17 Common Hiring Mistakes: Part 5
Not Testing for Skills, IQ or Personality
There are a number of good tests on the market to evaluate your hires. Tests are one tool that allow you to probe deeper into the candidate’s personality and skills and really know what you are “buying” when you hire.
One of our favorite tests is an IQ test. We have found that fitting the IQ with the position is important. A medium IQ indicates a person that will learn well and follow directions. A higher IQ indicates a person that can take the next step and innovate with situations and data. A stellar IQ shows a person that will not only innovate with existing data, but will create new data and whole new ideas. Successful entrepreneurs are often at genius IQ levels.
If you put a high IQ person in a routine, repetitive job, they will soon get bored and leave. Or they will totally revamp your system and improve it. Then, once they have mastered that challenge, it is important for you to ensure they have more challenges or you will lose them.
Another test we like is a personality test we routinely have our candidates take. This test shows the inner workings of the personality. For example, I once hired an accounting person based on the test. The evaluation indicated that this person loved a routine, would never leave unless forced and would show up to work on time every day. And you know, that’s exactly what happened! It also indicated that this person would not rock the boat or make changes unless forced. And that was both the good news and the bad news. As my company grew, this person was unable to grow with it. She stayed in the company, but in a position with much less responsibility and more routine. The personality test clued me into what to expect and it was spot on!
One of my customers told me he expects only 75% of his new hires to perform satisfactorily. I pointed out that he fails to test them. Our percentages with testing are closer to 95% success rate. A few hours of testing makes a huge difference in your success!!
