A recent post in the Harvard Business Review asserts that the
process of reviewing resumes and deciding whom to interview should require prospective
job applicants to first take psychometric tests. Since resumes can be padded
and interviews are really about first impressions, wouldn’t it be beneficial to
see how sharp the tools are before they’re added to your work bench?
It seems like a sound approach,
one that could easily cross over into the recruiting field. But what standard
of psychometrics should we use to sniff out those employees who will prove most
reliable and beneficial to our clients?
Since I cannot afford to employ
a giant research firm to come up with a sampling of pertinent inquiries, I will
simply rough out a few sample items from the pre-screening questionnaire I would
like to see:
1. You have been told that you
will have a leg-up on the competition because your uncle owns the company. Do
you:
a)
Show up at the interview shirtless?
b)
Work the word “uncle” into the conversation at least eleven times?
c)
Emphasize your own merits and perhaps even
publicly slander your uncle to further demonstrate your individuality?
2. You are the CEO of a
multinational corporation being asked to do damage control on “Meet the Press” for
the first time. Prior to your appearance, you decide to:
a)
Pick out the right tie.
b)
Employ a hacker to disable the DVR devices on
every television in the world.
c)
Assure everyone that there is nothing to worry
about.
3. A vendor is threatening to discontinue
his business with your company, and inform your manager that it’s because of a
personality conflict with you. To restore his good faith, you:
a)
Promise to publicly crush him in a series of
hostile Tweets.
b)
Point out that you are blameless, and politely
suggest that he look deeply into his own troubled psyche.
c)
Get down on your knees and beg to be returned to
his good graces. Plus lunch.
It’s an intriguing idea to
pre-test prospective candidates. With these kinds of metrics, I believe we
could certainly begin to separate the wheat from the chaff. Or, from the staff, as it were.
The Harvard Business Review post can be found here:
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