This article also appeared in Dutch.
How do you know for sure which type of students are the best fit for your office? In general, employers are looking for a good 'click' with the candidate. And good grades of course. And if they've been active outside of their studies, that's also a good sign. But are these really the most important characteristics for an effective employee and a good fit with your office?
On paper, the candidate met all the requirements. Good grades, a good internship assessment and besides her studies she had been chairman of the board of a student association. There was a great click during the conversation and she was excited to get started. Working at a renowned office was her big dream and now she could make it come true.
However, it soon became clear that she was not quite in the right place. Her work was adequate, but not great. And for some reason, she simply didn't fit the corporate culture. Colleagues preferred not to work with her and quite a few conversations were held to find out what was wrong and how this could possibly be solved. For three years, a lot of energy from both the office and hers was lost trying to get the best out of it. But in vain. When 'the moment of truth' came 3 years later, everyone involved agreed that she had better start working elsewhere. Her self-esteem had dropped dramatically and the office had lost a lot of money because far too few billable hours had been turned and all the conversations that were made took a lot of time.
And unfortunately she is no exception. A significant part of the starters ultimately do not manage to become full-fledged employees. But what is this about? And an even better question, how can you prevent it?
At The Selection Lab, these kinds of questions keep us busy day (and sometimes night...). What makes someone a successful lawyer? Or successful accountant? And why are some doing great at one office but only mediocre at another? Why does one partner click with the starter and the other can't stand him or her?
To answer these questions, we dive deep into the data. We start by capturing the personalities of the incumbent employees in the office. We use an extensive psychometric questionnaire to identify a wide variety of psychological characteristics. We then hear from the office which starters and employees are doing exceptionally well. And then the magic happens. Our self-learning algorithm finds out the difference between the average employee and the exceptionally good employee. Are exceptionally good employees more sociable or less concerned with their environment? To what extent does intelligence matter? Or is one of the other many personal characteristics or experiences that we measure determines success, or is it a combination of personal characteristics really matter in your office.
Certain personal characteristics together form the ideal profiles for your office. This can be a very specific profile, but it will usually be different types of profiles, each with different personal characteristics. When this profile is clear, selecting the right candidates for an interview not only becomes a lot more objective, but also a lot easier and faster. With the assessment tool of The Selection Lab you can easily test candidates on all the important characteristics. And our algorithm calculates which of the candidates most resemble your best performing employees. This reduces the time spent screening and hesitating about CVs and also reduces the amount of doubt when it comes to deciding whether or not to hire someone.
The Selection Lab uses large amounts of data to find out which students are most like your best performing employees.
But it doesn't stop there. After this initial analysis, we will continue to monitor the employees. Will they continue to do great? Or does it decrease over time? Are there people who first did an average job, who later started to do much better. Human behavior (and their performance) changes over time. By regularly updating which employees are exceptionally good, the algorithm gets smarter and smarter. And if completely different personal characteristics become more important in the future, the algorithm will know in time and the candidates that match will be selected.
Are you curious if this could be interesting for your office? Or do you just want to talk to us about this topic? Send a message to info@theselectionlab.com
Or request a callback here.
