The situation is even more intense given the hyper-competitive nature of most buying and selling journeys. Often, the difference between winning and losing is razor-thin — and sales talent can be the factor that separates you from the competition. In this context, the quality of your sales team becomes more than a differentiator — it becomes a defining factor of success.

Selection Matters More Than Ever

Hiring sales reps has never been easy. But in a tighter economy, the stakes are higher. Every new hire represents a significant investment — and every mis-hire costs more than just dollars. It costs momentum, morale, and market share. That’s why a rigorous, data-driven approach to sales rep selection and hiring is essential for building a high-performing sales team. It’s about more than resumes and interviews — it’s about identifying the capabilities, skills, tendencies, and motivators that truly drive sales performance.

Traditional and unstructured methods for evaluating what separates top-performing sales reps from average or underperforming reps simply don’t work.

Don’t Just Look Outside — Assess Inside

But the focus shouldn’t stop at new hires. Your current sales team holds untapped potential — if you know where to look. Sales assessment tools can help you gain deeper insight into your team’s skills, preferences, and strengths. Are they wired for complex consultative selling, or better suited to faster-moving, transactional deals? Do their behaviors align with your sales strategy? Are they being deployed in the right roles, with the right types of stakeholders and accounts?

Sales assessments aren’t about judgment — they’re about alignment. When you understand your team at a deeper level, you can deploy them more strategically, coach more effectively, and ultimately win more often.

The Players and the Playbook

Many organizations have invested heavily in sales methodologies, training programs, and playbooks. But even the best methodology or strategy will underperform if it doesn’t align with the people responsible for executing it. That’s why it’s essential to align the players and the playbook — understanding both what your salespeople are naturally good at and how to support them with the right tools, processes, and positioning. The right approach to sales assessment is critical.

A Smarter, More Strategic Approach

Winning in this market isn’t about working harder. It’s about working smarter — selecting the right people, understanding your current team’s strengths, and aligning your talent with your go-to-market strategy. That’s how you turn fewer opportunities into more wins. Because in a world where every at-bat matters, you can’t afford to leave performance to chance.

At Talogy, we have decades of experience helping organizations understand, predict, and enhance sales success — in all types of markets. We bring proven, science-backed solutions that have driven results for high-performing organizations around the world. Let us help you maximize your sales performance by aligning your talent and strategy for today’s challenges and tomorrow’s opportunities.

If you’re exploring ways to improve sales effectiveness, reduce mis-hires, or align your sales talent with business goals, we’d love the opportunity to talk with you. Learn more at talogy.com.

Struggling to hire for sales? @CaliperCorp uses validated job models to match candidates to sales-specific roles and is the trusted choice for sales selection.
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Hiring for Sales

How do you determine if a candidate will be an effective salesperson? While sales effectiveness is not a generalized trait, there are qualities and habits that are greater indicators of success in a sales role. When hiring for sales, you should look for these six traits or the potential to cultivate these characteristics in candidates:

• Hyper-focus: Salespeople have many tasks and clients to focus on at once. In order to be successful, they need to be able to prioritize and focus on what is most important.
• Active listening: The best salespeople listen to their customers and ask the right questions.
• Networking Master: Building relationships is a key element for success in sales. Effective salespeople are able to build trust which improves customer loyalty.
• Work smarter, not harder: Successful salespeople follow a consistent process and balance their tasks. They don’t reinvent the wheel when there is already an efficient process in place.
• Adaptability: When faced with an unforeseen challenge or obstacle, effective salespeople are able to quickly adapt their approach.
• Be prepared: Exceptional salespeople know their product better than anyone. They do their research and are able to anticipate the questions their customers might have.

