring process and a code of conduct or similar type of document.

Review Applicants & Cull

Rate your applicants against the selection criteria using a scoring rubric to give each candidate a score based on the selection criteria. Cull the unsuitable candidates and develop a short list in descending rating score order of the suitable candidates. If it is a long short-list just start with the top 4 and keep the others on the bench, so to speak.

First Contact with Short-list

Make telephone contact with each candidate using the interview schedule and confirm they are still interested in the role and ascertain they have the minimum basic essential criteria, such as working rights, qualifications, salary expectation, work location and work hours. From this arrange a time for a 10 to 15-minute structured telephone interview. Send the candidate the documents as mentioned above and ask them to acknowledge receipt of the email and for them to review the documents before the telephone interview. Record the candidate’s behaviour and responses.

Conduct a Structured Phone Screening

Conduct the telephone interview as per the interview schedule and from that decide whether to cull or continue to the next step, which is psychometric testing. If one or two of your short-list were culled, go back to your original scoring sheet and choose the next candidate and start the process with them.

Psychometric Testing

Arrange for the candidate to undergo a battery of tests relevant to the role. That said, for most roles a battery of tests that covers IQ, EQ and personality is sufficient.

Obviously, we would encourage you to use Fermion for your psychometric testing, however, there are other providers out there who are almost as good as us.

After the testing is administered and interpreted, it is time to either cull or continue to the face-to-face interview.

Face-to-Face Interview: The Final Step

It should be apparent now that the face-to-face interview is essentially the last step in the hiring process. Reference checks are last and whilst necessary, we give them the least weight.

Putting the face-to-face interview last is essential in our quest to have a more reliable and effective interviews. By screening and culling, the panel only gets to interview good candidates and in doing so, the panel can use their intuition and gut feel to their advantage. Putting the face-to-face interview last is a simple, yet an incredibly effective way of improving your hiring decisions.

Set the Right Tone

There is a thought experiment called the “gossip test”, which isn’t unique to recruitment, whereby you ask yourself what you want the candidate to say to their partner after the job interview. Do you want them to say how warm, friendly and welcoming you were, and thus make a good impression about the organisation. Or do you want them to say that they were kept waiting and everyone was rude and unfriendly. The important point about the gossip test is that candidates will 100% talk about their experience to their friends and loved ones and knowing that you will be talked about help shapes yours and the panel’s behaviour. Your behaviour reflects the organisation and will be noticed by the candidate.

Assuming you are going for a positive first impression, the introduction you give to the candidates is important. We encourage our clients to use the following type of introduction:

“We would ask you to try and relax as we want this to be a free-flowing interview and conversation. We would ask you to be open and honest with your responses and in turn we will be open and honest to you. The recruitment process is a two-way exercise – we are learning about you, and you are learning about us, and it is in both of our interests that if you were employed with us that it works out; it’s an important decision for both of us. Does that make sense?” Just be yourself. You don’t have to know all things to all questions and having areas for improvement is okay. Plus, please ask us any questions you may have to help you determine if this is the right role for you”.

Questions before the Interview?

Do you give the candidates the questions before the interview? This is an example where there is no right or wrong approach and whatever approach you adopt it is fundamental that all candidates are treated the same. Standardising the process is crucial in your attempt to make the best hiring decision. Standardisation allows for more meaningful comparisons between candidates.

We encourage our clients to give the candidates the questions before the interview with the instructions that it will be a 45-minute interview, and they need to answer the questions in that time. Give the candidates 15 minutes to prepare and during that time the panel can review the available data and prepare for the candidate. By giving the candidate the questions beforehand one would expect higher quality answers.

Structured Interview

Absolutely use a structured interview with the prepared interview schedule. Conduct the interview and score each candidate. The actual interview schedule is a topic for another post, but it is important to have that developed before the hiring process starts and the questions reflect the demands of the role.

Decide

The panel decides on the day about the suitability of each candidate. They already have a lot of information about the candidate and as the face-to-face interview is last, this allows them to decide on the day while all the information is fresh and easy to recall.

Summary

Interviews are an essential component of the hiring process, however, if not done properly they will introduce a lot of error or noise into your decision-making. By placing the structured interview last, you are using our hardwired behaviours and biases to your advantage. By screening and culling candidates before the face-to-face interview, you are setting the scene whereby the panel only interviews good candidates, therefore the panel’s biases and intuition are used to their advantage. The successful candidate needs to be able to technically do the role, but you also need to feel comfortable with the successful candidate and this is where your gut and intuition is important.

Want to improve your hiring process? Contact Fermion for expert psychometric testing solutions.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Why You Should Never Use Myers-Briggs or the DISC for Recruitment

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 06:40:03 GMT

Stop Using MBTI & DISC for Hiring—Here’s Why

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and DISC assessment have been widely used in corporate settings for decades. Many job candidates mention these tests when discussing their past experiences. However, despite their popularity, these assessments have significant shortcomings and should never be used to make recruitment decisions for the following reasons:

They Are based on Outdated Science: Types vs Trait Based Approach

The MBTI was originally developed during WW2 and is based on Carl Jung’s typological theory of personality, while the DISC assessment was developed in the 1920s and is based on the DISC theory of personality developed by psychologist William Marston in the 1920s.

The MBTI and DISC divide certain elements of human personality into binary categories, or types. The problem with this old approach is that contemporary psychological research clearly shows that human personality cannot be accurately divided into discrete types, and tests that use this model tend to lack both reliability and validity.

The study of personality has come a long way since the MBTI and DISC were developed and the recent research tends to support a “trait over type” approach to personality and views personality traits like introversion/extraversion as dimensions or continuums rather than as binary absolutes. The concept of personality "traits" measured on a continuum is now widely accepted and has superseded the older personality "types" model that originated with Jung.

As an example, a type-based test might categorise you as a conscientious type, while a trait spectrum test might determine that you are in the 74 ^th percentile. There’s a big difference in specificity between these two outcomes and, as a result, tests that attempt to categorise people into types tend to lack both reliability and validity when compared to percentile tests.

Another downside to using the DISC in the hiring process is that it is not a normative assessment. Normative tests can compare one person’s scores with the scores of others in a larger population. That’s how normative personality tests can provide you with percentile scores – scoring in the 74 ^th percentile in extroversion means you are more extroverted than 74% of the people in the normative or reference group. The ability to compare one individual's personality to others is the critical missing piece needed to validate a personality test's ability to predict anything at all.

MBTI and DISC Lack Reliability

A study on the MBTI demonstrated that when a sample group took the MBTI and then took the test again 5 weeks later, about 50% of people received different results. Because the test separates people into types, a person who does not have a strong inclination for one type over the other may be just a few questions away from being placed into an entirely separate category. This demonstrates that the test has poor test-retest reliability.

MBTI and DISC Do Not Predict Job Performance

Studies have consistently demonstrated that the tests fail to predict job performance in any meaningful way. If the main reason to use a pre-employment test is to predict job performance, then a test that lacks this predictive validity is essentially useless as an employee selection device.

MBTI and DISC Publishers Discourage Their Use in Hiring

The Myers & Briggs Foundation very clearly state that “it is not ethical to use the MBTI instrument for hiring or for deciding job assignments.” This is because the test is not predictive of job performance.

One of the leading publishers of the DISC states on their website that the “DISC is not recommended for pre-employment screening because it does not measure a specific skill, aptitude or factor specific to any position” and that the “DISC is not a predictive assessment so assumptions should not be made regarding an applicant's probability of success based solely on their style.”

Apparently, the MBTI and DISC are useful for team building, although I am aware of a few better ways to improve a team’s performance. If an organisation wants to do a team building exercise using a personality profile I would recommend using the NEO-PI-3, which is the five-factor model and has significantly better validity and reliability than the MBTI and DISC. Why use something that is old, outdated and invalid when there are contemporary and statistically sound profiles on the market. It’s ironic that many organisations talk about innovation yet use old and outdated profiles.

Better Alternatives Exist

If you are looking for an effective and scientifically valid personality test for hiring, consider trait-based assessments that provide percentile scores and compare candidates to a normative sample.

Some reliable options include:

Big Five Personality Assessments (e.g., NEO-PI-3 )
Employee Personality Profile (EPP)
Hogan Personality Inventory ( HPI )

These tests offer greater reliability, validity, and predictive power, making them far superior choices for hiring.

Personality tests are valuable tools to help find the best talent in your applicant pool, and using tests that produces meaningful, predictive results in the hiring process is the key to getting the most out of testing. For recruitment, I would recommend using the Employee Personality Profile from Criteria. An excellent profile with good reliability, validity and job prediction utility.

Google’s Hiring Secrets: What You Can Learn

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:48:35 GMT

How Leading Companies Use Psychometric Testing to Hire Right

Why Google’s Hiring Strategy Works

Laszlo Bock, the former Senior Vice President of People Operations for Google, in a 2014 article for the New York Times, said the number 1 attribute they looked for at Google during their rigorous selection process was cognitive ability, which he defined as the “ability to learn quickly”. He said they also looked for “emergent” leadership and a corollary of other behaviours that would come under the more general heading of conscientiousness and humility.

In short, Google is mainly looking for the same things that the research and organisational psychologists have been saying for decades: cognitive aptitude and conscientiousness are valid, reliable, and strongly predictive indicators of future job performance.

The Power of Predictive Hiring

For any selection process, decision-makers need predictive data—information that helps determine a candidate’s future job success. Google has the resources to develop custom hiring processes, but the fundamental factors they evaluate—cognitive ability and conscientiousness—are measurable through pre-employment assessments that are readily available to all companies.

Every organisation must also deal with its own costs - what are the consequences of hiring the wrong person? What are the consequences of failing to hire a qualified person? We mostly think about the cost of hiring the wrong person (false positives), but there is also a cost to missing a diamond. A significant case study underscores this point:

Facebook rejected Brian Acton, who later co-founded WhatsApp. Four years later, they acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion—a costly example of missing a top talent.

The cost of hiring the wrong person is well-documented, but the cost of failing to hire the right person can be just as damaging.

How to Improve Your Hiring Process Without Google’s Budget

Google has the resources and status to attract high quality candidates that most other companies or organisations could only dream off. However, there are many ways any organisation can improve their hiring process that doesn’t cost a fortune or isn’t too time consuming.

The first of these is incorporating psychometric testing into your selection process and measure cognitive ability, personality and emotional intelligence. This is easy to incorporate into your process and is very cost effective when compared with hiring with the wrong person or missing a star.

Laszlo Bock has since resigned from Google and has published a book titled “ Work Rules ”, where he offers some advice on ways to improve your hiring process:

· “Our single greatest constraint on growth has always been our ability to find great people.”

· “We wanted to hire ‘smart generalists’ rather than experts.”

· “Unstructured job interviews weren’t very good at predicting how someone would perform once hired. The best predictor of how someone will perform in a job is a work sample test (29 percent) ...the second-best predictors of performance are tests of general cognitive ability (26 percent).”

· “Before you start recruiting, decide what attributes you want and define as a group what great looks like. A good rule of thumb is to hire only people who are better than you. Do not compromise. Ever.”

· “If you’re hiring people who are better than yourself, most other people issues tend to sort themselves out.”

· “At Google, we front-load our people investment. This means most of our time and money spent on people is invested in attracting, assessing and cultivating new hires. We spend more than twice as much on recruiting, as a percentage of our people budget, as an average company.”

· "We want the people who will perform their best here, not the ones who will perform their best elsewhere.”

Bock also discussed the importance of honesty and humility in their leaders and assessing that during the hiring process. Honest-humility is a dimension of personality that reflects the degree to which a person promotes—or doesn’t—their own interests above those of others. More specifically, it includes aspects of personality such as one’s levels of sincerity, fairness, modesty and (dis)interest in wealth and signs of status.

A way of measuring honesty-humility during the interview is to ask the candidate the following:

· Please describe a time when you made a mistake at work?

· How did you feel when this occurred?

· What did you do?

· What, if anything, did you learn from this experience?

Be wary of any applicant who claims to have been the sole driver of significant changes or successes at their last workplace. Be especially alert to failure to acknowledge the contribution of others or seemingly overstating their position or role. Do your checks carefully to prevent inheriting another organisation's problem worker.

