Uncategorized
4 min read
Toby in ‘The Office’ is funny but wrong
True confession: Toby was my favorite character on The Office.
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Hiring
7 min read
How to predict job success
Hiring new employees can sometimes feel like a high-stakes game of chance. You screen a resume, conduct an interview, follow up on a few references… and hope for the best. But there are ways to better predict job success—and they’re not necessarily complicated. In addition to the resume, interview, and references you usually include as…
Hiring
6 min read
Recruiting active vs. passive candidates
When I started looking for a job last year, it was the first time I’d done so in more than five years, and I was overwhelmed. Thinking about new routines, new commute, new people, new coffee machine, new set of work passwords. It was daunting. I’m what we at PI call a Controller pattern, a key…
Hiring
5 min read
Can you be too smart for a job?
All jobs require some level of cognitive ability, and research has demonstrated time and time again that cognitive ability relates to higher job performance in all roles (although the relationship is stronger in more complex job roles). But is there an upper limit? Can you be too smart for a job?
Uncategorized
4 min read
Toby in ‘The Office’ is funny but wrong
True confession: Toby was my favorite character on The Office.
Hiring
4 min read
When their cognitive score doesn’t match their behavior
What do you do when you have a candidate with the “perfect” behavioral needs and drives for a position—you know they can handle the work, culturally it’s a match, they are driven and determines—but their overall cognitive score, their capacity to learn, adapt, and grasp new concepts in the workplace, is falling short. I have had…
People Management
4 min read
How self-aware are you?
Recently, I had a client come to me very upset. She had begun working with two people who both had a Predictive Index behavioral pattern almost identical to hers and she said, “Melanie, please tell me I don’t come across like those two!” Unfortunately, what I couldn’t tell her was that the descriptions she gave me…
Company Culture
5 min read
What does your employer brand say about your company’s personality?
When you think of “branding,” there are likely tons of things that jump into your mind. Logos, taglines, fonts and signature colors, which are pieces of visual brand identity. And then there are more interactive things like what a company represents and how it interacts with and treats its customers, which relate to brand personality…
Hiring
3 min read
When to fire an employee: We hire for skills, but fire for something else
Think about this: When you interview a candidate for a position, a primary input in the decision-making process (the resume) is provided by the candidate. While the resume certainly gives you an overview of experience, education, and skills, it’s still information that’s curated by the candidate. This is equivalent to a used car salesperson handing…
Hiring
2 min read
Let’s get smart about hiring
For too long hiring managers have relied on gut feel to assess candidates for a job. They’ve relied on what they believe to be tried and true methods for predicting a candidate’s success only to be met with mixed results. A resume is great but it only tells part of the story. Relying on factors…
Hiring
3 min read
Why narcissists excel in job interviews
There’s an old consumer-protection saying that “if a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is.” For hiring managers I’d amend that adage slightly and say, “If a candidate seems too charming to be true, he probably is.” Don’t get me wrong—there’s nothing wrong with charm in business. But there’s also data suggesting…
