Predicting Performance
Fellow recruiters and HR-departements are constantly arguing that "we do testing too". Making a claim that their methods are valid predictors of future performance.At NGr we do believe that we talk too little about what it really is that we want out of a recruitment process. We might touch on that matter later in this blog but for now lets just agree that the whole point of going through this whole process of CV:s, interviews and in best case one or two tests, must have the common goal to find "the best person for the job".
Whatever that means?
At NGr we claim that "the best person for the job" is synonymous to whoever performs the best. So that makes it that we in the recruitment process must try an predict the future performance of the individual.
Now that sound like a pretty hefty task, I mean who can look into the future?
Is that even possible?
The uneducated says, NO, you can not predict an individual performance in a certain context. There is too much going on in the surrounding world and peculiar circumstances that it makes it impossible.
Wrong!
You see, that´s the whole trick with the Five Factor Model, it´s been tested and reproduced through decades and we do know to what extend we can predict someones future performance in the workplace. Even if the FFM in itself, as an isolated event only up your chances by 0.2 it makes a huge difference in the long run in your workplace. (Also it must be compared to chance, which the holistic view of recruiting is giving you)
Jordan Bernt Peterson (born June 12, 1962) is a Canadian clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. His main areas of study are the psychology of religious and ideological belief, and the assessment and improvement of personality and performance. He authored Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief in 1999.
In one of his lectures on YouTube (a channel highly recommended) he teaches his students about Predicting Performance.
What you need to asses in order to correctly do so is:
1) IQ
2) The Big Five (FFM)
3) Social Network
4) Specific Skills
5) Interest?
Now IQ for starters is part of the biological lottery. There are no evidence as of today that shows that you can improve your IQ generally speaking. By practicing a certain task you can get better at that task but it is close to impossible to generalize that over the whole rest of the scale. However there is one thing you can do NOT to decrease your IQ and that is to stay physically fit. Your brain starts quite rapidly to loose braincells starting at the age of 20 but by staying fit one can slow the process down.
The next is the FFM and the Big Five. Combined with IQ one can predict future work performance at up to 0.7 or even 0.8.
So a personality test in this sense is only useful if it is predictable about future work performance. And from what we know today the Five Factor Model is the only tool that is scientifically validated and useful in this regard.