Use a Hiring Checklist to Evaluate Candidates

Another idea for any interview panel to ask themselves after interviewing a candidate:

· Would this person feel bad about committing a transgression or making a mistake even if no one knew about what he or she did?

· Does he or she have a strong sense of responsibility for others?

· Would this person feel bad about letting others down?

· Is this person truthful, humble and fair?

· Is he or she hardworking, careful and thorough when completing tasks?

We can’t always answer these questions; however, it is still a useful exercise to help the panel think about each candidate.

Summary

Not every business or organisation is a Google, nor do many have the capacity to emulate their hiring process, however, there are many things that are either free, such as good interview questions, or at a reasonable cost, such as psychometric testing, that can improve your hiring decisions. Including a battery of tests that covers IQ, EQ and personality, and incorporate the honesty-humility questions, and you are already in front of where you were for little effort or money. Better still, contact an expert to help you review and improve your current hiring processes. Fortunately, there is one such expert a click away from helping you.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Why Psychometric Testing is a Game-Changer for Recruitment

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 03:11:02 GMT

Smarter Hiring Decisions with Psychometric Testing

When it comes to hiring the right person for the role and organisation, making data-driven decisions is critical. Research consistently shows that psychometric testing for recruitment provides objective, predictive insights into a candidate’s potential for success. A recent National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) study further reinforces this, revealing that companies using psychometric assessments make better hiring decisions and experience lower turnover rates.

Key Findings from the NBER Study

The study examined 15 companies hiring entry-level service sector employees and involved a massive 300,000 hires and 555 hiring managers. It assessed candidates based on cognitive ability, personality traits, and technical skills, offering a comprehensive view of each applicant’s strengths.

�� Employees hired with psychometric testing stayed 15% longer in their roles compared to those hired without testing.
�� The further hiring managers deviated from test recommendations, the worse their hiring decisions became.
�� The data showed that psychometric assessments were more accurate at identifying strong candidates than hiring managers relying solely on intuition.

Why This Study Matters

This research carries significant weight due to its prestigious backing. The NBER is the largest economics research organisation in the U.S., with 22 Nobel Prize winners among its members. Researchers from Harvard, Yale, and the University of Toronto contributed to the study, adding further credibility.

Psychometric Testing vs. Traditional Hiring Methods

The findings of this study align with past research, including the influential meta-analysis by Hunter and Schmidt , which demonstrated that cognitive aptitude tests are stronger predictors of job performance than interviews, work experience, and education level.

Hiring managers often rely on gut instinct, but research proves that human bias impacts hiring decisions. While interviews and resumes can provide valuable information, they are inherently subjective. Psychometric testing offers a structured, data-driven approach to hiring that reduces bias and enhances decision-making.

Balancing Intuition with Data

While psychometric testing for recruitment is a powerful tool, it should not replace human judgment entirely. Instead, it should be a key component of a comprehensive hiring strategy that also includes structured interviews, skills assessments, and cultural fit evaluations.

The Bottom Line: Why Businesses Should Use Psychometric Testing

Incorporating psychometric assessments into your hiring process can lead to:
✅ Stronger, data-backed hiring decisions
✅ Reduced employee turnover
✅ More accurate candidate evaluations
✅ Lower hiring biases and improved workplace diversity

With research confirming its effectiveness, psychometric testing for recruitment is an essential strategy for companies looking to build high-performing teams.

Fermion specialises in psychometric testing for recruitment. Please contact Fermion to discuss how the Typing and/or Data Entry tests, or any other psychometric test, can help with you your recruitment decisions.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Language Proficiency Test

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 04:15:11 GMT

Workplace Language Assessment

The Criteria Language Proficiency Test (CLPT) is a customisable set of assessments that measures the level of language proficiency that you require for any given role. Currently offered in English, the CLPT assessments measure reading comprehension, writing, and listening skills. As adaptive assessments, they are underpinned by sophisticated scoring algorithms that adjust the difficulty of test items based on each candidate’s previous responses, which ensures a precise, shorter, and more efficient testing experience.

The reading and listening modules contain 13 multiple-choice questions, while the writing module contains 8 free-text questions. The test is completed online and takes the candidate 21 minutes to complete. For improved test security, candidates are streamed different questions from a large bank of items. This means that no two candidates are likely to be presented with the same set of questions, making it harder for candidates to cheat or prepare for specific questions.

The CLPT is ideal for assessing candidate’s suitability for call centre and customer service roles, as well as any role that requires a high level of verbal interaction with clients. By assessing a candidate’s English proficiency, employers gain surety in a candidate’s grasp of English and can easily identify candidates with a satisfactory language level for a given job.

Fermion specialises in psychometric testing for recruitment. Please contact Fermion to discuss how the CLPT, or any other psychometric test, can help with you your recruitment decisions.

About the Author:

Christopher Apps is an Organisational Psychologist and the owner of Fermion. He stays updated on the latest psychology research and shares evidence-based insights. The focus of Fermion is " Psychometric Testing for Recruitment " and “ Recruitment to Retention : How to Select Good Staff & Keep Them”. If you would like to learn how to select good staff and keep them, please feel free to contact us at Fermion.

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Testing Done Properly

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 07:01:49 GMT

How to Administer Online Tests

We did not accept that sending candidates anonymous emails for testing where there is no human involvement is acceptable. Thus, we set about devising a more reliable online test administration process and came up with the following, which is what we do with all our candidates:

1. Text the candidate asking for a time for a quick chat to discuss the testing. By texting the candidate beforehand, they are not ambushed and are aware of the purpose of the call. They then reply with a time that suits them for a chat.

2. Talk to the candidate and explain the process and answer any questions they may have and get them to set their own deadline. During this conversation we tell the candidate that they cannot have anyone helping them. When we do this, we pause and wait for them to answer in the affirmative. This is a small step, but it is crucial as the candidate has now given a commitment that they will do the tests alone and without help. We all like to be consistent with our behaviour, and this applies to commitments that people give to others. This is the social norm that we are using to our advantage and comes from the work of Robert Cialdini’s book, “ The Small Big: small changes that spark big influence ”.

3. We also send a series of texts to candidates asking them confirm receipt of the test email and a final text asking that if they are going to run late can they please let us know. We cover all the bases, and it works.

4. Candidate completes the tests, and we send the results to them and our client with the feedback.

The above administration process takes 5 minutes, and it engages the candidate in the process and gives us, and our clients, additional incidental data about the candidate. Incidental data is the information we get from the candidate that is outside the more formal selection process and often yields useful information about the candidate. What was their phone manner and conversation like? Were they easy to get in touch with? Did they meet their own deadline? Most of the time the process is straightforward, but occasionally it yields interesting and useful data. For example, some people are real talkers and go into unnecessary detail or on unrelated tangents. Or, as has happened a couple of times, you get someone who refuses to do the tests and speaks of their superiority and “my CV should speak for itself”. That level of arrogance is rare, but it happens and just that one brief conversation potentially saved my client a lot of time and money.

Summary

Online psychometric testing for recruitment is very effective when done correctly. We talk to the candidates in a structured and purposeful way to ensure the process is done fairly, properly and yields reliable data.

Fermion specialises in psychometric testing for recruitment. Please contact Fermion to discuss how this battery of tests, or any other psychometric test, can help with you your recruitment decisions.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

IQ + EQ + Personality

Tue, 17 Sep 2024 02:45:41 GMT

Cognitive Skills, Emotional Intelligence, and Personality Traits

An excellent battery of tests to compliment your interview. This battery of tests measures general intelligence, emotional intelligence and personality. There are up to 254 questions the candidate will answer over 45 minutes. You will never come close to asking that many questions in an interview.

We recommend testing before you interview as this helps you refine your questions, but also gives you the opportunity to cull an unsuitable candidate, thus, saving time and resources. But, more importantly, it prevents you from hiring someone who excels at interviews but is weak in many other areas. First impressions are the weak link in recruitment decisions – this brief moment in time is when mistakes are made, and potentially, very costly mistakes.

Telephone screen, test and then only interviews good candidates. This one simple change to your recruitment process will significantly improve your recruitment decisions.

This battery of tests costs $450 (excl.GST), which includes talking to the candidate to explain the process and gather incidental data. We provide you with written and verbal feedback in the context of the role’s position description and the candidate’s CV. The candidate is also offered their results if they want them, which most do.

You cannot get the same depth or complexity of information about a candidate in just an interview. This battery of tests gives you that extra information to compliment your interview.

We have been using this battery of tests from Criteria for many years and we are pleased with the results, as are our clients.

Fermion specialises in psychometric testing for recruitment. Please contact Fermion to discuss how this battery of tests, or any other psychometric test, can help with you your recruitment decisions.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Workplace Safety Profile

Thu, 22 Aug 2024 03:30:25 GMT

Employee Safety Awareness Profile

The Workplace Safety Profile (WSP) is a risk assessment that measures a candidate’s attitudes towards safety.

The results provide a reliable indication of the likelihood that an individual will be involved in accidents or cause injury to themselves or others at work.

The WSP can help organisations reduce the occurrence of workplace incidents and is primarily used for roles where safety behaviour is an important factor.

When candidates complete the WSP, they indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with each statement. Candidates respond to each question by selecting one of the five options from an agreement scale.

The assessment assesses a variety of beliefs about the self, other people, and the environment. It also assesses the extent to which candidates maybe distorting or faking their responses.

Assessment questions are streamed in a random order each time a candidate completes the WSP. This feature provides a high level of test security by limiting the likelihood that candidates will be streamed questions in the same order, and reducing the possibility that candidates will collaborate when completing assessments.

The WSP measures three risk factors:

Safety Control - The extent to which an individual is likely to take personal responsibility for safety outcomes. Individuals with a high level of safety control believe they can influence whether an accident or injury occurs by the actions they take. These employees are more likely to adopt a proactive approach to safety and follow safety rules and procedures.
Risk Aversion - The extent to which an individual is likely to avoid risky behaviour at work. Individuals with a high level of risk aversion are more cautious and careful in their approach to work. They are less likely to find risky activities exciting or thrilling, and are therefore less likely to take risks that lead to accidents and injuries.
Stress Management - The extent to which an individual is likely to cope with stress on the job. People with a high level of stress management will cope better with stress and are less likely to be fatigued or distracted at work due to stress.

Each candidate is given a percentile ranking and an Overall Rating of High, Medium, or Low, based on the risk that the candidate may engage in unsafe behaviour in the workplace. The score reports also provide scores for three sub scores, including, safety control, risk aversion, and stress management.

We have been using the Workplace Safety Profile from Criteria for many years and we are pleased with the results, as are our clients.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Critical Attention Skills Test

Fri, 16 Aug 2024 03:54:44 GMT

Concentration and Attention Proficiency Test

The Critical Attention Skills Test (CAST) is designed to assess a candidate’s ability to multi-task or concentrate on two or more things simultaneously, maintain concentration on a task for a sustained period of time, focus on important information, and ignore irrelevant distractions, while responding quickly. Therefore, the assessment distinguishes between candidates who have a superior ability to remain responsive and highly focused over sustained periods, while ignoring distractions.

The CAST measures a specific component of cognitive aptitude, which is related to improved job performance, productivity, and training outcomes. The CAST enables you to assess for a candidate’s “mental fitness,” reaction times, concentration, and focused attention skills.

Because of its ability to measure concentration skills, the CAST helps predict employee success in a wide variety of positions — ranging from skilled manufacturing jobs to casino gaming dealers to video surveillance workers.

High attention and concentration levels are also strongly correlated with low operator error, so the CAST is used to help predict job performance for pilots, delivery drivers, and truck and bus drivers.

The questions do not contain any English language; only the instructions require English comprehension. Tutorials provide the opportunity for candidates to practice and ensure they understand the instructions before beginning each scored section of the assessment. The assessment is streamed randomly: each candidate receives the questions in a different order. This means the assessment offers a relatively unique experience for each candidate, while maintaining the same number and complexity of questions.

We have been using the Critical Attention Skills Test from Criteria for many years and we are pleased with the results, as are our clients.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Typing & Data Entry Tests

Tue, 06 Aug 2024 05:24:39 GMT

Typing Skills and Data Entry Evaluation

The Typing Test measures an individual's typing speed and accuracy. The candidate is presented with a passage and given one minute to type as much of the passage as possible. The test generates three scores: Words per Minute (WPM), Number of Errors, and Adjusted Words per Minute (WPM - Errors).

