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Profiles Incorporated

A Strategic Business Partner of Profiles International

Posted by Nancy Ness on June 29, 2018.

Well, it is “Game Day” on many fronts.  The Final 4 basketball event truly served up a fantastic dose of March Madness, the baseball season is off and running, the Minnesota Wild are in the Stanley Cup playoffs and The Masters golf tournament are all indicative of the traditional passage to the “Right of Spring.”

Is it “Game Day” at your organization or, in other words, is it recruiting season and time to hire for success? We learned in an earlier blog post that Recruiting is part of a company’s RED Zone which are the three areas of your business where you get the highest rate of return for your efforts. Make sure you add the Profiles PXT and PSA assessments to your armamentarium.

Hiring in general is very difficult.  In today’s world, with the level of training, coaching and social media, it is even more difficult.  Resumes generally look good and people are well trained and experienced interviewers. There are a variety of tools and courses available to call attention to one’s strengths and experience.  People can present themselves well during the short periods of an interview and make it seem like they are a good fit culturally and with their skills and experience. Just because someone had great success in their previous role, doesn’t mean they’re going to produce the same results at yours. Harvard Professor Boris Groysberg recently investigated factors affecting a star performer’s chances of replicating his/her successes in a new environment. He found that stars whose positions require consistent cooperation and collaboration with others have a tough time maintaining their high performance in a new organization. In addition, Groysberg discovered that top performers rely on high-quality colleagues in their organizations to improve the quality of their own work.

In my early hiring experiences I felt that if I met the individual,  became comfortable with how I thought they would fit culturally into the organization, discussed their skills and experience and determined that those met our criteria, I felt I had done my due diligence and I was now ready to make my decision to hire. BUT, I was always left with two nagging questions, “What will this person really be like to work with?” and “How will I feel about my hiring decision 6 months from now?” I thought that the only way to answer those two questions was to take the leap, hire the person and see how they worked out.

In my early leadership roles I hired more quality people than not BUT I did make some mistakes.  The mistakes were painful.  They were expensive and created difficulties organizationally for myself, co-workers and customers.  These issues all tied back to my quest to answer factually the 2 nagging questions “What will this person really be like to work with?” and “How will I feel about my hiring decision 6 months for now?”

At this time in my hiring experience, I became aware of assessments and specifically the Profiles PXT and Profiles PSA.  I found that these assessments quickly gave me specific facts on what this person really would be like to work with.  The applicant spends about 1 hour taking an online assessment that provides data about themself in order for me to gain  valuable insight in answering 3 key questions that told me emphatically what this person will be like to work with.

  1. What is the individual’s Cognitive Abilities? How quickly will this person learn and assimilate the required information to succeed in our organization? Is there a verbal orientation to the way this person learns?  Is there a numeric orientation to the way this person assimilates?  Will they be able to keep up once the initial training is over?  What is the best onboarding process for this new hire to start their initial company experience off well?
  1. How will this person behave under pressure? The Profiles PXT and PSA provide specific data regarding an individual‘s personal comfort zone related to 9 relevant people interaction behaviors.  Under pressure or stress, we immediately want to go to our personal comfort zone.  With these assessment tools we gain valuable insight into answers to key questions like “How will this person make decisions?”, “How will this person act in leadership roles?”, “How will this person perform daily tasks?”, “How will this person interact in group or team settings?” and more.  In other words, you get a true look under a person’s exterior and will get to understand what they “REALLY” will be like to work with.
  2. What types of work activities is this person naturally attracted to?  The Profiles PXT and PSA provide specific feedback on the activities you will see this person routinely perform.  You will get answers to questions such as , “Does this person like to persuade?”, “Are they entrepreneurial”, “Do they like to help others?”, ”Are they hands on types of people?”, “Do they like technical data related types of activities?” to name a few.

In summary, I now look at hiring as a 3 legged stool.  If I skip any leg, the stool will fall over or I will not have optimized my hiring process.  Do not hire anyone until you can answer all 3 legs of the stool:

1) Will the individual be a cultural fit?

2) Does the individual have the required skills and experience?

3) Use the Profiles PXT and PSA to tie it all together and answer those 2 really key questions “What will this person be like to work with?” and “Will I be happy with my decision 6 months from now?”  DO NOT GUESS here. Call us today and let us help you gain access to our Recruiting and Leadership tools, and consulting services – all available through Profiles Incorporated.


Author: Nancy Ness

As President of Profiles Incorporated, Nancy Ness has worked as a business consultant specializing in employee assessments since 1991. She works with various companies of every size, in every industry, to strategize the use of assessments in the selection/retention and job performance areas. During her years with Profiles Incorporated, she has earned many honors, including the Strategic Business Partner of the Year several times. Also, she is recognized as an original member of the Profiles International, Inc. Founder’s Club.


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