The cliché “Hiring the right person for the right job” continues to be loosely used by the HR industry. In order for HR to recruit “mister/miss right”, HR would need to put emphasis of conducting a job analysis, which will help HR in understanding the current and future situations that impact the position. Unfortunately, this seldom happens.

Once HR understands the situations that surround a position, they will be able to reduce the risk of a wrong hire, which subsequently increases the chances of a right hire. At HireLabs, we call this Situation-based Hiring (given that there is no violation of EEOC).

Let us look at an example of situation-based hiring:

A leading airline wants to start a low-fare program, and needs to hire a cabin crew.

The first step would be to conduct a job analysis keeping in mind the situations that the new cabin crew will encounter. Some of these situations include:

Read more…

If you are a recruiter in San Francisco, then the only way that you can still afford to pay $3 a gallon these days to fill up your gas tank, is if you start increasing your placement rate. That’s easier said than done, because you have a growing talent pool (the unfortunately unemployed), and a slow-recovering job market, where other recruiters are fighting to fill the same position. At a time like this some recruiters become extremely creative, which helps them stand out from the crowd.

There are several ways to be creative, our research at HireLabs suggests that if you improve the quality of applicants that you send for the interview, then you increase the placement potential as well as attain a certain level of respect in the eyes of the hiring manager.

Since HireLabs is in  the business of creating customized assessments, we tried to see if the assessment industry could lend a hand to recruiters. We asked our research team to conduct a small experiment: Read more…

Experts - Performers

Just last week, a friend asked a question about the way I classify employees with respect to what they deliver to their organizations. So I decided to write a post about it. When thinking about the candidates organizations may be interested in hiring, I like to keep things simple and classify them into two categories. Experts or Performers. Yes I know what your immediate reaction will be Hassan, don’t make things so simple because they aren’t. Yes, I agree often they aren’t but trust me guys – at times they are that simple. I like to look at a potential hire with these two lenses because it makes my job easier and simplifies my hiring decision. Read more…

How can employers measure the intangibles?

Performance metrics that measure the usual competencies is a good way to go about rating employee performance. On the other hand, employers are looking to find better ways of employee measurements so that better qualified (quality) candidates can join the workforce at the outset.

Collecting metrics that measure a holistic employee contribution to organizational success means having an assessment system that collects specific data that identifies, holistically, the isolated intangibles of employee contributions. The risks Read more…

Adapted from How to Use Assessments To Hire Effectively by Dana Borowka.

This is mainly because of a lack of basic foundations in the subject, and a lack of exposure to the scope of employee assessment programs.

But how do you choose the most beneficial assessments?

Add to that,  the lack of regulation in this sector has only added to the confusion. Only organizations that have keep official departments that are focused to human capital development can value such a critical tool in the hiring process.

The SMEs and the smaller private firms lack the necessary insight into what could possibly end up saving them up to 40% in Read more…

A question that many recruiters and employers ask themselves many times a year! This query becomes more related when there are so many people in line and one is convinced not to waste money on assessments as “we have enough candidates”. However, number of people should not change the situation for employers as you don’t want mere people, you want talent, right?

Here’s what I think.

Given the war for talent and the limited Read more…

Select the Best: A How to Approach

Behavioral interviews are the best tool to identify candidates with the ideal behavioral traits and characteristics that you have selected as necessary for job success. Additionally, certain behavioral questioning will tend to be situational instances. The best behavioral-based questioning, however, will not give away the behavior being verified. As you read the following Read more…

Economy has definitely affected the use and implementation of employment background checks. In fact, it has driven some interesting trends.
Let’s start with the obvious. Today, there are more people competing for fewer jobs. While hiring managers have Read more…

HireLabs OrganizationDNA™ for the airline industry workforce

Given the current global economic crisis, the airline industry is flying smart.

One of the largest airlines in the Middle East region and a global contender in modern fleets, Saudi Airlines’ progressive stance is visible in its approach to its employees.

Quality people are a critical asset in any business—and Saudi Airlines know it.

Airlines such as Saudi Airlines approached HireLabs Inc. in late 2008 for customized assessments to test 34 different positions.

HireLabs Inc., under the leadership of Read more…

Employee Assessments – A Six Sigma Approach

Developing competencies like ROI projections and VOC surveys make it easier for businesses to tackle critical  business challenges. But these challenges take more than just the business systems & tools. The thing that ultimately makes all the difference is the level of employee engagement. Employee assessments help, to a great  extent, in  finding the existing motivation levels among employees.

Six Sigma implementation calls for such assessments, as it involves organizational changes at the root level. It is important to understand the two main components in a Six Sigma employee assessment plan: the ‘Preliminary survey’ and the ‘Comprehensive Survey’. Both these surveys serve the purpose of a smooth change management. The surveys involve select employees who are interviewed individually by the management, and/or a team and their unit managers and leaders. A variety of generalized questions are asked to find out if the implementation has reduced their workload, made them more efficient, has brought about positive changes in their work, has helped reduce waste, etc.

These questions help management to understand the perceptions that employees might be having about the ongoing Six Sigma implementations, and ultimately helps them devise better policies.