The Data Entry Test measures a candidate’s ability to perform data entry for numerical fields. The test provides both a speed score (keystrokes per hour) and an accuracy score (number of correct fields). The test consists of 20 entries, and typically takes less than 5 minutes to complete, including instructions.

Ideal for a range of roles that require typing and/or data entry skills, such as accounting clerks, transcriptionists, receptionists, customer service representatives, administrative assistants, and more.

We have been using the Typing & Data Entry Tests from Criteria for many years and we are pleased with the results, as are our clients.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Computer Literacy & Internet Knowledge Test

Thu, 01 Aug 2024 05:12:16 GMT

Computer and Internet Proficiency Evaluation

The Computer Literacy and Internet Knowledge Test (CLIK) is an assessment of basic computer skills. It measures a person’s proficiency with using Internet browsers and common desktop applications, such as email, chat and word processing programs.

The test consists of three 3-minute task-oriented simulations, followed by ten multiple choice questions covering knowledge of internet browsers, basic cybersecurity, calendars and universal operating system features. Since it is designed as a test of the kind of basic computer literacy that is required in many work environments, it can be used for any position which requires basic computer skills, such as receptionists, customer service representatives, medical billers, data entry clerks, administrative assistants, and more.

The CLIK test has been extensively validated for a wide range of positions that require basic computer knowledge. The test is highly correlated with job performance in such roles. Individual results on the CLIK have also been demonstrated to be highly reliable and consistent.

Ideal for a range of roles that require basic computer skills such as receptionists, customer service representatives, medical billers, data entry clerks, administrative assistants, and more.

We have been using the Computer Literacy & Internet Knowledge Test Suite from Criteria for many years and we are pleased with the results, as are our clients.

Fermion specialises in psychometric testing for recruitment. Please contact Fermion to discuss how the CCAT, or any other psychometric test, can help with you your recruitment decisions.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Microsoft Office Suite

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 04:47:42 GMT

Microsoft Office Software Competency Testing

Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are widely used in a variety of different positions. Pre-employment tests for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are helpful for determining whether or not an applicant has the basic competency required to use these programs successfully in the workplace, allowing employers to hire individuals who won’t require additional training in those areas. These assessments can be administered separately or together depending on the job requirements for any given position.

Microsoft Word

The Word test measures proficiency with a wide range of functionalities in Word 2013 or 2016. The test is 10 minutes and contains 20 questions. It assesses an individual’s ability to successfully complete basic tasks within Word across a wide range of positions requiring regular computer use. Some of these include creating a document, using mail merge, formatting text, working with margins, and editing, formatting, and copying text.

Microsoft Excel

The Excel test measures proficiency with a wide range of functionalities in Excel 2013 or 2016. The test is 10 minutes and contains 20 questions. It assesses an individual’s ability to successfully complete basic tasks within Excel across a wide range of positions requiring regular computer use and data entry. Some of the tasks include creating and saving workbooks, editing and formatting, working with formulas and functions, and manipulating charts.

Microsoft PowerPoint

The PowerPoint test measures proficiency with a wide range of functionalities in PowerPoint 2013 or 2016. The test is 10 minutes and contains 20 questions. It assesses an individual’s ability to successfully complete basic tasks that are necessary to a wide range of positions requiring regular PowerPoint use. Some of the tasks include working with images and text boxes, creating presentations, formatting slides, and printing.

Ideal for a range of roles that require basic Microsoft Office proficiency such as administrative assistants, receptionists, data entry clerks, billing clerks, executive assistant and secretarial roles, and more.

We have been using the Microsoft Office Suite from Criteria for many years and we are pleased with the results, as are our clients.

Fermion specialises in psychometric testing for recruitment. Please contact Fermion to discuss how the CCAT, or any other psychometric test, can help with you your recruitment decisions.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Cognitive Aptitude Test

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 02:26:18 GMT

Intellectual Ability Assessments for Hiring

Cognitive aptitude - often referred to as general intelligence or g - refers to the ability to solve problems, digest and apply information, learn new skills, and think critically.

People who score well on cognitive aptitude tests use their high-level information processing skills to solve job-related problems more effectively, and to learn on the job more quickly. As a result, people with strong scores tend to perform better on the job and in training.

Research has also shown cognitive aptitude to be valid, reliable and strongly predictive of future work performance. People with high levels of cognitive aptitude can:

· Perform work tasks more accurately and successfully

· Make decisions more effectively

· Use reasoning skills and solve problems

· Respond intelligently to new or complex circumstances

We recommend using the Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test (CCAT) to measures your candidate’s ability to solve problems, digest and apply information, learn new skills, and think critically. The CCAT provides you with a quick and accurate way of measuring a candidate’s cognitive aptitude.

The CCAT consists of 50 multiple-choice questions with a 15-minute time limit. Most people will not complete the test, and this is by design. The assessment is measuring how quickly someone processes information.

The CCAT is device-agnostic. This means candidates can take the test on any digital device they choose – a mobile phone, tablet, laptop or desktop – in any location and at any time. This provides a high level of flexibility and convenience for the candidate.

We have been using the CCAT from Criteria for just over 3 years and we are pleased with the results, as are our clients.

Fermion specialises in psychometric testing for recruitment. Please contact Fermion to discuss how the CCAT, or any other psychometric test, can help with you your recruitment decisions.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Basic Skills Test

Wed, 10 Jul 2024 05:42:22 GMT

Foundational Skills Screening for New Hires

The Criteria Basic Skills Test (CBST) measures the basic math and verbal skills that are required to succeed in a wide variety of entry-level jobs. The CBST measures basic grammar, spelling, math, and language skills. It offers a quick way to assess the job readiness of candidates in a range of jobs, including clerical, administrative, and customer service positions.

The CBST consists of 40 questions with a 20-minute time limit. The difficulty of the questions increases as the candidate progresses through the test.

Every candidate is given a raw score and a percentile ranking. The raw score indicates how many questions they answered correctly, while the percentile ranking is a relative performance metric that indicates how the individual scored relative to others who have taken the test. For example, a percentile ranking of 45 means that an individual scored better than 45% of the group on which the test was normed.

The CBST has been extensively validated to be predictive of performance for a variety of jobs in which basic verbal and math skills are required. The test is most useful for assessing basic job readiness competencies for candidates applying to entry-level or low- to mid-level jobs.

We have been using the CBST from Criteria for just over 3 years and we are pleased with the results, as are our clients.

Fermion specialises in psychometric testing for recruitment. Please contact Fermion to discuss how the CBST, or any other psychometric test, can help with you your recruitment decisions.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Emotional Intelligence Test for Recruitment

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 03:30:13 GMT

Screening Candidates with Emotional Intelligence Testing

“Emotify” from Criteria is our Emotional Intelligence (EQ) tool of choice with regards to recruitment and staff selection. Emotify is an ability-based measure of emotional intelligence that assesses a candidate’s ability to accurately perceive, understand, and manage emotions. It features three engaging, interactive assessments which together take about 20 minutes to complete.

Emotify is comprised of three separate assessments:

Matching Faces - candidates need to quickly identify the emotion displayed on a person’s face.

Emotional Ties - requires candidates to read a number of everyday situations and identify the emotion involved.

Emotions in Action - candidates need to indicate the most effective action to take to manage a range of emotions.

Research has shown that EQ is associated with important work outcomes such as interpersonal effectiveness, collaboration and teamwork, motivation, and decision-making.

Higher emotional intelligence scores have been linked with improved performance, better leadership skills, and stronger interpersonal and social skills.

Candidates with below average scores on Emotify were twice as likely to be involved in conflict at work or struggle to cope with stressful events when compared to candidates with average or higher scores.

Emotify is device-agnostic. This means candidates can take the test on any digital device they choose – a mobile phone, tablet, laptop or desktop – in any location and at any time.

We have been using Emotify for just over 3 years and we are very pleased with the results, as are our clients.

Fermion specialises in psychometric testing for recruitment. Please contact Fermion to discuss how Emotify, or any other psychometric test, can help with you your recruitment decisions.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Personality Profiling for Recruitment

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 02:05:40 GMT

The Power of Personality Assessments in Hiring

The Employee Personality Profile (EPP), from Criteria , is a workplace personality assessment based on the “Big Five”. The research into personality over the past four decades has overwhelmingly supported a model of normal personality referred to as the “Five-Factor Model of Personality” or sometimes called the “Big Five”, thus, any reliable and valid personality profile should be based on the “Big Five”.

The EPP measures 12 personality traits and provides valuable insights into an individual’s work styles as well as how likely they are to interact positively with co-workers, managers, and customers.

It can be used as an evaluation or selection tool for virtually any job as it contains benchmarks specific to unique job families, allowing you to compare an individual’s scores against composite profiles to determine their likely job fit.

The EPP contains 140 items, takes about 10 minutes to complete, and measures 12 different traits: Achievement, Assertiveness, Competitiveness, Conscientiousness, Cooperativeness, Extroversion, Managerial, Motivation, Openness, Patience, Self-Confidence, and Stress Tolerance.

There are no correct or incorrect answers on the EPP. All the candidate’s responses come together to create a unique personality profile for that individual. Similarly, there are no “good” or “bad” traits - some traits and profiles are simply more associated with success for particular roles.

The EPP is device-agnostic. This means candidates can take the test on any digital device they choose – a mobile phone, tablet, laptop or desktop – in any location and at any time.

The EPP has been extensively validated, demonstrating that the test is highly predictive of job performance for a wide variety of jobs. It has been validated for both construct and predictive validity. EPP results are statistically reliable, meaning that the test measures traits that are generally stable across an individual’s life.

We have been using the EPP from Criteria Corp for just over 3 years and we are pleased with the results, as are our clients.

Fermion specialises in psychometric testing for recruitment. Please contact Fermion to discuss how the EPP, or any other psychometric test, can help with you your recruitment decisions.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Work From Home vs Face-to-Face

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 06:47:42 GMT

Hybrid Model of Work: A Win-Win

This is one of those topics where many people seem to have an opinion, so I thought I would add to the chorus. Not wanting to sound like a nay-sayer or a know-it-all, but it is a bit of a red herring. The real question is what motivates employees, not, where should employees sit.

Working in the office under a micro-managing over-bearing boss is demotivating, whereas someone working from home (WFH) with a supportive boss can be motivating. Whether the work arrangements are WFH or a hybrid model, it is missing the point: the question is, how do you manage and lead staff to increase their intrinsic motivation

Developing intrinsic motivation in your staff is the goal, and face-to-face vs WFH is missing the point. The main factors to focus on for developing intrinsic motivation is three-fold: people need experiences that connect them to colleagues in a meaningful way (relatedness), empower them to feel like they have some say in how they do their job (autonomy), and grow their skills (mastery). This model of motivation is called “Self-Determination Theory” and implementing it can be done independent of where the employee works. These three variables can be nurtured and developed in all staff irrespective of whether they are WFH, or full-time in the workplace.

There was an article in the Guardian recently (14.6.24), titled, “Drum kits and kombucha: how some Australian firms are enticing Gen Z back into the office.” The article cited various firms who were offering a range of perks, or unusual office design, as a way of encouraging people back to the office. This approach has face validity, i.e., on the surface it looks like a good idea and how could it not make employees happier. But, putting aside the research that demonstrates the futility of this approach apart from a short-term benefit, we all know from our own experience, literature and popular culture, materialism does not make us happy. We are driven by other needs, and in the workplace, that is a sense of connection, autonomy and mastery. People want a humane workplace, not a pinball machine.

The same article cited a survey of 3000 workers and more than 75% of the respondents wanted a hybrid model and when asked what they cared about the most in the workplace, learning and progression, i.e., mastery, rated the highest.

There could be a more unintended and sinister side to the trinkets approach, and that is once they are in place, the boss expects the employees to respond positively to them and be more productive, but when the razzle dazzle wears off, as it will, staff go back to where they were beforehand. But the boss expects otherwise, and it could cause resentment to build because it has not had the desired effect. In addition to that, it is difficult to take something off employees due to a hard-wired bias called, “loss aversion”. So then you are stuck with these silly ineffectual gimmicks and have wasted time and energy, i.e., opportunity costs, when the time and resources could have been better spent towards building an effective motivational framework for your employees.