Did you know that sales productivity is the #1 challenge for 65% of B2B organizations? Learn how @CaliperCorp can improve your hiring and development plans and help you achieve #SalesEffectiveness.
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It’s also crucial to consider sales effectiveness as a function of the tasks themselves, although these tasks will differ across industry and organization. In order to hire the right candidates, start by defining the relevant tasks for your strategy, and reflect those tasks in hiring criteria and a disciplined hiring process. A combination of structured interviews, assessments, and background and reference checks allows hiring managers to observe and predict the candidate’s job behaviors which can yield the best results when hiring for sales.

Talent assessments have become more available and intuitive, which is great news for sales leaders. The Caliper Profile pre-employment assessment, for example, was built to help predict a job candidate’s potential success in the role. The assessment not only measures specific behaviors and competencies, but also uses the data and insights to match candidates to scientifically-validated job models for sales professions. The Caliper Profile also goes a step further to provide hiring managers with interview questions, coaching recommendations, and training for skills gaps, meaning that it can be used at both the hiring and developing stages of employment.

Set Them up for Success

Did you know that less than 45% of companies have a formal sales training process? Given the lack of training and development structure in sales, it’s easy to see why the turnover rate is so high. Companies tend to invest more heavily in recruiting and hiring activities than on the processes and programs that focus on developing employees and keeping them engaged. However, investing in training and development will likely improve retention and increase your company’s margin.

Professional Development and Productivity

Playbooks are a great tool for training employees and creating consistent sales processes across your organization. A playbook ideally contains all the content necessary for your sales reps to succeed, including buyer personas, call scripts, negotiation tactics, and proposal guidelines. Creating a playbook can be very time-consuming and should involve multiple stakeholders throughout your company. However, it is time-saving in the long-run as it allows new employees to be trained more quickly. Additionally, a playbook frees up time for selling. Research by the CMO Council shows that sales reps spend 40% of their time searching for or creating content, and a playbook can help centralize the resources they need.

Professional development is integral to individual success in sales and overall retention. When career advancement paths are unclear, sales reps will start to question their place in the company. This is where sales leaders can make an impact by investing in the professional development of their team with a coaching mindset. Effective coaching includes building a plan for your employees, establishing expectations, challenging your staff, and helping them find solutions. By implementing these practices, employees are more likely to become engaged with their careers and increase their overall performance.

Sales productivity is the #1 challenge for 65% of B2B organizations and directly impacts a company’s ability to grow and improve its bottom line. Hiring and developing for sales can be difficult, but the right investment in these processes will help you find the most qualified sales candidates and keep them invested in your organization.

Caliper can make implementing these processes as simple and seamless as possible. Want to see how our products can help you increase your success in sales? Contact us and we can get you on the right path to hiring and developing more sales effective employees.

Many employers see an influx of #hiring during the holiday season. @CaliperCorp shows you how #PersonalityAssessments help you get prepared and still hire well:
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While we’re thinking about the holiday hiring rush, we’ve put together 3 pieces of advice for maintaining an efficient hiring process that looks to the future, even for your seasonal hires:

1. Define What Matters

Often seasonal hiring is about ensuring you have the help you need during peak business times. You don’t have time to hunt for the candidates with the perfect experience and refined skill sets. So, what are you looking for? What’s the most important aspect you want to bring in? Often, your key factors will be based on personality and potential over proven ability and expertise.

Using personality assessments is a great way to determine which candidates demonstrate the potential for success in a given role. Seasonal hiring typically requires a quick hiring process and short training program, which means personality is likely to be more important than skill in a time such as this. In the e-commerce industry, for example, the Department of Labor predicts to see more than 50,000 jobs added over the next 6 years, and it’s an industry that is particularly affected by seasonal demands. Understanding the personality traits that align with the job is a critical step to hiring well and hiring effectively. Make it clear that personality matters and the right person can get the right training as they need it. But, finding someone who will excel and enjoy the work will make your holiday hiring effective, so study the role closely and determine what traits and competencies are necessary before you start asking for applications.

