Subject: May Hire Score Newsletter

Welcome to the May edition of the Hire Score Newsletter. As always, welcome to the new subscribers and thanks for your support to the long time subscribers.

We start this month with an interesting story. I recently purchased a 1979 Fiat 2000 Spider (a really cool sports car). The purpose of the purchase was to use it as a project car for my son and I to work on. At least that is how I justified the purchase to my wife.

How I bought it is the subject of the story and has a moral that relates to how we hire people. I learned about the car on ebay motors. People list cars for sale and post pictures and descriptions of the vehicles. (Very much like a candidate's resume!) As you would expect, the description is very positive and highlights the best features of the car.

In my case I was seduced by a very appealing description and a brand new paint job (candidates do put on their best front in an interview). The conversation I had with the owner only furthered my heated desire for the car. This was the answer to my dreams (sound familiar?).

I purchased the car paying significantly more than I had planned because I convinced myself that this was the car for me. Well the good news is that I have definitely satisfied the requirement of getting a car my son and I can work on --- for a very long time! In actuality, the car was a complete disaster and we will need to restore it from the ground up. But it does have a really nice paint job.

Let's relate this to how we hire people. You see a resume that is impressive and it can overly influence your judgment. A candidate presents a good first impression in the interview and you are further influenced. And then you hear what you want to hear in the interview. This is called selective perception. And in an interview it will destroy your objectivity and lead you to some very bad hiring decisions.

The first step to overcoming selective perception is recognize your frame of mind. When you are hiring you are desperate. You have a problem in your business that needs to be fixed. Things are not getting done. If only the person sitting in front of you is the right person your problems will go away. This is your subconscious talking.

You will stop this from adversely affecting you when you realize that this is your state of mind. Force yourself into objectivity. Force yourself to gather all the information before you cone to a conclusion. This will help minimize the affliction of selective perception.

(Next month I will post a picture of the new car as my son and I are close to putting the finishing touches on what will be a classic)

Onward.

I get a lot of questions about testing in the interview process. People want to know how and when to use testing to assist in making good hiring decisions. i have discussed this previously in the newsletter but this is a good time to revisit the subject.

Disclaimer: What follows is my opinion -- take it or leave it.

The first question is: "Should you use testing as part of your selection process?" The answer is it depends. Not all situations are improved with testing. The best time to integrate testing into your selection process is when you hire a number of people into the same job category. If there is only one person in a job (like controller) testing is a less effective option.

The reason for this is that you want to be able to benchmark you top performers. You want to learn the best practices of your best people and then compare them to the candidate's profile. This provides you with a real-time validation. You want to hire people who behave in a way similar to the way your top performers behave.

So if you are hiring for a job where you can get a good sampling of top performers, testing will add tremendous value to the process.

Next question: "What testing instrument should I use?" When you look for a testing tool there are a couple of things you need to put on your list. In the testing world there are two major measures of quality, validity and reliability. Validity measures how well the test measures what it says it measures. Is it accurate? Reliability measures how consistent the test is. If you took the test a second time your score should be identical.

Make certain you look into validity and reliability scores when you investigate a test. A real caution: For the purposes of pre-employment assessment be careful of any test that is a forced option test, e.g.; Do you prefer to work alone or with others?

When you have a test that lets you choose a preference in an either/or scoring system, you are really measuring a person's perception of who they are. And, this perception can be manipulated according to what the person thinks you want in the job. A candidate for a sales job is going to choose the more aggressive answers because they think that will help as opposed to it being reality.

In summary, use testing when you are filling jobs that have many people in them (sales, customer service, etc.). And use testing tools that have good validity and reliability scores. For more information on the tests that we use as part of the Selecting Winners system, visit www.selectingwinners.com/assessments_new.html.

A couple of announcements this month. I am traveling to Columbus Ohio this month because we are consolidating our warehouse locations. I am going to inventory the products we have in the Ohio facility and rather that ship them to Seattle, I will make them available to you at a fraction of the normal cost. I will send a special e-mail in approximately 2 weeks letting you know what is available and at what price. Please understand that this will be a one-time only opportunity until the products are gone. Everything will be sold an on first come first served basis. Thanks and stay tuned.

Next, I promised you my Barry Shamis recommends page on my website would be up by this month but I ma running late. Please stay tuned and I will let you know when my partner's information is available.

Finally, my good friend Lisa Nirell has just published a new e-book on how to get a greater response from your customers. She has a a really unique approach to business conversations and I certainly listenm when she speaks. Check out her new e-book at .

That's it for this month. As usual, please send comments and questions to staff@selectingwinners.com.

Have a great month recruiting!

Barry Shamis