Compare that pseudo-scientific approach with a study published in Nature (12.6.24) out of Standford University, titled, “Hybrid work is a ‘win-win-win’ for companies and workers.” This was a well-designed study that was a randomised controlled trial involving two groups over six months; one that worked as a hybrid model versus the other that worked full-time in the office. The authors found that employees who worked from home for two days a week are just as productive and as likely to be promoted as their fully office-based colleagues. Resignations fell by 33% in the hybrid group compared to the office group, which they attributed to the hybrid workers having to commute to the office less. The authors concluded with the following:

“For business leaders, the study confirms that concerns that hybrid work does more harm than good are overblown. If managed right, letting employees work from home two or three days a week still gets you the level of mentoring, culture-building, and innovation that you want. From an economic policymaking standpoint, hybrid work is one of the few instances where there aren't major trade-offs with clear winners and clear losers. There are almost only winners."

These are informative experimental results that significantly contribute to the ongoing debate. Just reducing people’s commute times to two or three days a week, instead of five, is significant and something that they are reminded of daily. For many people in cities, commuting is expensive and time consuming, thus, reducing this is tantamount to a pay rise for some, but also frees up their leisure time so they can pursue what they like, not what their boss likes.

Some established workers who are not ambitious and are comfortable at their level, would benefit from WFH, but even then, they still need to interact with their colleagues face-to-face on a regular basis. However, ultimately, it should come down to the individual needs of each employee and not a de-humanising one-size-fits-all approach.

Treat people as individuals in an autonomous supportive environment that values mastery and meaningful working relationships. Then use WFH and a hybrid model as a working condition to help improve the morale and motivation of your staff.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Language Proficiency Test

Thu, 13 Jun 2024 03:04:24 GMT

Measures Reading, Writing & Listening

Fermion specialises in psychometric testing for recruitment. Please contact Fermion to discuss how the CLPT, or any other psychometric test, can help with you your recruitment decisions.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

How to Build a High Performing Team

Wed, 12 Jun 2024 04:04:25 GMT

How to Motivate Your Employees

Imagine your employees consistently demonstrated the following behaviours:

· Reliable, punctual, and dependable.

· Polite and respectful.

· Team members back each other up and help each other.

· Share information.

· Technically sound and good at their job.

· They want to do well, and they care about the outcomes.

· The absence of bullying, harassment and other offensive behaviours.

· They enjoy coming to work – they really like their job.

Imagine having a team that behaved like that most of the time: that would be a high performing team. These are employees you can confidently assign tasks to, who takes pride and ownership in producing high-quality work, and genuinely enjoy coming to work and being part of a high performing team. These employees do not need well-being programs or external motivators, such as rewards, free morning tea, gym memberships etc.

By all means, use wellbeing programs and rewards, but do not expect them to have any positive impact beyond the initial “sugar hit”; this approach does not drive long-term, or even medium-term, improvements in behaviours. Likewise, money or promotions do not drive long-term motivation, nor do performance reviews or motivational platitudes. Salaries and pay need to be fair for the industry and compared to peers, but beyond that, it will not develop a high performing team.

Motivation

The main purpose of any People & Culture policy should be about motivation, i.e., how do we motivate our employees, so they are engaged, loyal and productive. You could argue the success of any business or organisation depends upon getting the People & Culture policy settings correct. Having a superior service or product, all within the best business plan and strategy, is compromised without good staff to implement it. However, hiring good staff and keeping them motivated, loyal and productive is a significant ongoing challenge for many businesses and organisations, but, it does not have to be that way.

Psychological Needs

Decades of research demonstrate that when people feel psychologically fulfilled, they tend to be healthier, happier, and more productive. Psychological needs are at the heart of building a high performing team: to thrive at work, people need experiences that connect them to colleagues in a meaningful way (relatedness) , empower them to feel like they have some say in how they do their job (autonomy) , and grow their skills (competence) .

These three psychological constructs should be at the heart of your organisation’s people and culture practises, and if they are, you are on the right track. Another way to express the three psychological needs for peak performance is as follows:

· Relatedness: How well staff at all levels get on and relate to each other. People relating to each other as colleagues and co-workers; supporting and trusting each other and helping to get the job done. When talking about relationships at work we are not talking about friendships alone. What matters most is the quality of the working relationships, particularly with respect to trust, respect, and recognition. Building and maintaining good working relationships requires constant renewal and reaffirmation by all parties. It requires a permanent connection between the manager and the team and between the team members.

· Autonomy: Employees participating in decisions that affect the day-to-day business of the workplace and where possible, employees determine how they tackle the daily demands of their role.

· Competence: Employees being trained in their role to a high standard and given opportunities to improve, be it through training, mentoring or peer collaboration.

Every business owner or leader can create psychologically fulfilling workplace experiences and unlock peak performance. You do not have to be high energy or a visionary or a dynamic person to deliver this solution. This solution is not about “transforming” anyone or making someone a different person, but instead it can be used by anyone and once it is in place allows you to focus on your core business instead of being too distracted by staff issues.

Selecting good staff and keeping them engaged, loyal and productive must cover the entire life cycle of an employee: from selection, to induction, to retention, and finally, an exit interview. This employee life cycle needs to be done within a framework where every employee’s psychological needs of relatedness, autonomy and competence are met. If you get your People & Culture policy settings correct, your employees can flourish and thrive at work and enjoy long and meaningful careers within your organisation.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

A Common Mistake in Recruitment & Staff Selection

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 04:06:07 GMT

Don't Let Your Biases Affect Your Recruitment Decisions

Is it a Super-Power?

One of the most common mistakes in recruitment is the belief in one's ability to "read" people. Many hiring managers claim they are very good at reading people, almost as if it's a super-power. This confidence is understandable and natural, as humans are indeed quick at making snap judgments about others. However, while we might be quick, we are not always accurate. This is the crux of the issue: we are all good at making quick judgments, but these judgments are often flawed.

The Flaws in Our Judgements

Humans are born with a range of behaviours that make us inherently social beings. We are hard-wired to seek social connections and desire a sense of belonging, we make decisions based on emotion rather than reason, and we categorise people and situations quickly based on first impressions. We tend to classify people as "good" or "bad" and "in" or "out" based on gut feelings rather than careful analysis. These are evolutionary short-cuts that we all do to make decision-making easier.

This tendency to make snap judgments is normal and natural, but it is deeply flawed. Research shows that we can form judgments about people in as little as 200 milliseconds . We are biased towards those who look like us or belong to our social group. Happy faces are perceived as more trustworthy, while angry faces are seen as untrustworthy. Feminine faces are perceived as more trustworthy but less dominant, which can skew perceptions of leadership capabilities. These judgments, studied extensively by Professor Alexander Todorov , are often incorrect.

We know that the moment the candidate walks through the door for the interview, a judgement is made and then confirmation bias kicks in. This is where information that supports your judgement is highlighted, and information that is contrary to your judgement is ignored or dismissed. This essentially means that many candidates are chosen within a few seconds.

Mitigating Bias in Recruitment

What can we do to mitigate this bias in our decision-making when it comes to recruitment and staff selection? The answer is to conduct the face-to-face interview last in the selection process. Screen candidates with a telephone interview and psychometric testing. From this, you cull the weaker candidates, and you only interview good candidates and then you use your first impressions, gut feel and intuition to your advantage. It is important to have a positive emotional response to candidate, but we want to last in the process, not first.

Summary

Due to our evolutionary development, some of our decision-making and social judgements are inherently flawed by various hard-wired biases. Awareness of these biases is the first step towards making better hiring decisions. In recruitment, this means interviewing candidates last, after they have been screened through telephone interviews and psychometric testing.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Online Psychometric Testing for Recruitment

Wed, 29 May 2024 03:47:47 GMT

Fermion are Experts at Online Psychometric Testing

Background

Psychometric testing for recruitment is a large and growing industry, and for good reason. Hiring the wrong person can be costly for both sides; the organisation and the individual involved.

The organisation has lost thousands of dollars and opportunity costs, as well as having to go through the whole selection process again, and perhaps repeating the same mistake. The individual has most likely been through a difficult time as well and will need to go through the job-hunting process again.

Thus, getting recruitment decision correct is important, and psychometric testing done correctly, and with the appropriate tests, can help you achieve that goal.

Qualifications & Training

As a registered psychologist , and a consultant specialising in psychometric testing for recruitment, I have strong views on the proper use of remote online testing.

I was trained in the appropriate use of psychometric testing and understand the importance of validity, reliability, normative data, measurement of error and the interpretation of the results.

This is part of an undergraduate degree and is an area of specialisation for many psychologists. The topic cannot be covered by a short course, which is what some of the larger testing companies provide before you can use their tests.

They charge a substantial fee and then you are “accredited” to use their tests, and only their tests and, in my opinion, this approach provides a very narrow understanding of psychometric testing.

We talk to the candidates in a structured and purposeful way to

ensure the process is done fairly, properly and yields reliable data.

Proper Administration is Fundamental

As a psychologist, we are taught that all psychometric tests should be administered in person, face-to-face. This is the gold standard and eliminates some of the problems with remote testing; which is ensuring the candidate understands what is being asked of them and the results are reliable and a fair description of the candidate.

This is especially the case for recruitment related testing where the stakes are high. Thus, having a test administration process to address the potential pitfalls is necessary.

Problems with Remote Testing

When I first started Fermion, I only ever did face-to-face testing, however, all major test companies do online remote testing and Covid significantly sped up this process to the point where all testing is done online and remotely.

Plus, it is difficult for many candidates to arrange time for face-to-face testing due to work demands and location. Remote testing all candidates also ensures a standardised process, whereby everyone is treated the same.

As an example of problems with remote testing, my daughter recently completed some remote testing for a position with the Federal government, or more precisely, a position in a merit pool. She never spoke to a human being and all the instructions and were sent via email. Giving good written instructions that everyone understands is tricky and the authors think they may have covered all the bases, but invariably they didn’t.

My daughter’s experience showed that the instructions were a bit confusing for her and no deadline was given, nor how long the tests will take and there was no provision to speak to a person and ask any questions.

Remote testing, when not done properly, allows for a strong candidate, who perhaps has never been exposed to online testing, to do poorly because they misread something or did not quite understand all the instructions. This could lead to a false negative, i.e. rejecting a good candidate.

Or someone could quite easily get another person to do it for them. An anonymous email link sends a message that the candidate is not that important, and they are just one of many and as such, the likelihood of getting complete compliance, and thus reliable results, is questionable.

The Best Approach

I did not accept that sending candidates anonymous emails for testing where there is no human involvement is acceptable, thus, I set about devising a more reliable online test administration process and came up with the following, which is what we do with all our candidates:

This is a small step, but it is crucial as the candidate has now given a commitment that they will do the tests alone and without help. We all like to be consistent with our behaviour, and this applies to commitments that people give to others. This is the social norm that we are using to our advantage and comes from the work of Robert Cialdini’s book, “ The Small Big: small changes that spark big influence ”.

4. Candidate completes the tests, and we send the results to them and our client with the feedback.

What was their phone manner and conversation like? Were they easy to get in touch with? Did they meet their own deadline? Most of the time the process is straightforward, but occasionally it yields interesting and useful data. For example, some people are real talkers and go into unnecessary detail or on unrelated tangents. Or, as has happened a couple of times, you get someone who refuses to do the tests and speaks of their superiority and “my CV should speak for itself”. That level of arrogance is rare, but it happens and just that one brief conversation potentially saved my client a lot of time and money.

Summary

Psychometric testing for recruitment is very effective when done correctly, and we at Fermion are experts in this area and leaders in conducting online remote testing. We talk to the candidates in a structured and purposeful way to ensure the process is done fairly, properly and yields reliable data.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Reference Checks in Recruitment

Wed, 22 May 2024 05:23:20 GMT

Be Cautious as Referees Have Their Own Agenda & Biases

Background

Reference checks are commonly used in the recruitment process to verify a candidate’s work history and qualifications. However, the research suggests that reference checks are poor predictors of future performance, which, after all, is what the selection process is about; you are trying to predict the future performance of a candidate. The research suggests one should not put too much weight on references, however, they need to be done and any selection process would feel incomplete if they were not.

