How to Hire Talent with the Right Cognitive Skills and Personality

November 29, 2018

What are you looking for when you hire someone? Chances are you’re looking for someone who can do the job well as well as someone who will compliment your team. This means you’re looking for cognitive skills as well as personality traits, even though you might not have thought about the issue in quite this way.

The Traditional Hiring Process: Job Interviews and Resumes

Traditionally, the job interview only gives you an idea of the candidate’s personality and not their cognitive skills. When you sit down and chat with someone about what they have done in the past, you get an idea of what they’ll be like to work with. But you don’t really find out if they’re going to do the job well.

For that, most hiring managers rely on the resume. A resume will inform you about the level of education the candidate has, as well as a snapshot of their work experience. Unfortunately, this is not exactly a reliable tool.

How Candidates Exaggerate Cognitive Skills and Personality Traits

It’s obvious that both the resume and the interview can be misrepresentations of the candidate. Candidates can pad their resumes to make it look like they’ve done a lot more than they truly have. They can list degrees they don’t possess or work experience that vastly exaggerated. Some candidates will do anything to make it look like they’re suited for the job.

Similarly, most candidates think employers are looking to hire someone with a sunny disposition. This idea then encourages them to pretend to be much more cheerful and optimistic in their outlook than they really are during the interview.

Studies show that this type of a facade usually only lasts for up to 3 months. The temp-to-hire models are built with this concept in mind. You will have the ability to try your candidate before you truly buy, in a sense. This will allow you to put the candidate to the test and see how they actually fit in your team and with your company before you actually extend an offer for permanent employment. To make matters even more beneficial for you and your company, there are a few resources we utilize to make sure you are getting the right candidate the first time.

Find the Right Candidate with Cognitive and Personality Testing

The smarter way to recruit and hire would be to utilize testing to capture the true nature of the candidates. While it is easy to pad a resume, trying to fake a test that is intuitive and designed to recognize false information is much more difficult. These assessments will test a candidate’s honesty, integrity, reliability as well as job-specific abilities. They will also be able to categorize candidates into groups based on their particular results- outlining the strengths/weaknesses of each and recommending professions they would be best suited for.

This type of hiring process will ensure that you find someone who has exactly the right degree of cognitive skills that you’re looking for, as well as the right personality type.

Contact us for more great tips to help you hire quality talent and download our free whitepaper “Perfecting the Perfect Hire” below!

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Who is NEXTAFF? We are locally owned and operated staffing offices devoted to our communities, clients, and candidates throughout the United States. For more job tips and ideas, contact us. We are always hiring, so if you or someone you know is looking for work, check out our job board below and apply today! We are able to service all your staffing agency needs with local staffing offices in Sonoma County-CA, Des Moines-IA, Raleigh-NC, Shawnee-KS, Topeka-KS, Kansas City-MO, Gulf Coast-MS, Phoenix-AZ, Miami-FL, and Harrisburg-PA.