Attitudes and Aptitudes Essential in New Hires

“Most people are fired because they don’t have the right personal makeup to be in that position; they don’t fit,” Holland says. “Companies normally hire people based on skill, not fit, but both are important. We really should hire based on fit and skill.”

Holland and his colleagues have designed psychometric testing to help determine fit and predict a candidate’s behavior in the workplace. He gives the example of hiring a manager to oversee quality control personnel.

“You need to know that you can predict the way that person is going to behave in managing, the way they are going to inspect everything that their food safety people have done, so that nothing gets missed,” Holland explains. “The problem a lot of organizations have is, they hire somebody who went to school for this type of position, so they’re educated, but they don’t have the behavioral makeup to say ‘I’m going to pay attention to detail, I’m going to verify and double-verify, and make sure that everything stays exactly on track.’ And that is what they need for success.”

Psychometric testing can increase the odds of choosing the right person for such a position, Holland says. He cites a study by researchers at Harvard Business School suggesting that the traditional hiring process results in a 15 percent chance of making the right decision, while use of behavioral interviewing, psychometric testing, and background checks boosts the odds of a good hire by up to 60 percent.

The first step in finding a good candidate, he says, is to create a psychological profile of someone already employed at the company who has demonstrated that he or she is the right fit for the job in question.

“Within a plant, say you have one supervisor who has been phenomenal, but he wants to retire,” Holland explains. “We test him with a psychometric test that takes about 20 minutes. We measure his behavioral makeup, which predicts his behavior patterns. And we measure his work-type interest, which determines what he pays attention to. Then we can measure other people against that psychological profile. The process of matching candidates to that established profile is relatively easy.”

His recommendation is to look for a 70 percent or higher match between the existing worker’s profile and the job applicant’s profile. “Then you can modify the rest of those behavior patterns in house,” Holland says. “You almost never get a 100 percent match.”

The psychometric tests developed, validated, and used by MuRF are based on previous research such as William Marston’s work on behavior prediction (he developed the DISC assessment: Dominance, inducement, submission, compliance) and John Holland’s profiles of work-type interest, Holland says.

“The goal is you want to predict what a person will be like at work, before you put them in that position,” he adds. “We look at our service as eHarmony.com for employers.”

“We want to assess not only what skills they bring, but also their personality profile.”

—Kenneth Mall,
managing director, EDSI

Online Matching

A different approach to online matching is offered by Careers in Sanitation, based in Chalfont, Pa. CareersinSanitation.com is an online job board, similar to Monster.com or CareerBuilder.com, specializing in recruitment for food safety and sanitation personnel.

“It’s a very niched job board,” says William S. Maywood, III, owner of Careers in Sanitation. “When companies have an opening, they can go online and post their job in front of individuals who are searching for a job in sanitation or food safety. It allows employers to directly connect with individuals who already have a knowledge of the industry or who are seeking to come into the industry—whether a college grad or someone in a production job who wants to get more into the quality end.”