The traditional interview process is a great opportunity to learn about a candidate’s skills set, past experiences, and career goals. But is there a way to reveal specific personality traits or strength areas that could be the deciding factor for which candidate gets the job?

We spoke with Kevin Cook, Director of Business Development for Target Teams, to learn how assessment-based solutions can compare traits between your current top performers and the job candidates to hone in on the best possible fit for the position.

BuyerZone: What are personality assessment-based solutions?

Kevin Cook: Assessment-based solutions are scientifically-based, psychological questionnaires which help measure people attributes in two ways.

1. Behavioral: how somebody is going to do something. This targets the subject’s ability to make smart decisions, follow established rules and procedures, and interact well with people in a team setting. It also helps gauge how they handle the pace of a particular work environment. How would you be more collaborative? How would you lead a team? These are all attributes and behaviors you can visibly see.
2. Individual ambitions: what does the person care about? This measures how the subject would define success, and what motivates an employee.  As you expand this over an executive team, these characteristics can help shape what becomes the culture of the organization. Business owners care about the things that make their companies successful and want to learn how current and prospective employees define success to see if there is a fit, both for the role and the culture.

Keep in mind there are no right or wrong answers for these assessments. They simply provide a clearer idea of your job candidates and how they will fit with their job, their company culture, the hiring manager and their team.

BZ: How are these tools helpful during the interview process?

KC: Candidates are on their best behavior during an interview.  The assessments help uncover who is really sitting in front of the interviewer. The goal of the interview is to find out if this is the best person to fit the needs of the job.  Do they have the skills, behaviors, personality, and desire to succeed in this position, based on the requirements and compensation?

Target Teams’ assessments help determine how a candidate would follow rules, procedures, or business protocol. While a rules-oriented individual would find by-the-book solutions, a more creative thinker goes outside the box to develop a solution that benefits both sides. Imagine the error in hiring someone who is an out of the box thinker when the role requires someone who consistently follows protocols.

It’s very important to ask a few targeted, open-ended questions during a job interview to see how the candidate would handle specific situations. If you’re determining the level of assertiveness for a sales candidate, theoretical thinking ability of an engineer, or creativity of a web designer, you can evaluate those attributes with the right questions.

Online assessments provide another important data point in the hiring process. You wouldn’t make an offer based on a resume alone: you need other ways to determine which candidate is the right fit. Assessments are an important part of the overall picture simply because they’re objective and unbiased.

BZ: Why do employers turn to companies like yours to assist with the interview process?

KC: Typically, companies come to us when they have a challenge with their people: difficulties retaining great employees, high attrition, or a need for creative ways to motivate existing employees and help them communicate more effectively.

Also, individual departments often have very different hiring processes. Lack of a consistent hiring process, with no way to share best practices and learn from other departments, can be a huge disconnect within an organization.

BZ: How do these assessments target specific strong and weak points in a candidate?

KC: The tools provide a way for companies to see how a candidate will fit in with the requirements of the job. Companies like ours can gather an objective set of your top performers and profile them. This provides baseline standards for new job applicants.

Say you’re looking for a superstar to join your large sales force.  First, you identify your top performers, maybe 20% to 25% of your sales force. We look at the attributes of the top performers, such as their commitment to results, ability to work in a fast-paced environment, sense of urgency, and enthusiasm when meeting with clients. This data becomes the baseline to evaluate new candidates. You can then see how close your prospects rank to the top performers.

The assessments can also uncover interesting information about the hiring manager. Most of us can’t help but hire others like ourselves, people who think and act like we do. This can be either a benefit or a detriment – you can end up with a team of success-hungry people but there may not be much diversity between them. A completely homogeneous leadership team may make less effective decisions.

BZ: What types of questions appear on assessment tests?

KC: Typically, an assessment asks the same questions to each candidate because you want to capture the same information for everyone. Consistent, highly validated questions make the results statistically valid. Questionnaires may ask the respondent to pick four words, in order, they strongly associates with. There are no right or wrong answers, but this starts to build the employee’s profile.

When meeting in person, interviewers may want to see a candidate out of their comfort zone. For instance, if a candidate is a very cautious personality and the position calls for a creative thinker, describing a specific situation and asking the person how he would handle it tends to draw out how the candidate would respond. Information like this ties into specific skills needed to do the job.

BZ: Do assessments help narrow down who would be the best fit for a highly-competitive job?

KC: Absolutely. Particularly in this challenging economy, companies fear making bad decisions.  Hiring someone who doesn’t work out is expensive, disruptive, and has a profound impact on business performance.  Introducing objective information into the hiring process provides more fodder for making better decisions.

BZ: How important is it for a job candidate to fit with a company’s existing culture?

KC: A telling quote from a large executive recruiting firm says “People hire for skills and fire for attitude.” Attitude is often culture. As an employee climbs the corporate ladder, their match to the company culture becomes even more critical.  Company culture matched to the cultural preferences of the executive can often be the deciding factor in whether an executive works out or not.

Senior executives that quickly leave an organization often cause a huge disruption among employees, the customer base, and investors. Executive turnover is a massively expensive event all the way around.

It’s not enough for an executive to have skills, knowledge, and experience. It’s critical that he also exhibit strong people skills, leadership, and the ability to fit and effectively integrate in with the existing management team.

BZ: What are some tried and true interview techniques for finding the best job candidates?

KC: At a minimum, you want to make sure you ask every candidate the same questions. There should be consistency in the interview process regardless of the position you’re hiring for or the candidates you meet with so you can rate all candidates objectively.

Preparation is key. Every interviewer needs to get down to the essential details of the position. Can this candidate objectively get the job done? Does he have the skills, personality, experience, and drive to succeed in this position?

Keep questions as specific, but open ended as possible. “Tell me about a time…” or “provide particular examples of…” will give you good insight into what attributes the candidate can bring to your company. You need to put energy and thought into determining if a candidate will be successful.

As I previously mentioned, candidates should be a good cultural fit. Learning how candidates spend their free time can paint a clearer picture of their drive and determination. For example, a sales person who does competitive skiing on the side may exhibit that type of aggression in a sales role. Someone who dedicates time to organizations like Habitat for Humanity indicates that they selflessly devote time to their community.

Finally, asking them what past job they liked best and why will help you narrow down your search for the best cultural fit.

Want to see an assessment-based solution in action? Target Teams invites you to complete a free assessment, and get an instant email report of the results within 3 to 5 business days.