One of the primary definitions of Probability is: The likelihood something will happen.
Gamblers use probabilities all the time. For example, what is the probability the woman I’m playing poker against holds a flush? Or in blackjack, what is the probability my 19 beats a dealer showing a four?
There are all sorts of other use cases for probability.
What is the probability that I will get into a car accident if I drive 25 miles to work and back each day vs. driving only 15 miles? Insurance companies use this sort of information in calculating your auto insurance rate. What is the probability the stock market will be up (or down) tomorrow? Or, a hurricane will hit the coast of Florida? Or…or…or…
Probability is very useful when trying to determine and hedge unknown outcomes. The beautiful thing is, we can measure probability and use it to our advantage when trying to predict the future.
Can we have certainty? Of course not, what if the blackjack dealer's down card is a 7 and their next card is a Queen? We lose. But the bet we made (or didn’t) was done knowing that certain odds were in our favor (or not, as the case may be). Nothing is 100% certain except death and taxes.
So what about hiring for your business? What is the probability that any one individual you hire at your company will work out. First off, what does “work out” really mean? It means different things to different businesses. Does it mean they become your superstar salesperson? Does it mean that they stay employed at your company for at least 18 months, doing decent work?
The point is, each company and for each role has a different probability of success.
In the book, “Testing People At Work”, Mike and Pam Smith show how the probability of a successful hire is related to several specific things.
Let’s assume that for your open Client Services position, you look at the candidates resume and give them an interview. According to the Smiths, the probability they work out will be just about 50/50. In essence, you can flip a coin and have the same success as going through the motions of digging into a resume and holding, even several, interviews.
Why is this? Because resumes and interviews have by and large a HUGE subjective component.
When looking at a resume (which may or may not be accurate) many times we insert confirmation bias into the equation. For instance, they went to the same University we did so, they have to be smart! Or, we both got our start at XYZ Corp. They must see something in this person, and so do I.
The interview situation gives rise to many more opportunities for confirmation bias…like…a candidate is wearing a religious symbol necklace and we’re of the same belief…so they’d have to be a great hire. Or, we both have grandkids (unearthed during the interview) so that checks a box in their favor, etc.
None of these is a good (and some might be a potentially illegal) reason to hire someone.
Instead, there is good reason to seek out “objective” measures of success and The Smiths suggest that one of these methods is a great workplace personality assessment (think one that is normative and highly validated) which will improve the probability of a successful hire by 40%!
It’s easy to see that implementing a quality Behavioral Assessment program can improve the hiring probability in your favor quite substantially.
For over 12 years, Hire Capacity has been helping forward thinking companies improve their teams with our highly validated OMS Survey.
To learn more, click the link below and we will be glad to send you our Technical Brochure which will explain in detail how we can improve the probability of you making more successful hires.
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