2. Streamline Through Efficiency

You know what you need, but you still need to assess an inordinate amount of candidates in a short amount of time. What does that process look like? It doesn’t require a re-working of your normal processes or rethinking your strategy. Often, it’s just a matter of streamlining what you already have to meet the requirements of your seasonal hiring. Revisit the tools you have and see where you can make a more efficient, expedient process to sort through applicants more quickly and identify good candidates in a more pinpointed way.

How do you quickly and efficiently sift through the high volume of applicants during the holiday #hiring rush? @CaliperCorp has 3 tips to help you hire well:
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Caliper Quick View helps you screen large pools of applicants by targeting specific personality traits, removing the secondary characteristics that aren’t as critical for success. This type of expedited screening process is ideal for the types of roles companies are looking to fill during increased hiring times and seasonal hiring, while still maintaining informed decision making.

3. Consider the Future

By nature, seasonal hiring is often short term, but that doesn’t mean you should think in the short term, too. Seasonal hires are a tailored, hand-picked pool of candidates, which is an ideal source to find long term, permanent employees. These employees are already familiar with the company, accustomed to the work and environment, and have some degree of engagement or loyalty. So how do you think about professional development for your temporary hires?

Think of all your employees as long-term investments. If treated like they’re temporary, employees will perform like they’re temporary. By limiting the time spent nurturing, you limit the potential of the employee. Identify those employees who exhibit the desire and ability to grow, and spend the same energy on those individuals as you would those on your permanent staff. Are they still in college? Encourage them to come back next summer or winter break. Are they an intern? Talk to them about what they plan to do after graduation. Or, perhaps they provide demonstrable value during the holiday season. Work with them and build a plan for increasing their role and responsibility to transition to full-time permanent status after your seasonal needs have been met. When you demonstrate an interest in your temporary employees, they will return the interest in you, too.

To learn more about the ways Caliper can help you build your best seasonal workforce, reach out to our experts today.

These five traits of sales effectiveness separate the extraordinary salespeople from the rest.

Self Motivated

Top salespeople are continually learning and improving their processes to keep up with their customers and competition. They take time to understand the product, the company, and customers. With this new-found knowledge, they create a customer focused action plan. Want sales to grow? You have to stay ahead of the game, and top sales performers know this and are willing to put in the extra work to make it happen.

Did you know?

More than half of prospects want to see how the product works on the first call.

Remarkable salespeople have the focus and determination to strive for the best and more. They push past the distractions and set individual goals to be a top producer. They’re armed with a strategic action plan that guides them to reach goals and not let setbacks stand in their way.

Personable

Nobody likes to talk to someone who can’t hold a conversation or comes off cold. Every salesperson who has closed multiple deals and has a long list of clients has one thing in common – they’re personable. Customers are more attracted and likely to work with your company when your sales rep has a heightened level of emotional intelligence and can use it to create a connection with customers.

Your sales reps should be able to spark a connection and build a foundation between the customer and themselves. By doing this, your customers will feel valued and appreciated, and in the long run, will want to continue doing business with you. A benefit that comes with this is word of mouth referrals. Customers who have an incredible experience with their sales reps are likely to tell others, which can bring in more sales opportunities for your company.

Passionate & Optimistic

Top salespeople are typically positive and optimistic. They have a strong passion for the company and the products they sell. They typically have an upbeat outlook and tend to have a good sense of humor and overall fun aspect about them. While they still have those grounded traits, they make sure customers love working with your company. A top salesperson demonstrates passion every day, and it is clear that they believe in their product and their organization. This confidence and passion give customers a sense of comfort. They see their sales rep as authentic and trust what the rep is telling them.

Fast Fact:

“Less than 10 percent of top salespeople were classified as having high levels of discouragement and being frequently overwhelmed with sadness.”

Optimism plays a huge part when you separate the average salesperson and the top performer. When your sales rep uses an optimistic approach, they know what they can achieve and they don’t allow one bad day or experience to tarnish their positivity or outlook on their overall goals. They focus on what they can control and take those bad experiences as learning opportunities to do better.