Effectiveness of Reference Checks

A seminal meta-analysis by Schmidt and Hunter ranked reference checks low in effectiveness compared to other selection techniques like psychometric testing and structured interviews. This finding underpins the argument that while reference checks should not be heavily relied upon, they are still necessary for due diligence. There are many examples of where large companies, such as Telstra , have hired senior executives only to find out later they had been misled about the candidate’s qualifications and experience; so at least use reference check as a probity type check.

Motivation of Referee

Another reason for my reluctance to put much weight on them is, for want of a better description, the motivation of the referee. We know that our judgements of people are biased and subjective. A referee could be a friend of the candidate, an ex-boss who didn’t like them, a current manager who is happy to hand you their problem, or a well-meaning person who does not want to sabotage someone’s chances of getting another job even though they know there are performance issues with them at work. This needs to be factored in and consider when deciding on the reliability and value of the reference check.

Another issue with reference checks can be related to the length of time it takes and the demands on the time of the referee. If the referee is rushed or under some pressure, or simply does not like doing them, then that will affect their level of engagement and seriousness, thus, increasing the odds of you getting unreliable information.

There are many examples of where large companies, such as Telstra , have

hired senior executives only to find out later they had been misled about

the candidate’s qualifications and experience, so at least use reference

check as a probity type check.

Shared Experience, Different Assessment

I cannot come up with a pithy catchphrase for this reason, but it goes along the lines of “shared experience, different assessment”. For example, I recently saw a movie with my two adult sons, and I thought it was slow and boring and I could not wait for it to end, whereas both of my sons loved the movie. Same information, but completely different assessment or judgement; this phenomenon happens with reference checks.

Context

We do know that a person doing the same role in a different business does not automatically mean they will do it well in another business. You could have an accountant who worked under a demanding boss, tantamount to bullying, and decides to resign and apply for a new job. The accountant most likely did not perform to their best under their bullying boss and the reference check will reflect that. Whereas the accountant gets a new job in an organisation that values quality working relationships and is free from bullying and other toxic behaviours, and the accountant becomes a high performing employee. However, if you put too much weight on the original reference check you could have missed a good employee. The context in which the candidate worked will affect their reference check. This often happens in sport whereby a poor performing, or difficult athlete, changes teams and coach and their performance improves significantly.

Improving Reference Checks

To enhance the effectiveness of your reference checks, focus on the following aspects:

Method of Delivery: A telephone conversation is superior to a request for a written reference. With a written reference, you miss the paralinguistics, such as tone of voice and the slight or subtle pauses when someone is being diplomatic. You simply do not get that with a written reference. There is also the practical problem with written references in getting people to do them in a timely manner and hopefully saving you from following up with the referee. A written reference could also be completed by a third party as delegated by the referee.

Engaging the Referee: Personal conversations can help build rapport and encourage honesty. Ask about the nature of the referee’s relationship with the candidate and whether they are comfortable providing an objective reference.

Reference checks are necessary in the selection process,

however, they can be problematic due to their subjective nature

and our inherent biases, be it the referee or the hiring manager.

Forced-Choice Questions: Forced-choice questions can promote honesty and objectivity as either answer could be good or bad, depending on the context of the role. Examples include:

1. “Does X prefer to work on their own or in a team?”

2. “What would be worse for X, submitting a project late, or submitting it on time with imperfections?”

3. “Does X show initiative, or would they prefer to follow agreed systems and procedures?”

There are obviously many questions you could ask depending on the role and the candidate’s CV, however the more forced-choice questions you use the better.

Standard Questions: All of that said, you do need to ask the more obvious questions, such as confirming their actual working history, qualifications if relevant, and their role(s). As well as asking the usual questions around conscientiousness, work style and interpersonal skills.

Convergence of Data: The last step in the reference check journey is how to use the information you have in the context of all the other data you have about a candidate, such as their CV, psychometric testing, and impressions from the interview. Hopefully, you get a “convergence of data,” i.e., all the information you have is consistent and then you can be confident you know what you are getting if you hire the candidate. It is when you get conflicting data that problems may arise. But, if you are forced to decide on the available data, I would put the least weight on the reference checks.

Summary

Reference checks are a necessary part of the recruitment process but should be approached with caution due to their subjective nature and potential biases. By asking the right questions, engaging referees effectively, and using reference checks as part of a broader selection strategy, their limitations can be mitigated. Always consider the context of the candidate’s previous work environment and seek convergence across multiple data sources for the best hiring decisions.

For a free “Reference Check” please contact Fermion.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Aptitude Testing for Recruitment

Thu, 02 May 2024 08:05:40 GMT

Improve Hiring Decisions With Aptitude Testing

Aptitude testing is a valuable tool to obtain objective data about a candidate’s ability to learn new information and how long they can take to master the role, and knowing this information early in the selection process helps you make better decisions. Aptitude tests measure cognitive and intellectual abilities and/or work relevant skills, such as spelling, grammar and reading comprehension.

What are the Benefits of Aptitude Tests:

Objective Data: Aptitude tests give you an unbiased evaluation of skills and abilities, allowing for a fair comparison between candidates. These assessments level the playing field for applicants from diverse backgrounds, or candidates who struggle with interviews yet are strong applicants.

Talent Identification: Aptitude tests help you identify candidates whose aptitude and skills are a strong fit for your roles. Often a candidate’s CV doesn’t reflect their true aptitude and potential and aptitude tests can help identify these unknown “stars” and you can hire them before your competitors do.

Professional Development: Aptitude tests can be used to help identify strengths and areas for improvement within your team.

Unbias & Fairness: Aptitude testing provides a level playing field for candidates by giving you an unbiased evaluation of skills and abilities for applicants from diverse backgrounds. Indeed, adding aptitude tests to your hiring process can also facilitate a sense of fair play and equality as they ensure a fair and standardised process is used for making promotional or recruitment decisions.

Fast & Efficient: Aptitude tests are quick and easy to administer, and they help remove the guesswork from the hiring process. Organisations report that the use of these assessments cut their time-to-hire by more than 50%.

Embracing the predictive power of aptitude tests can take your hiring process to the next level.

Ensuring Accuracy

The accuracy of aptitude tests hinges on several factors, including validity, reliability, administration, and interpretation:

Validity and Reliability: All good psychometric tests have solid psychometric properties of reliability and validity. This means they measure what they claim to measure, and this is consistent over time. Aptitude tests should only be considered accurate if they have undergone rigorous and intensive validity testing during the assessment design process. This sets them apart from tests you might find on google, which, while they may be fun, are not valid or reliable.

Administration: Motivation and engagement play crucial roles in providing accurate responses. At Fermion, we talk to all candidates beforehand to explain the nature of the tests, how to complete them to maximise their performance, clarify how the test data is used in the selection process, and answer any questions. Further to this, we provide detailed written instructions that complement the chat we have with candidates.

Interpretation: Results should be interpreted by experienced Psychologists who understand the strengths and limitations of each test being used and are aware that the results must be interpreted in the context of the role and the candidate’s work history.

Test interpretation is everything.

Summary

Aptitude tests are accurate tools for assessing individuals' skills and abilities. Through their meticulous design, development, and validation processes, these tests provide objective measurements of aptitudes and offer valuable insights for talent identification and selection.

Fermion are experts at aptitude testing and we understand the importance of engaging all candidates in the process; we do not just send an anonymous email with a link to the testing. We talk to the candidates and explain the process and answer any questions they have. At Fermion, all tests are administered and interpreted by trained Psychologists and results are interpreted in the context of the role and the candidate’s work history.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Giving Bad News: What to Say to Unsuccessful Job Applicants

Thu, 15 Feb 2024 02:38:06 GMT

Get Straight to the Point & Don't Sugar Coat It

What do you say to an unsuccessful job applicant? In terms of brand awareness, reputation and just doing the right thing, it is prudent to give some feedback to unsuccessful candidates. However, at least anecdotally, many candidates never receive any feedback and just wait and wonder and then eventually just assume they missed out on the job. This person may share this experience with their friends and on the socials, doing you reputational damage.

Some people are very good at giving unsuccessful candidate the bad news; however, I think it is safe to assume that many people find it a real challenge.

My advice is to “rip the band-aid off” so to speak, and say:

“I have some news that might disappoint you”.

“I’m sorry to let you know that you’ve been unsuccessful”.

Don’t talk about anything else upfront or do the dreaded “ sandwich ” approach of a compliment, then the real purpose of the call, and then something positive. Just say, “Hi Chris, this is Chris from Fermion and I have some news that might disappoint you” .

This puts the person’s mind at ease as they know where they stand, which then allows you to give them some feedback and the confidence to do it again in the future.

Feel free to like, comment on or share this article.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Mastering Constructive Feedback: A Guide Beyond the Feedback Sandwich

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 06:01:42 GMT

Don't Avoid Difficult Conversations - This is How to do Them

What is the best way to give negative feedback? A common approach is the “feedback sandwich”, which is where the opening statement or feedback is positive, then the actual negative feedback that was the purpose of the meeting is next, and then it is all finished off with some praise or compliments.

In my experience, this seems to be the most common way that leaders and managers give negative feedback to an employee and typically this is because giving negative feedback is difficult for a lot of people, which is fair enough. If you enjoyed doing it, then that would be a different issue entirely.

The first problem with this approach is that when people are called to a meeting for which they do not know its purpose, they will assume it is bad or negative. That is how our brains are wired – we assume the worse when there is uncertainty and a lack of information. Thus, when they hear praise their minds are set at ease. They were assuming the worse and are then relieved because the conversation starts with a positive and they think that is the purpose of the meeting. However, the real purpose of the meeting is then revealed, and the person thinks the previous positive feedback was meaningless and of no value. The person is disappointed and annoyed, and this is before the real issue is discussed. You run the risk of losing their attention before the conversation has really begun.

Once the actual issue is discussed, the manager then closes with more praise, which most likely will not be heard or believed. When that manager wants to give positive feedback in the future, there is a greater likelihood they will not be believed or be seen as insincere. The sandwich approach creates a lingering trust problem and is more about making the manager feel better, as opposed to addressing performance issues.

The sandwich approach is ineffective in the short and long term. In the short term the conversation was a coaching opportunity missed, and in the long term, there are trust issues.

Instead, try these ideas to make your feedback effective and constructive:

1. Groundwork

One of the most important leadership behaviours is having regular one-on-one catch up conversations with your direct reports. This should be done in the context of a Code of Conduct, or a similar document, and needs to be regular, postponed reluctantly and never cancelled, and have structure and an agenda. If you are having these regular “Catch-up Conversations” then giving negative feedback is done in the context of an ongoing collaborative relationship whereby positive feedback and constructive criticism is done on a regular basis and seems like a natural part of your working relationship. This groundwork , when done properly, begins before the person was employed and starts at the selection phase and is the foundation for developing motivated and engaged employees.

Short of this process happening, what are some other ways of giving negative feedback?

2. Be Up-Front

The first important step is to tell the person the reason for the meeting and arrange to have the chat as soon as possible after sending out the invitation. The first few words about the purpose of the meeting are very important for setting the stage. For example, imagine one of your staff is often late for meetings or they often talk over people. From this, you would tell the employee that, “We need to meet to go over our team meeting protocols”, or words to that effect; but keep it short. People typically expect bad news when they are asked to attend a meeting, so it is useful to tell them upfront the purpose of the meeting, but then have the meeting as soon as is practical.

3. What to Say

Assuming you have been up-front about the purpose of the meeting, what are some ways to start the conversation.

Firstly, do not do the sandwich. There is one topic for discussion and that has been spelt out in the invitation to the meeting.

One option is to ask if the person wants feedback, with something like, “I’ve observed a couple things in our team meetings and wondered if you’re interested in some feedback”. This runs the risk of them saying no, which some particularly recalcitrant people may do, but if that is the case you most likely have a much bigger challenge on your hands. However, in my experience, people do not reject the offer and once they take ownership over the decision to receive feedback, they are more open and less defensive.

Another option is to talk in terms of you being motivated by wanting to be the sort of manager who helps with your staff’s development. To do that you could say, “I need to be able to point out things that I observe, good or bad, that might help you. Is that okay?”

