I recently came across a very interesting article by Mel Kleiman, Humetrics. He reported how Harvard Business School found that there are four factors critical to success in business;
He went on to say, “the really interesting part of this is that Intelligence and Skills combined, accounted for only 7% of success while attitude and talent accounted for 93%“.
These statistics come as no surprise, as employers become increasingly concerned about “cultural fit” and making sure they have round pegs for round holes. It also goes a long way to supporting recent feedback from candidates, when summarising their interview experience.
While aptitude, that is, your skills and your ability to execute the task at hand is extremely important to job success, the attitude you bring to work every day can be the final determinant of whether you get to keep your job.
”They seemed more interested in my personality than my experience!”
Or
“It was all about cultural fit and not my skill level”
“So why is attitude not technical ability, the top predictor of a new hire’s success or failure? I hear you ask! ”
It’s not that technical skills aren’t important, but they’re more measurable and can be corroborated. Virtually every job has tests that can assess technical proficiency. But what those tests don’t assess is attitude; whether a person is motivated to learn new skills, think innovatively, cope with failure, work as part of a team, assess their overall behavioral patterns and so on. Organisations that do not assess these vital proficiencies are increasing their chances of poor hires. Overall competency for any role is the sum total of skills, knowledge and attitude, manifested in the employee’s behaviour.
According to the U.S. Department of Labour, the cost of a poor hire is at least 30% of the first year’s salary. This, in part, explains how the recruitment process has become so much more forensic.
It also explains the increasing use of less traditional methods of recruiting, particularly in the use of psychological tests, either online or in situ. It is becoming increasingly rare to secure a role with a major employer without going though this process. In addition to these, for senior roles, some corporations use assessment centres.
“If you’re recruiting for senior people these days, you will usually do something called an assessment centre – this will involve an interview, a work sampling and a psychometric test”
Cary Cooper, Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University
Perhaps, most significantly, the use of presentations in the selection process has become widespread, and not merely at the top levels either. They are used to assess candidates ability to organise information in a rational and logical form, and, more obviously, to see people’s communication skills in large or small group situations.
Primarily, the CV doesn’t tell everything! There is a saying, “your CV is your sales brochure”, however, apart from obvious educational attainments, experience and skill sets, there are a number of factors that are not immediately discernible. These include;
by Brian Flynn, Executive Search
Original article: Mel Klieman, Humetrics
Joe Robbins is co-founder of CareerWise Recruitment. A graduate of the University of Limerick (Degree in Business Studies, 1985), Joe worked in the UK for five years where he specialised in materials management, production management and plant management for a number of companies.
He returned to Ireland in 1992 to become Operations Manager for a Cork-based start-up, FMC Automotive Division which was subsequently taken over by Snap-on Equipment. Joe managed the business re-location of this company to Shannon in 1997 before setting up CareerWise Recruitment in 1999.
He is a committee member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) Mid-West region, and a former Director and Vice President of the Shannon Chamber of Commerce. Joe is former Chairperson of the Sixmilebridge Camogie Club and current Chairperson of the Clare County Camogie Board.
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10 ways to bounce back from bad interviews and job rejectionCareerWise Recruitment. EastGate Village, EastGate, Little Island, Cork.
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