Hiring is as much art as science.

It’s a fact that the data-driven really hate.

Such as Google, which hires hundreds of people every week..

It used to hire only candidates with 3.7+ GPA, double 800 SAT scores and world-class interviewing skills — But those criteria weren’t accurate at predicting success in the Google world.

In 2007 it developed an algorithm to screen candidates — it didn’t work.

More recently, Google’s brain-teaser questions garnered a lot of attention, but they don’t work, either.

“Everyone likes to ask case questions and brain-teasers. It turns out our data shows that doesn’t actually predict performance. There’s no correlation with your ability to do that,” said Laszlo Bock, Google’s SVP of People Operation.

Anallytics can do an amazing job if the company is large enough to develop valid data points.

“Once you get through all the noise and beliefs that people have, and identify that right profile, you can have some solid impact in your organization,” Ryan Dullaghan, Jet Blue’s manager of people assessment and analytics, noted. He described the measurable benefits for the company that have resulted from “really focusing on fit for the job, “including higher employee engagement and retention, and a 12% decrease in total absences.”

Those are significant numbers.

But what do you do if you don’t have access to viable analytics, whether because of size, money or senior management apathy?

Start by developing a written set of questions (see the article for ideas) that you ask your own people.

Crunch the responses to get a general company profile.

Then make it a habit to ask them of all candidates (no matter the position, along with the position-specific questions.

The one caveat to always remember is that while some people are expert at acing questions/tests, others are the opposite, so don’t treat that as make or break criteria.

More on hiring tomorrow.

Flickr image credit: jphilipg

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2015 at 1:15 am and is filed under Ducks In A Row, Hiring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Tags: Google, hiring filter, hiring process, how to hire
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