A further statement could be something along the lines of, “I’m giving you this feedback because I have high expectations of you and I know that you can reach them”. Rather than the person perceiving that you are attacking them, you’re signalling that you have their back and believe in their future potential. It is easier to hear constructive feedback from someone who wants to help .

4. Show Some Humility & Openness

Negative feedback can make people get defensive or feel inferior, but if you level the playing field it’s a lot less threatening. You could use some opening statements such as:

· “I’ve benefited a lot from people giving me feedback, and I’m hoping you will too.”

· “I’ve been researching what effective leaders do and I’ve noticed that they spend a lot of time giving feedback. I’m working on doing more of that.”

· “Now that we’ve been working together for a while, I think it would be great if we gave each other suggestions for how we can be more effective.”

These statements send a clear message that you are not perfect, and you are trying to get better.

Listen

Finally, once the conversation in underway, it is important to be a good listener and let the person give their perspective and version of events. Learn to do “active listening” and approach the conversation with an open-mind and suspend judgement until you have actively listened to their version of events.

Summary

Challenging conversations are difficult, but not impossible. There are many things you can do to prepare yourself and your employee. However, the ideal starting point is to have done some groundwork and have regular catch-up conversations that have laid the foundation for all future conversations. Assuming that hasn’t been done, there are other things that you can do to make the process easier, such as spelling out the reason for the meeting in a succinct manner, be upfront about your motivation to help them be better, show some openness and humility and finally, be an active listener.

About the Author

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Staff Retention & Leadership

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 04:01:12 GMT

Enhancing Staff Retention Through Effective Leadership

Introduction: This topic is easily one of the most discussed areas I came across: how to keep good staff engaged, loyal and productive. Retaining loyal and dedicated staff poses a significant challenge for many organisations.

The most common approach to improve staff retention and engagement seems to fit into the “external” category, i.e., rewards and incentives, such as bonuses, gifts, time off etc., however, to resort to a cliché, this is ignoring the elephant in the room, which is the nature of the relationship between an employee and their direct line manager.

Research, notably from Gallup, sheds light on a critical insight: “70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager”, that is, 70% of employees resign due to strained working relationships with their direct line managers.

Gallup’s surveys of over 100,000 employees in more than 2,500 diverse businesses show that “managers trump companies.” Employees’ immediate bosses have far more impact on engagement and performance than whether their companies are rated as great or terrible places to work.

Assuming you accept this research, and if you find your staff attrition rates are exceeding your industry standards, then logically you would look the leadership skills and knowledge of your leadership team if staff retention is a problem.

Bosses Matter: Bosses matter. A lot! Robert Hogan concludes from numerous careful studies, including the Gallup surveys, “ people do not quit organisations, they quit bad bosses ”. Harmonious working relationships fosters loyalty, engagement, and productivity. When the relationship between employees and their direct line managers is strained, the outcome is increased staff turnover.

What To Do

Leadership Development: Investment in leadership development programs is a proactive measure any organisation can adopt to improve the quality of their leaders. But, not just any leadership program. It needs to be one that understands research-backed insights from psychology, the science of human motivation and peak performance and apply them to building loyalty and improving productivity.

Research has shown how to elevate the performance of every single employee – we don’t have to guess, we know. Fuelling people’s psychological needs by ensuring they are growing at work, feeling connected to their colleagues in a genuine way, and having some say in how they do their jobs. Any effective leadership development program should have these concepts as their foundation, i.e., an absolute focus on the quality of the working relationships, an autonomous-supportive work environment and staff being trained in their role to a high standard and given opportunities to improve, be it through training, mentoring or peer collaboration.

Leadership Selection: One of the most important decisions organisations make is who to appoint as a manager or leader. Take the selection process seriously and focus on their leadership knowledge and skills beyond the usual motherhood statements, such as being “passionate” about leadership or having an open-door policy – look for specific behaviours and identify any gaps and address them early.

Prefer appointing managers and leader from within your organisation. People from within have absorbed the cultural standards and their strengths and weaknesses are known. The challenge with hiring a leader externally is that they can appear to be a near perfect person at the time of hiring – you don’t really know them – and it turns out afterwards that they have the same ratio of strengths and imperfections as the rest of us.

A suggestion that is a bit different, is to get the future team member of the new leader to have a say in the selection process, or at the minimum, get their opinion. This not only taps into the need for autonomy and having a say, but it also gives you some buy-in from them for the new leader. This buy-in has the effect of the team being more invested in making it work, as opposed to the team adopting the attitude that their leader has been foisted on them by people who don’t have to work with the new leader every day.

Staff Survey: Conduct an anonymous survey that is straightforward and not too burdensome on the staff. I recommend asking staff to rate their job satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10, then get them to list 3 things they like about working at the organisation and 3 areas where there could be improvement. The final question is “If your leader faced a re-election to their role as leader, would you re-elect them?”

Exit Interviews: Whether you think you have a leadership problem or not, exit interviews should be attempted on all exiting staff and preferably by an independent person. This will give you authentic and genuine insights into the reasons behind staff departures that may not be easily shared within the confines of the organisation. Understanding the causes of staff departures is instrumental in shaping targeted strategies for improvement.

Conclusion: There are many reasons why people resign from their job, however, by far the main reason is due to the nature of the relationship between them and their direct line manager or leader. Thus, logic dictates that if you have a staff retention problem you should look at the quality of your leaders. Personally, I think you just assume all leaders can improve their skills and knowledge and as such, I would implement an ongoing leadership program on-site. Staff surveys and exit interviews can be helpful, and a rigorous leadership selection process can be adopted, one that has a preference for internal candidates where possible.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

The Importance of Attention to Detail: How to Identify Meticulous Candidates

Fri, 03 Nov 2023 05:24:57 GMT

Want Less & Errors at Work - Test for Attention-to-Detail

Introduction

"Attention to Detail" is a phrase you frequently encounter in job advertisements, often nestled between "Team Player" and "Excellent Communication Skills." It is a skill valued across diverse industries and roles, but what does it truly mean in the workplace, and how can you effectively identify it in your prospective candidates?

The Significance of Attention to Detail

In the professional world, mistakes are universally undesirable, irrespective of the job. Individuals who possess a keen eye for detail are better equipped to spot and rectify errors, thus helping you avoid costly blunders in the long run. Even minor mistakes can escalate into significant issues, making it crucial to hire individuals who get things right from the outset.

Attention to detail is not confined to a specific job title or set of duties; it is a skill that transcends roles. It reflects a candidate's ability to discern and address problems, particularly those small, less conspicuous issues. Imagine if an administrative assistant could not meticulously proofread a document, or an accountant consistently misplaced a decimal point - a few errors could lead to substantial complications.

Employees who are detail-oriented are less likely to make mistakes that could potentially cause damage to your business or organisation. Grammatical, spelling, or mathematical errors, while seemingly minor, can cause internal confusion or harm a company’s reputation.

You need individuals who excel at getting it right the first time, thereby sidestepping potentially costly mistakes. Sitting at the intersection of soft and hard skills, attention to detail is paramount, whether you are filling entry-level or C-Suite positions. But how can you identify detail-oriented candidates?

Identifying Detail-Oriented Candidates:

Understanding the importance of meticulous candidates is one thing; however, discerning them is another challenge. Several approaches can help you gauge a candidate's attentiveness.

1. Resumes

Start by examining their resume. Are there any typos or fundamental spelling errors? Do they maintain a consistent font style and format? A candidate who submits a resume without meticulous proofreading either lacks the requisite care for the position or does not possess a high degree of attention to detail. In either case, such individuals may not be the ideal fit for your team.

2. Interview

You can also assess a candidate's attentiveness during the interview. Are they fully engaged and focused? Can they recall information from earlier in the interview? Do they ask specific questions about the role and the company, indicating pre-interview research? If a candidate appears disinterested or distracted, it might imply they would be disengaged on the job.

3. Test

Evaluating attention to detail consistently can be a challenge. For a more effective evaluation, consider employing a cognitive assessment explicitly designed to measure attention to detail.

For entry-level positions, assessments that gauge basic math and grammar skills can provide strong indicators of a candidate's ability to identify and resolve inconsistencies in their work. For mid to high-level roles, general aptitude tests measure abilities closely related to attention skills, such as problem-solving and overall critical thinking. These tests have consistently demonstrated high predictive validity when assessing potential success in upper-level roles demanding focus and attention. Criteria's Universal Cognitive Aptitude Test even includes a specific "attention-to-detail" subtest, which is probably the most reliable way to measure this ability.

Conclusion

Detail-oriented employees possess the invaluable ability to notice the little things that can significantly impact your bottom line. Attention to detail serves as a predictor of essential on-the-job skills: focus, organisation, conscientiousness, and observation. Regardless of how you evaluate your candidates' attention to detail, it is a critical skill to consider when making hiring decisions.

About the Author

Christopher Apps is an Organisational Psychologist and the owner of Fermion. He stays updated on the latest psychology research and shares evidence-based insights. The focus of Fermion is "Psychometric Testing for Recruitment" and “Recruitment to Retention: How to Select Good Staff & Keep Them” . If you would like to learn about psychometric testing for recruitment or how to select good staff and keep them, please feel free to contact us at Fermion.

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Enhancing Hiring Decisions: The Role of Pre-Employment Testing

Wed, 18 Oct 2023 01:45:55 GMT

Pre-Employment Testing Will Improve Your Recruitment Decisions

Introduction:

Hiring is a complex process, intricately intertwined with the complexity of human beings. When it comes to making hiring decisions, you are confronted with an overwhelming array of factors to consider - resumes, interviews, references, assessment scores, education, past roles, and the list goes on . With so much at play, why would you allow a single factor to single-handedly determine your hiring choice?

Significance of Pre-Employment Testing:

This dilemma often arises in the context of pre-employment testing . Employers frequently use pre-employment tests, which can range from cognitive aptitude assessments and personality tests to skills evaluations. It can be tempting to rely solely on test scores to decide whether a candidate should proceed in the hiring process. After all, pre-employment tests are known to be among the most reliable predictors of actual job performance.

However, it is essential to recognise that while pre-employment tests offer invaluable predictive insights about your candidates, they should not serve as the sole basis for your hiring determinations. These tests are not meant to remove the human aspect of the hiring process but rather to assist you in making more informed and intelligent hiring choices. Embracing a comprehensive perspective on a candidate enables you to delve deeply into their potential contributions and may even reveal hidden talents you might otherwise miss.

Realising the Benefits:

As you incorporate pre-employment tests into your hiring process, you will likely notice tangible enhancements in vital business metrics such as reduced turnover and improved quality of hires. Testing adds another effective tool to your arsenal, empowering you to achieve your hiring goals more effectively.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

IQ vs EQ: Which Is Better for Predicting Job Performance in Recruitment?

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 06:40:00 GMT

IQ or EQ, or perhaps both?

When it comes to predicting job performance in the recruitment process, the debate often centres around IQ (Intelligence Quotient) and EQ (Emotional Quotient). Many consider EQ more important in today's workplace, but is that really the case? In this article, we will delve into the definitions of IQ and EQ and explore their respective roles in predicting job performance.

Defining IQ and EQ:

IQ (Intelligence Quotient) is widely regarded as a measure of general intelligence or "g." Decades of research confirm that "g" is the most valid predictor of future performance and learning when hiring individuals. Intelligence can be thought of as the ability to deal with cognitive complexity and the rate at which we learn new information. More complex tasks require more mental manipulation, and this manipulation of information – discerning similarities and inconsistencies, drawing inferences, grasping new concepts and so on – constitutes intelligence in action. Occupations differ considerably in the complexity of their demands, and as that complexity rises, higher general intelligence levels become a bigger asset and lower levels a bigger handicap.

EQ (Emotional Intelligence) on the other hand, refers to a person's capacity to recognize and manage emotions, both in themselves and in others. It plays a significant role in job performance, impacting how individuals handle interpersonal relationships, cope with stress, and navigate the dynamics of the workplace.

Research Findings:

Associate Professor Carolyn MacCann's extensive research on the IQ vs EQ debate has provided valuable insights. Her research shows that while EQ is important, IQ remains the stronger predictor of job performance. IQ accounts for roughly 25% of job performance, while EQ contributes less than 5%. This is a substantial, though not dominant, advantage for IQ. EQ shines when it comes to well-being and stress management, making it a valuable asset for handling workplace dynamics and boosting overall job satisfaction.

