Every company would like to perfect its hiring procedures to successfully identify the most promising candidates, but in reality they too often fail to recognize greatness in the making.
There are only two ways of acquiring top talent in every business – paying a premium price for a proven expert or growing your own leaders in-house. It is obvious that the latter method is preferable for most companies, only it also happens to be more difficult to pull off. Finding and retaining the workers that will develop into ‘star employees’ is a painstaking process laden with well-intentioned errors and some of the most brilliant young experts often slip through the cracks despite the best efforts.

Knowing this, HR professionals are forced to think outside of the box and try out different techniques designed to reveal future performance. Here are a few tips that might prove useful in this quest:

Researching every candidate in depth
In the connected world, it doesn’t take too much time to verify information through publically available sources. HR departments have the possibility to learn many details about the candidate and his accomplishments as well as contact his mentors and previous employers without leaving their office. Collective intelligence of the network can provide you with great subjective recommendations for just about anything, so why this principle wouldn’t be extrapolated to hiring as well? The idea is to put the person in the right context, to understand motivations and ambitions, to decipher the code that makes that candidate unique. If the applications are analyzed solely on ‘objective’ factors (i.e. degree of education, work experience, etc.), it is impossible to differentiate between average workers and inspiring leaders capable of lifting an entire team on their back at the time of greatest crises.

Testing and practical trials
Even the best written biography can’t tell you how well the candidate will perform in the trenches and increasing number of companies are devising ways to work around this limitation. Aptitude tests can provide a window into the mind of the candidate, and illuminate his patterns of thinking and some qualities that might not be apparent at first sight. Putting the candidate into a realistic simulation of the work environment and watching him deal with pressure is the another great way to scratch under the surface and get the idea what you can expect in practice when the stakes get higher. The downside of this approach is that testing can be a time-intensive exercise better suited for short-listed candidates than for the entire field of applicants.
Estimating social intelligence

Regardless of their duties or position, employees need to be able to communicate and collaborate with others without disrupting team unity or causing conflicts. That’s particularly important for people working in the sales or customer support departments, who are in daily contact with the clients and can significantly affect company image with their actions. The ability to have friendly interactions with a broad range of people can’t be measured by intelligence tests and must be accessed through other means during the selection process. One-on-one interviews and group workshops are viable possibilities here, but each company must define the ideal psychological profile of its future employees and train its HR officers to seek for these desirable traits during the interviews.