Level Up Leadership

When you have an important vacancy in your office, there can be the temptation to fill the position as quickly as possible, just getting someone in so that your business can keep moving forward. This approach is almost always a mistake, because it leads to people who are poor fits not just with the position they’re hired for but for the culture of their teams and the business in general. Hiring the wrong people is one of the core reasons for high levels of turn-over, and high turn-over rates hurt moral, productivity, and cost US businesses billions of dollars every year.

What’s even worse, in many cases, is employees who are poor fits but decide to stick around! If you have employees who are in the wrong position or working for the wrong manager, their engagement will plummet, and that will lead to poor performance, low customer satisfaction, and a host of other problems.

As Ken Blanchard always intones, it is vital to always hire the right people, and figuring out who the right people are takes more than one short interview and a gut feeling. One of the most clear-cut and helpful ways to identify truly high-potential individuals is through hiring assessments.

Here at Level Up Leadership, we use the Compass Suite of employee assessments, which includes a pre-hiring assessment. This assessment is essentially a series of questions designed to identify the strengths and vulnerabilities of job candidates as well as the values that matter most to them. Beyond the resume items that the candidate chooses to list, an assessment can give you an insight into how the candidate works, what they’re looking for out of their career, and how well they might add to your existing team.

One thing that’s important to remember with hiring assessments is that every human being on the planet has vulnerabilities. No person can be all things. Certain vulnerabilities might be deal-breakers for certain positions, but usually the right candidate’s vulnerabilities can be mitigated, so what they’re really bringing to the table is their unique set of strengths.

What may happen when conducting a per-hiring assessment is that you’ll find a candidate who is simply overflowing with potential but isn’t a good fit with the particular position you’re hiring for. In the vast majority of cases, you should find a job for that person. Because high-value people are the backbone of your business. Bringing in people with valuable strengths that you can help coach and develop into strong leaders will much more successful down the line.

Of course, hiring assessments are only the first step, and finding the right person for your business doesn’t mean that your business will be the right fit for that person. So once you have the people you want, the next step is learning how to invest in those people, creating a strategy for development built around their strengths, and coaching them to become even greater assets for your team and the foundation of a positive, employee-centric work culture.

For more on how assessments can be helpful, be sure to read our article on understanding your employees unique needs and skills as well as this article on the importance of personal development. Learn more about all of Level Up Leadership’s assessment services here.