The Ideal Scenario:

It's not a question of IQ or EQ; it's about finding the right balance. Average to high levels of both IQ and EQ are ideal for future employees, depending on the role. For example, consider a candidate for a team leader role who excels in EQ but falls short in IQ. While high EQ is beneficial, the technical aspects of the job are equally crucial, and a lack of technical aptitude can hinder overall performance. Conversely, a candidate with high IQ but low EQ might excel technically but face challenges in interpersonal relations. The sweet spot lies in candidates who score at least average in both IQ and EQ.

Real Life Example:

Let's consider a recent candidate we assessed for a customer service role. Her IQ score was 86, and she performed equally poorly on a skills test. However, her EQ stood out at an impressive 113, which is well above the average score of 100. Despite the high EQ score, we recommended to our client that they not hire her. Why? A stellar EQ profile alone wasn't enough. The position required technical skills and the ability to learn the job quickly, and her other test scores strongly suggested she would struggle, despite her high EQ. On the flip side, you also don't want a candidate who excels in technical abilities but lacks emotional intelligence, potentially causing relational issues. In a customer service role, the ideal scenario is to find a candidate scoring in the average range on all tests. This example highlights the need for a balanced approach to assessing both IQ and EQ to make informed recruitment decisions.

Conclusion:

In the ongoing IQ vs EQ debate, the answer isn't one or the other. Both IQ and EQ measure distinct psychological constructs that are essential in the workplace. While IQ excels at predicting job performance and learning, EQ contributes significantly to well-being and effective stress management. Ultimately, the ideal scenario is to find individuals who possess a balance of both IQ and EQ. It's not a question of which is better but rather how they complement each other in creating a well-rounded and effective workforce.

Having worked as an Organisational Psychologist for many years, I have had the opportunity to explore the nuances of general intelligence and emotional intelligence in the workplace. Through research and practical experience, I have gained valuable insights into the role of IQ and EQ in predicting job performance. This knowledge forms the basis of my perspective in this article, where I aim to provide a well-rounded view of the IQ vs EQ debate in recruitment.

About the Author:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Is Psychometric Testing for Recruitment Expensive?

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 06:23:39 GMT

Recruiting the right candidate is a crucial business decision, and the cost of making a hiring mistake can be substantial. Consider this scenario: you hire someone for a $60,000 position, and within three months, it becomes evident that you have made an error. In addition to the $15,000 in wages paid during those three months, you have invested time and resources in the recruitment and training process, not to mention potential opportunity costs.

Such recruitment errors can lead to significant financial losses, and this simple example illustrates the point. Imagine the consequences of a mis-hire for a senior role or one that takes longer to rectify. Even after resolving the issue, you may face the challenge of re-recruiting, with the possibility of making the same mistake again.

This is where psychometric testing can be a game-changer. It offers a cost-effective solution to minimise the risks associated with hiring mistakes.

At Fermion, we offer psychometric testing services at a reasonable cost. For just $90 per aptitude test, skills test, or a test of emotional intelligence, and $170 for a personality profile, you can gain valuable insights into your candidates. We recommend a battery of tests that includes assessments of general intelligence, emotional intelligence , and a personality profile. This is a comprehensive battery of test which takes the candidate only 45 minutes to complete, yet, it will give you excellent data to help inform your recruitment decision.

Going back to the $60,000 position example, by spending $1,400 to test four candidates, you can significantly reduce the risk of a mis-hire. Not only will you save thousands of dollars, but, more importantly, you will hire a qualified candidate who is the right fit for your organisation. In these terms, psychometric testing proves to be a cost-efficient investment that will save you a substantial amount of money in the long run.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Christopher Apps is an Organisational Psychologist and owner of Fermion. I enjoy keeping up to date with the latest research in psychology and sharing that information. There are a lot of fads, gimmicks and clichés in the people & culture field, and I believe it is important to be sceptical of hyperbolic claims about human behaviour and to adopt an evidence-based approach to work.

The focus of Fermion is "Psychometric Testing for Recruitment" and “Recruitment to Retention: How to select good staff and keep them” . If you would like to learn how to select good staff and keep them, please feel free to contact us at Fermion.

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Can Job Candidates Fake Psychometric Tests?

Mon, 04 Sep 2023 07:06:10 GMT

Can Job Candidates Fake Psychometric Tests?

At Fermion, we have developed a testing methodology that delivers reliable results. From speaking to all candidates before the testing, to the precise nature of the verbal and written instructions, and finally, the context-dependent interpretation of the data with the client. All these factors ensure the results from the tests and assessments are reliable and valid.

In addition to this, there are measures built into quality psychometric tests and assessments that increase reliability of the results. These measures include verification testing and validity scales. Verification testing is used for aptitude and skills testing and is where the candidate is told they may be required to complete a different version of the same test later to confirm their initial results. Validity scales are used for behavioural and personality questionnaires and these cover positive-impression-management or self-enhancing, consistency scales and self-critical scales. These measures, combined with proper verbal and written instructions, ensure the reliability of the data.

Conclusion: If a job candidate is highly motivated to misrepresent themselves during the selection process then it is a challenge to ensure the reliability of the available data. That said, there are measures that can be put into place to counter this, such as the nature of the written and verbal instructions, but also the interpretation of the data in the context of the candidate's CV and the the role. A comprehensive selection process will identify a candidate who is determined to lie and misrepresent themselves.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

What is “Personality” and What is the Best Personality Profile to use During Recruitment?

Fri, 01 Sep 2023 06:28:15 GMT

What is “Personality” and What is the Best Personality Profile to use During Recruitment?

In general terms, personality is a set or repertoire of behaviours that is usually consistent across time and situations. There is variability but for most day-to-day situations and contexts, excluding highly stressful, novel or significant power differences, our personality is stable and predictable. It is not possible to predict specific instances of behaviour but knowing a person’s personality can help predict how they will behave most of the time in normal, physically and psychologically safe, conditions.

What personality profile, amongst the numerous products on the market, is the best or most accurate, particularly in the recruitment and staff selection context? After a 30-minute survey of the internet and viewing known test provider websites, I was able to identify 36 different personality or behavioural assessments!

With so many profiles available, how can a user of personality profiles decide upon the best and most accurate profile? What does the science and research, not the marketing, say about personality profiles?

The research into personality over the past four decades has overwhelmingly supported a model of personality referred to as the “Five-Factor Model of Personality” or sometimes called the “Big Five”. The field of psychology and the science of personality has consistently supported this model of personality. Indeed, many of the widely used personality profiles (OPQ, HPI & NEO-PI-3) are based on the Five-Factor Model of Personality. However, the only personality questionnaire and profile that measures the Five-Factor Model is the NEO-PI-3.

Some quotes from scientific journal articles about the Five-Factor Model of Personality are as follows:

Sydney Business School & University of Wollongong reported the following in the International Coaching Psychology Review, September 2012:

“The Big-Five/Five-Factor Model of personality, based on the trait approach, is considered by most authors to be the most investigated and validated model of personality currently available”.

“In the 1980s a consensus began to emerge on a Five-Factor model developed by Costa & McCrae. Support for the Five-Factor model has been further strengthened by a series of meta-analyses confirming the Big-Five’s predictive validity in terms of behaviours and life outcomes across a wide range of contexts. The Five-Factor model is now the most widely accepted general model of personality used today”.

“The NEO-PI-R is rapidly becoming one of the most popular measures of normal personality in the research literature. The psychometric properties, including predictive validity, of this inventory are uniformly favourable as evidenced by empirical reviews”.

An article in the Harvard Business Review, titled, “Most Work Conflicts Aren’t Due to Personality” :

“If you or others feel you must use personality testing as part of conflict resolution, consider using non-categorical, well-validated personality assessments such as the Hogan Personality Inventory or the NEO Assessment of the “Big Five” Personality dimensions. These tests, which have ample peer-reviewed, and psychometric evidence to support their reliability and validity, better explain variance in behaviour than do categorical assessments like the Myers-Briggs, and therefore can better explain why conflicts may have unfolded the way they have. And unlike the Myers-Briggs which provides an “I’m OK, you’re OK”-type report, the Hogan Personality Inventory and the NEO are likely to identify some hard-hitting development themes for almost anyone brave enough to take them, for example telling you that you are set in your ways, likely to anger easily, and take criticism too personally”.

An article in Scientific American titled, “How Accurate Are Personality Tests? ”:

“By contrast, the Big 5 and HEXACO models were shaped by an empirical process and independent peer review that showed people’s scores tended to be consistent, and predictions made using the models are reproducible. Without that, personality tests should be treated with extreme suspicion.”

Therefore, the personality model supported by independent scientific research is the Five-Factor Model of Personality as measured by the NEO-PI-3. Thus, at Fermion we use the NEO-PI-3, or other profiles that are based on the five-factor model, such as the Employee Personality Profile from Criteria.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Should I Test for Emotional Intelligence During Recruitment?

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 05:18:29 GMT

Should I Test for Emotional Intelligence During Recruitment?

YES. Testing for Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is important as it helps assess candidates' ability to control their own emotions and their ability to empathetically interact with others.

Emotional intelligence refers to a person’s ability to recognise and manage emotions in others and themselves. It is the ability to understand how their own, and other's, behaviour affects people emotionally. EQ can play a significant role in job performance as it impacts how individuals handle interpersonal relationships, cope with stress, and navigate workplace dynamics.

Over the previous two decades, EQ has attracted much attention in both popular and academic literature. Two distinct conceptualisations of EQ emerged during this time that attempt to broadly define EQ and guide its measurement: an ability-based model and trait-based model. The ability-based approach views EQ as a type of intelligence, akin to cognitive ability, and utilises performance-based assessment. The trait model views EQ more like personality and assesses it via self-report measures. The ability-based approach is more suited to recruitment contexts than the self-report approach. Research over the past decade has found evidence for ability-based EQ being related to higher job performance across numerous job roles and populations.

We recommend using “Emotify” from Criteria. It is an ability-based measure of emotional intelligence that assesses a candidate’s ability to accurately perceive, understand, and manage emotions. It features three engaging, interactive assessments which together take about 20 minutes to complete. The EQ score is based on the IQ method of reporting scores, i.e., 100 is average, with a standard deviation of 15.

Conclusion: You should definitely test for emotional intelligence during recruitment because employees with high emotional intelligence are more likely to stay calm under pressure, resolve conflict effectively, and respond to co-workers with empathy. Conversely, lacking critical emotional skills can lead to workplace conflict, such as misunderstandings due to an inability to recognize or understand emotions.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Should I Test for General Intelligence During Recruitment?

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 04:40:10 GMT

Should I Test for General Intelligence During Recruitment?

YES, you definitely should test for general intelligence during recruitment. General intelligence is the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly, and learn from experience. It is not our amount of knowledge but our ability to pick up and apply that knowledge. Intelligence is the ability to “catch on” and “make sense of things.”

85 years of research has shown that general intelligence is the most valid predictor of future performance and learning when hiring people and is the single most effective predictor known of individual performance on the job. Of course there are many kinds of talent, many kinds of mental ability and many other aspects of personality and character that influences a person’s chances of success and happiness but there is ample evidence that general intelligence is the single most valid predictor of productive work behaviours and training performance.

Intelligence can also be thought of as the ability to deal with cognitive complexity and the rate at which we learn new information. More complex tasks require more mental manipulation, and this manipulation of information – discerning similarities and inconsistencies, drawing inferences, grasping new concepts and so on – constitutes intelligence in action.

In more complex jobs it does so better than any other single personal trait, including education and job experience. The importance of general intelligence in job performance is related to complexity. Occupations differ considerably in the complexity of their demands, and as that complexity rises, higher general intelligence levels become a bigger asset and lower levels a bigger handicap.

General intelligence is stable and it is not difficult to measure and in the entire selection process, is often the most objective piece of data you will have on a candidate. There are lots of different tests of general mental ability available and our preferred one is the Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test (CCAT) . This test has 50 multiple-choice questions, and the candidate must complete as many as they can in 15 minutes. There are many other very good intelligence tests suitable for recruitment available and we would strongly recommend one of them be used in all recruitment, preferably as a screening tool.

