Companies have always looked to hire the best, smartest, and hardest-working individuals. This is commonly achieved by looking at pattern recognition. Metrics were then introduced to track, compare, and prove certain patterns are good investments for the company, hence making attractive recruits. Patterns can be ivy league colleges, years of work experience, referral letters, coding languages, and a multitude of other factors. The core idea is for history to repeat itself. Prior success is the largest indicator of future success.
Ivy League schools distinguish themselves as reputable for continuously producing high-value graduates. However, there will always be outliers, and reputation is only a belief or opinion.
Now don’t go throwing away the textbook. There is a reason this way of hiring has been extremely viable and will continue to be the standard for years to come. The culmination of various reputable sources is a strong foundation for the basis of hiring. The only caveat worth mentioning is unconscious bias.
Hiring has evolved, advanced, and been automated over time. An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) will sift through thousands of resumes in a matter of seconds, recognize the desired patterns of the company, and spit out a list of potential candidates. The real challenge begins when selecting the right candidate. Often, there is a case study or technical test to give validity to the ATS and ensure a candidate didn’t slip through undeservingly. Prior to or after, typically contains a compatibility check or behavioral assessment. This is the focus of today’s article.
It is understood and accepted that behavioral assessments are important for candidate ‘fitness’ within the work culture and, more specifically, the everyday team they’ll interact with. Proper fitness will support employee retention, happiness, and overall success, playing an incremental part in the sustainability of a company. Companies have tried to remain innovative and utilize some frameworks around behavioral assessments, such as the Myers-Briggs or the 16 Personality Factors Questionnaire. The idea of incorporating behavioral assessments should be applauded, but the execution usually lacks luster. A quiz will not surpass a conversation.
Without detailing the psychology and sociology around interviews and individuals, it is important to focus on what is to be achieved when delivering a behavioral assessment. The goal is to understand how candidates react in given situations, something a bubble test will never achieve. Typical behavior questions are:
- What is a challenge you’ve faced, and how did you overcome it?
- How do you juggle multiple projects?
- Have you ever disagreed with a team member, and how did you resolve it?
- Tell me a time about…
Most questions can fall into various buckets: dealing with failure, stress management, collaborative working, leadership style, and problem solving. The intent is to understand how the candidate thinks, reacts, and behaves. All too often, these questions are asked without knowing the desired answer. Behavioral assessments require the facilitator to be knowledgeable and intentional.
“Virtue then is a settled disposition of the mind determining the choice of actions and emotions, consisting essentially in the observance of the mean relative to us, this being determined by principle, that is, as the prudent man would determine it.”
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics2
Managers look for the Virtues being portrayed during behavioral assessments; more specifically, they search for the candidate’s ability to find the Golden Mean. Given a situation in relativity, how would the prudent man, a thinking person, choose their actions and emotions?
Due to translations, there are a multitude of similar interpretations of the Virtues and Vices. Beginning with a deeper sense of knowledge, Productive Flourishing provides a good core translation of the 11 Virtues and Vices.
Take a moment and think of use cases for certain Virtues that can be implemented in the workforce. Given a situation, when should an individual be truthful but not too truthful or manage expectations without being quarrelsome? The philosophical translation will require a bit of adaptation for direct application to the modern working world.
This foundation is stronger because it removes the additive layers of society, thus providing a more naturistic definition of humans, something that will always hold true. Companies should begin their framework and research here, with the support of inert characteristics. Afterwards, it should be paired with the development of the current state of society, modernizing the solution. Similar to how Virtues and Vices are dependent on the situation, so are the desired framework and behavioral assessment. This article focuses on the working world. Take, for example, Nfx’s Goldilocks Zone:
Many more work situations can be formulated with this adaptation. This knowledge can be implemented twofold: The objective of the interviewee is to display the ability to find the golden mean during a conflict while telling a story. The goal of the hiring manager is to recognize the candidates ability to find the golden mean. Inadvertently all humans have a relation to the age of society that they’re born in, so subconsciously people know, or think they know, how others, or themselves, should behave given certain circumstances. When a candidate answers a question or a hiring manager interprets an answer, they immediately try showcasing or understanding how the golden mean was fulfilled.
When it comes to applying and being accepted or rejected from an ATS, a person’s Virtues and Vices have already been showcased and interpreted. Throughout time, the strongly developed Virtues and Vices become harder to break through our habitual training. Since this culminates into behaviors, and furthermore performance over a period of time, and since an ATS automatically removes undesired traits based on outcomes. If a candidate makes it to an interview, they already possess the desired behavioral traits – at least loosely. Being able to display the ability or interpret ones abilities to achieve the golden mean is truly the foundation of a behavioral assessment.
- “Aristotle.” AZQuotes.com. Wind and Fly LTD, 2024. 23 March 2024. https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1413247 ↩︎
- Rackham, Harris. “Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 2, Chapter 6, Section 15, 1934, www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D6%3Asection%3D15. ↩︎
- Gilkey, Charlie. “The 3 Key Ideas from Aristotle That Will Help You Flourish.” Productiveflourishing.Com, Productive Flourishing, 29 Feb. 2008, www.productiveflourishing.com/p/aristotle-the-good-life-and-gtd. ↩︎
- Currier, James. “The Goldilocks Zone of Startups: Why ‘Just Right’ Is Not in the Middle.” NFX, 27 Apr. 2021, www.nfx.com/post/the-goldilocks-zone. ↩︎
I always do situational “tell me about a time” questions in interviews. Applicant needs to give the example and talk about their solution and outcome, providing confidence they can handle a real life team problem similar to what they might face.
Good article, but actual performance in a real work setting should be considered. Paid internships or a similar process that embeds an individual in a group setting relevant to an actual corporate culture is likely a true indicator of “fit”. As important is the ability of both the organization and the individual to mutually adapt. Further, often lost is the notion of an interview where the “inter” part connotes mutual evaluation. Expectations should be clearly defined and articulated early and often. What is the pathway to success for both the organization and applicant? Too often nowadays, it seems to me, expectations are misaligned, both in how and what must be gained in experience and the actual function and dynamics of an organization’s mission. Last, I like the focus on philosophy, but suggest caution. There is no authoritative source of ethics, making them contextual and relative. This feeds back to ethical assessment. Some organizations and individuals can be viewed as corrupt or overly constrained as to the view of good, which itself is a relative scale. A quest to understand the values, their limits, and appropriateness to a mission are a fundamental question of fit. Nice work, and thoughtful approach to a rapidly evolving business and social responsibility challenge set. Thanks
[…] More now than ever, companies need to adapt their strategies to maintain and motivate employees. Zappos has a unique tactic for hiring talent, while traditionally companies highlight their benefit packages to entice candidates. This too is an issue, like the principal-agent problem, that can be fixed by putting a focus on learning more about the individual. As Ted Lasso said, “Be curious, not judgmental.”. For an enjoyable read on an eccentric hiring process, please read the Golden Mean of Higher. […]