Data analytics and human intuition, when working in harmony, can drive talent acquisition results unparalleled by anything before it. Higher return on investments, longer retention, better performance, increased customer satisfaction, and an improved company culture are just a few of the many benefits that comes with using analytics and good decision making in the hiring process. However, favoring the subjective “gut instinct” over an objective, data driven decision can hinder an organization from gaining these benefits and more.
Gut Instinct vs. Data Analytics
Scout Exchange recently performed a study on companies using big data versus their hiring managers’ gut instincts to make hiring decisions. The study found that although 57% of HR professionals agreed with the idea that using big data principles to make hiring decisions was better than relying on their intuition, only 16% of them were actually using big data to help identify hiring trends.
These numbers don’t come at a huge surprise. In the realm of human resources big data, data analytics, and talent analytics is a novel concept. Many companies are still trying to figure out how to overcome the catch-22 of starting with data analytics – which is no small task. And even when an organization gets started there’s still plenty of challenges they’ll need to figure out, including someone who can manage and interpret the data, applying the data to business practices (such as improving the candidate experience), and understanding how to use the data to improve results in hiring.
Scout Exchange CEO Ken Lazarus has noted that part of the issue is that many organizations are misinterpreting or confusing data analytics and big data itself (which Lazarus defines as “data so big it’s hard to get useful insights out of it” without outside assistance such as computer algorithms or data scientists). All the while, many companies are still trying to figure out where they can find a place to start pulling data from.
However, if a company is using hiring assessments, they’ve already started building sets of data they can analyze for business opportunities, new talent acquisition strategies, and better identify higher qualified candidates with. For example, if a candidate takes a personality assessment you can identify what personality traits that job seeker possesses, and compare that to which traits are relevant to the job. If you decide to hire the candidate, you can follow his or her performance and see if those skills were a factor in the candidate’s success or failure. From there, you can conclude something along the lines of “personality trait ‘A’ resulted in this employee’s success” and start to measure other employees and candidates to see if that correlation holds true. By doing so, you’re able to identify trends from information you gathered from your pre-hire assessment process that you can use to optimize your hiring assessments and adjust what you look for in future candidates to yield that same success.
To learn more about how analytics can help drive your business practices, contact us today and schedule a discussion. And if you’re trying to decide if you’re ready for a pre-hire assessment process in your organization, download this e-book below on 15 must-ask questions to help you determine if you’re ready to implement a hiring assessment process.