b"TSATRLEANIGT+HT FROM THE EXPERTS How Successful Companies Select the Right Peopleby Dr. Scott C. Whiteford, PhD - permission received to reprintP eople are the key to company growth. There- less of age, race, gender or LGBTQ+ status. for fore, selecting the right people is essential toSoundseasy?However,akeyproblemexists the company's success. So, how do successfulleaders when selecting team members; any appli-companies select the right people? cant can list any personality trait they want on a resume.Whileknowledge,skills,andexperience Whenthinkingofselectingtherightpeopleforaremeasurable,talent,orpersonalitytraitsis theirorganizations,leadersthinkofpersonalityfar more difficult to identify and measure. It may be traits, such as Honest, Intelligent, Strong, Vi- easy to understand what talent strong performers sionary, Determined, Wise, Caring and Cou- possess, but it is quite difficult to assess them in rageous (according to a survey conducted by DHMsuch a way that differentiates them from those who Research in 2018). Yet, when selecting people intoare not strong performers. In other words, if a lead-their organizations, leaders often focus on resumeser wants people with high work intensity on his or andinterviews,whicharemerelydescriptionsofher team, he or she cannot simply ask candidates, their knowledge, skills, and experience. So, a hugedo you have high work intensity because all can-disconnectexistsbetweenwhathiringmanagersdidates will say yes. So, for talent assessments to want and what they search. In fact, when describ- have strong validity, the assessments must be able ing the right people, leaders list knowledge, educa- to (1) identify which strengths are important and tion, and experience one percent of the time! (2) differentiate between those who exhibit the be-havior and those who do not.Perhaps, organizations are focused on the wrongIdentifying the right talent for the right positions is aspectofapersonwhenselectinganddevelop- a thorough process. It begins with a job analysis. Re-ing them into leadership positions? Organizationssearchers must spend time observing the behaviors oughttoconsiderutilizingpersonalitytests,orof strong performers in specific jobs. The research-talent, when selecting individuals into their orga- ers also must conduct one-on-one interviews with nizations. About 80 percent of all companies useemployees to gain a deeper understanding of who some type of talent interview when hiring leaderstheyare.Next,theresearchersconductfocus (Dattner,2008).Mostcompaniesrelyheavilyongroups with top performers and with their leaders. resumes(knowledge,skills,andexperience),andFinally, the researchers must conduct a thorough therefore they may have been limiting their lead- literature review to discover what other research-ershippool.Structuredinterviewsthatfocusoners are finding with a specific job. After a qualitative talent, show high validity levels (0.52) (Schmidt &analysis, researchers know which strengths are im-Hunter, 1998), which is higher than education at- portant for selecting a specific job.tainment, job experience, biographical data or job knowledge tests (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998). Struc-tured interviews which emphasize talent also haveAfter hours of identifying the strengths necessary the benefit of leveling the playing field as the inter- toperformajobatahighlevel,itisimportant views themselves are presented the same regard- to measure it. This can be quite tricky. As stated 54"