According to Career Center of the University of Notre Dame, behavioral assessment can accurately forecast a candidate’s on-the-job behavior by 55%, while traditional interviewing is only 10% predictive. A typical hiring process involves the use of elementary or standardized questions. The final selection of a candidate then depends on the interviewer’s first impression, personal opinion and the information gleaned through the questions that were developed for everyone. This might lead to the hiring of misfit employees, who might later struggle to fit into the assigned roles and achieve pre-set goals even after six months.
The hiring mistakes are not surprising as they happen due to the use of pre-developed questions. Most of the questions are common for all applicants who, in turn, are prepared to handle these questions with the best possible answers. There is limited chance of a hiring manager gauging out the accurateness of the responses, especially when an applicant is confident in his speech and his resume reflects his skill level.
The hiring mistakes can prove to be quite a costly affair, considering that the costs of hiring, training and retaining employees for top positions are skyrocketing. The answer to such a problem is the inclusion of behavioral interview during the pre-hire assessments.
Behavioral assessment is based on a fact that none of the people are alike in their attitudes and behavior in similar circumstances. This fact has been backed by an American psychologist, inventor and the creator of the comic character Wonder Woman, WM Marston, who said “All people exhibit all four behavioral factors in varying degrees of intensity.”
Behavioral assessment is a pretty recent procedure that has been implemented successfully by several companies to identify and select best performers for top jobs. This assessment procedure requires candidates to respond to each question with specific examples from his past work experiences, rather than generalized or hypothetical responses.
Behavioral assessment gives an interviewer a two-fold advantage. One, he can easily gauge out when an applicant is just making up appropriate responses instead of answering truthfully. If a response to a question has been false, the applicant is bound to make a mistake in the subsequent questions that delve deeper into the response. Second, by the end of the interview, the hiring manager can identify the natural characteristics and the talents of an applicant that he/she will bring to the job.
Behavioral interview provides a more objective set of facts that can enable an interviewer take better employment decisions than when using the traditional interviewing method. While a traditional interview involves asking general questions, the behavioral assessment involves probing into a candidate’s actual reactions to certain work situations from the past.
Let’s take a real case scenario where a candidate, Andrew Jones, has been assessed for a sales representative job. The following chart displays his score in various essential and desirable traits required for the position:
Essential traits for this position (in order of importance)
Score
Takes Initiative 8.7
Wants Challenge 9.4
Influencing 8.1
Optimistic 9.5
Persistent 8.6
Authoritative 8.6
Wants To Lead 9.2
Analytical 7.5
Desirable traits for this position (in order of importance)
Score
Effective Enforcing 5.0
Collaborative 4.7
Pressure Tolerance 9.7
Enthusiastic 8.2
Self-acceptance 7.0
Manages Stress Well 4.5
Traits to avoid for this position (in order of importance)
Score
Defensive 0.3
Forceful Enforcing 0
Permissive 6.8
The behavioral assessment results indicate that Andrew is probably highly suitable for this position and would probably achieve success.
(Source: http://www.mim.org.my/mimmlc/HA_PositionComparisonModuleReports.pdf)
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