Conclusion: You definitely should test for general intelligence during recruitment because 85 years of research has shown that general intelligence is the most valid predictor of future performance and learning when hiring people and is the single most effective predictor known of individual performance on the job.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

What Psychometric Tests for Staff Recruitment Should I Use?

Fri, 25 Aug 2023 06:26:41 GMT

What Psychometric Tests for Staff Recruitment Should I Use?

It is important to use the correct psychometric tests for staff recruitment; the wrong tests will give you the wrong data. Fermion has access to several test suppliers, however, the company we most commonly use is called “Criteria” . They offer a wide range of recruitment related psychometric tests that cover general intelligence, emotional intelligence, and personality. There are also a range of skills tests, such as the Office 365 suite, administrative skills, and workplace risk & safety assessments.

The main battery of tests we recommend for most roles is one that covers IQ, EQ and personality and these tests are called, respectively, Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test (CCAT), Emotify and the Employee Personality Profile (EPP). This battery of tests takes approximately 45 minutes to complete.

CCAT: Measures a candidate’s general mental ability, or general intelligence, and covers problem-solving, logical thinking and verbal reasoning. The test consists of 50 multiple-choice questions that start easy and get progressively more difficult. The candidate answers as many questions are they can in 15 minutes.

Emotify: An ability-based measure of emotional intelligence that assesses a candidate’s ability to accurately perceive, understand, and manage emotions. It features three engaging and interactive assessments which together take 20 minutes to complete.

EPP: Measures 12 work related personality traits from 140 questions that are answered on a 5- point scale. The questionnaire is untimed, but most candidates complete it in 10 minutes. From this a 6-page report is generated that also gives a percentage match to 12 different job categories, such “Management & Leadership” or “Accounting & Finance”. The report also includes 3 validity scales.

Testing & Feedback: Irrespective of where the testing is used within the selection process, all candidates are spoken to before they receive their test invitation. This is to explain the tests and the process to the candidates and answer any questions they may have. Candidates are usually asked to set their own deadline for test completion. All candidates are asked of they would like to receive their test results, which most do.

Test interpretation and feedback is given in the context of the candidate’s CV and the job description. The feedback is given in written form and followed up with verbal feedback if needed or requested.

Cost (excl. GST): $350 per candidate.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Will Psychometric Testing Improve My Recruitment Decisions?

Wed, 23 Aug 2023 05:38:00 GMT

Will Psychometric Testing Improve My Recruitment Decisions?

YES , psychometric testing can significantly improve recruitment decisions when used effectively and here's why:

Objective Data: Psychometric tests provide objective data about candidates' cognitive abilities, personality traits, and skills. This data helps hiring managers make more informed decisions based on scientific assessments rather than gut feelings.

Predictive Accuracy: Research has shown that well-validated psychometric tests can predict job performance and success better than traditional interviews or resume screening alone. This predictive accuracy leads to better hiring choices.

Reduced Bias: Psychometric tests can help reduce bias in the hiring process. They focus on objective criteria, which can mitigate unconscious biases that often affect decision-making during interviews. Psychometric tests also give employers a standardised and equitable way to compare candidates for a role and in turn, candidates can be reassured that the recruitment process is fair, and they are being treated like all other candidates.

Match-to-Job Requirements: By using psychometric tests tailored to specific job requirements, you can ensure that candidates have the necessary cognitive abilities and personality traits for success in the role.

Time Efficiency: Psychometric tests can efficiently screen a large pool of candidates, saving time and resources in the recruitment process. This allows hiring managers to focus their efforts on the most promising candidates.

Candidate Fit: Assessments can help identify candidates who not only have the skills for the job but also align with the company's culture and values, contributing to better long-term retention and job satisfaction.

It's important to note that psychometric testing should be part of a comprehensive recruitment strategy that also includes interviews and reference checks. When used as part of a well-rounded approach, psychometric testing can indeed improve the quality of recruitment decisions.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Psychometric Testing for Recrutiment

Tue, 22 Aug 2023 06:37:53 GMT

Should I use psychometric testing when I recruit?

Are you tired of hiring the wrong person? Do you want to improve the quality of your recruitment decisions? Are you looking to save time in the recruitment process? These are all common challenges faced by many organisations and businesses today.

The Problem

The recruitment process is a bit of a dance or a game – candidates put their best foot forward and accentuate their positives and minimise their deficits. At the same time, you are trying to read between the lines and get an honest and realistic assessment of candidates.

On top of this, you have biases and ideas about the perfect candidate and how to recruit, but you can also have a bad day, be distracted or just off your game and miss a good candidate.

Typically, the process of selecting staff relies on interviews and reference checks. These are necessary; however, it is the timing of those steps, who asks what questions, and when to incorporate some form of psychometric testing, that marks an effective selection process.

The Impact of Mis-Hires

Poor hiring decisions are costly. Between separation costs, lost productivity, and time spent recruiting and training your next hire, the cost of losing and replacing an employee is enormous. For example, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) reported that on average it costs a company six to nine months of an employee’s annual salary to replace them. For an employee making $60,000 per year, that comes out to $30,000–$45,000 in recruiting and training costs, not to mention opportunity costs.

Our Solution

The introduction of psychometric testing, whether it is IQ, EQ or personality profiling, significantly increases the reliability of structured interviews. Psychometric testing gives you a richer and more complete description of each candidate and therefore significantly improves recruitment decisions. Psychometric testing helps you select candidates based not only on their skills and experience, but also on their cultural fit and potential for growth.

In addition, research consistently shows that the more traditional interview-based recruitment process in isolation is not the best way to predict future performance. This is why Fermion offers high-quality online psychometric testing services for recruitment. We are not tied to any test provider, instead we source the best available psychometric tests that are based on the latest research.

Fermion’s online psychometric testing service allows you to:

Compare candidates’ intelligence and cognitive abilities.
Accurately predict training performance and on-the-job learning.
Predict candidates’ performance on a wide variety of job tasks.
Determine whether candidates have the right personality fit for a position.

Administration & Interpretation

It is fundamental that psychometric tests are administered and interpreted correctly. Testing is more than emailing an anonymous link to a candidate and then having the results emailed to the hiring manager. We have developed a testing methodology that delivers reliable results. From speaking to all candidates before the testing, to the nature of the verbal and written instructions, and the context-dependent interpretation of the data with the client.

Fermion’s approach is practical, data-driven, and grounded in the latest and best practices of organisational psychology.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

How Do I Deal With Difficult Employees in the Workplace?

Mon, 21 Aug 2023 07:54:16 GMT

We know how to build high performing teams - the science is clear and easy to implement. However, dealing with entrenched and problematic staff is difficult, but not impossible.

We have all probably been difficult to work with at some point in our working lives and a few of us have likely had moments where we have been very difficult to deal with. For most of us these lapses are temporary, however, there are some people who seem to derive satisfaction from being difficult.

These people ignore, belittle, undermine or criticise others. They do not help beyond the bare minimum or may go further and actively sabotage other people’s work and effort.

Being treated unkindly by a colleague, or boss, can be very stressful and cause anxiety and/or depression, and at the minimum, you dread having to work with them. Difficult people de-energise us and they affect other staff and impair their performance.

Working with horrible colleagues can generate far-reaching stress that follows you home and causes unhappiness for your spouse and family. Keeping workplace stress outside the home can be difficult, especially when it is chronic.

Resolving tensions in a team is a frequent leadership challenge. At any level of the organisation, conflict and lack of teamwork diminishes a team’s effectiveness.

However, incivility is a solvable problem and not something you have to put up with – you do not have to wait until people get cynical or quit; it is something management, and individual workers, can do something about.

Resolving incivility and staff tension pays off. In December 2003 the Graduate Program in Business and Technology at UNSW released a paper titled, “Simply the Best Workplaces in Australia” . The study documented several excellent workplaces in Australia and they identified 15 key drivers for excellence, with “quality working relationships” as the central pivot on which excellent workplaces are founded: people relating to each other as friends, colleagues and co-workers, supporting each other and helping to get the job done. This is what we are aiming for – quality working relationships.

How does an organisation achieve “quality working relationships”?

The solution is a three-step process: prevention, self-reflection, and action.

Prevention

Preventing problems from developing in the first place is obviously the best approach. This is achieved by having an effective recruitment, induction, and retention program .

Vision, Values & Behaviours

But, before you do anything, you need to have some sort of code of conduct or some such similar document. We call our statement, “Vision, Values & Behaviours” and it’s on one page and it is easy to read and easy to follow; it’s a living document and is used and referred to as needed, but especially in the selection and induction phase.

Recruitment & Selection

An effective recruitment method begins with the wording of the job advert, is standardised, methodical and structured, albeit with a degree of flexibility. An effective method capitalises on our biases and intuition, uses some form of testing or profiling, and introduces the candidate to the culture and context of your workplace early in the process, including the “Vision, Values & Behaviour” document.

Induction

If you want a good candidate to become a great employee, then the induction process must be a priority; it is the nexus between your staff selection process and staff retention program.

Induction, or onboarding, is an extension of the recruitment and selection process. Do not just hire someone and hope that it works out. No matter how effective your recruitment process is, there is still a chance that you have made a poor hiring decision, or the new employee is not what you thought they were going to be. Thus, the first few weeks of a new employee’s tenure can be a time to confirm what was learned through the selection process and if any unexpected behaviours emerge, they can be addressed early.

The induction process is an opportunity to reinforce the organisation’s culture and minimum, non-negotiable, expected standards of behaviour by clarifying your vision, values, and behaviours.

Retention

Recruitment and induction are just a prelude to how you manage your staff on an ongoing basis. Without a proper retention program all your preceding work will be less effective with time. If you have an effective staff retention program your employees will be more motivated, more engaged, and more enthusiastic about their role. Not only will you improve staff motivation and engagement, by implementing an effective retention program you also take away from those recalcitrant and difficult employees the claim that they are not listened to or heard.

Self-Reflection

You

Perhaps you are the problem, or at least a contributor to the problem. This can be difficult for some people, but you need to think about how you may be a contributor to the problems. For example, in a survey by Comparably of 10000 workers, a micromanager was identified as the worst trait in a manager. Perhaps you are a micromanager, but you are unaware.

The Gossip Test

Everyone gossips and everyone will have an opinion about you, thus, what do you want them to say about you. This thought experiment will help drive your behaviour.

Take the example of conducting a job interview. You know the candidate will go home that night, walk in the front door and their partner or friend will ask them, “How did the job interview go?” What do you want the candidate to say? Because what you want them to say will drive your actions to create the desired impression. The candidate could say to their partner, “I was really impressed. The manager was on-time – didn’t keep me waiting in reception for a minute which was so respectful. I was able to talk as much as they did. They gave me a chance to put my best self forward. The manager was never distracted or interrupted. I hope I get the job!” If that is what you would like a job candidate to say, then that helps drive your behaviour and actions.

Now take the gossip test one step further and ask what you think your team or colleagues say about you by asking yourself these four questions:

· What do you think your staff say about you?

· What would like them to say about you?

· Does your behaviour and actions reflect what you would like others to say about you?

· Would you like your family or friends to see you at work?

Action

Finally, there are the numerous behavioural strategies that can be used when dealing with difficult colleagues and the precise armoury of techniques and strategies depends on your own personality and work style. However, for any of these strategies and techniques to be effective, ideally you need to lay the groundwork beforehand, and at the minimum, everyone agrees to the Code of Conduct or the “Vision, Values & Behaviours” of the organisation.

Summary

Preventing problems from happening in the first place is self-evident and it is not difficult to do: we know how to build high performing teams - the science is clear and easy to implement. However, dealing with entrenched and problematic staff is difficult, but not impossible. You need an open-mind and some self-reflection, and a phone call or email to us as Fermion.

Feel free to share this article.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

I am an Organisational Psychologist and owner of Fermion. I enjoy keeping up to date with the latest research in psychology and sharing that information. There are a lot of fads, gimmicks and clichés in the people & culture field, and I believe it is important to be sceptical of hyperbolic claims about human behaviour and to adopt an evidence-based approach to work.

The focus of Fermion is "Psychometric Testing for Recruitment" and “Recruitment to Retention: How to select good staff and keep them”. If you would like to learn how to select good staff and keep them, please feel free to contact us at Fermion.

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Fermion

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Summary

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How to Improve Job Interviews: Reduce Bias & Hire the Right Candidate