Resilient

Those top performers know the feeling of being told “no” over and over, but they also know how to bounce back fast and be persistent. They know how to get the job done and keep their focus. Bouncing back can tell you a lot about a salesperson’s attitude and personality if they can jump back into the game after being discouraged. They’re likely able to take constructive feedback well and are willing to put in the hard work.

Top performers don’t get discouraged when their numbers are lower than usual but instead look for opportunities. Those extraordinary salespeople have the tenacity to push through hardships and conquer any obstacles that might get in their way.

Problem Solver

The desire to create an ultimate experience for customers is a necessary quality for sales effectiveness. A great salesperson will look for new ways to solve customers’ needs, financially and emotionally. They are able to offer the right solutions based on customer needs and present it in a way that feels genuine and empathetic. By putting your customers’ needs first your organization is seen as capable and trustworthy.

Want to learn which core competencies your sales professionals possess? Get to know them with the Caliper Profile and see how to tap into their potential. To get started, reach out to our experts today.

Your next personality assessment must provide valuable insights into the qualities that signify sales effectiveness, and those insights can create a brighter path for your organization. However, if personality assessments aren’t constructed well and scientifically-validated with real data, you could end up wasting time and resources on something that doesn’t work. Consider this infographic when you are choosing your next personality assessment:

• • According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the price of a bad hire is at least 30% of the employee’s first-year earnings.
  • According to the Society of Human Resource Management, it costs an average of $4,129 to recruit, interview, hire and train someone in America.
  • Nearly 30% of companies report that it takes over a year to bring a new hire up to full productivity.

Ways to Avoid Hiring the Wrong Employees:

• • • Spend more time on the hiring process.
    • Devote resources to quality and proper new hire training.
    • HR and training staff are given attention, guidance and budget to build a productive workforce.

It’s reported that 31% of organizations have yet to define the essential leadership competencies needed for leaders at all levels to achieve business goals. And of those who have defined leadership competencies, just 8% have automated competency management, according to Brandon Hall Group’s 2016 Talent Management Study.

Defining Competency-Based Hiring

Competency is simply the ability to do something successfully or efficiently. The term core competency was originally introduced in 1990 by the Harvard Business Review to describe the management concept of corporations possessing specialized expertise in a specific area. The concept of core competencies was quickly adopted by many corporations to communicate what they did “best” and to leverage the competitive advantages of their brands.

Core competencies are grouped in two ways:

1. Skills, knowledge and technical qualifications
2. Behavioral characteristics, personality attributes and individual aptitudes

Competency-based hiring starts by identifying a full range of competencies required for success in a position and then gauging each candidate’s demonstration of those traits. A candidate’s competencies can be measured from when they respond to a job posting, to their interviewing and onboarding process, to performance reviews.

Hiring Accuracy

Competency-based recruiting can serve a number of purposes, allowing a company to achieve the desired performance in their hired candidates. Competency-based hiring provides a clear understanding for the recruiters as well as the candidates about the requirements of an open position.

This process leads to a more standardized selection process because the same standards are used to evaluate all of the candidates applying for the same position. There are also fewer hiring mistakes with this recruitment process. It helps prevent recruiters from evaluating candidates based on characteristics that might not relate to the job itself or position they’re interviewing for. With little to no hiring errors, it improves the accuracy in assessing a candidate’s traits needed for the job.

Competency-Based Interviews

Competency-based interviews are more systematic, with the questions targeting more of a specific skill or competency. Candidates are also asked questions relating to their behavior in certain circumstances and asked to back up their answers with solid examples. The hiring managers dig further into the provided examples by asking for specific explanations about the candidate’s skills or behavior. For example, the interviewers might want to test how a candidate can deal with stress.

First, they would ask the candidate how they generally handle stress, then ask to provide an example of a situation where they worked under pressure or stress. There are a number of different interview questions that a candidate can be asked, depending on the competency. Adaptability, compliance, communication (verbal, listening and written), conflict management, creativity and innovation, decisiveness, flexibility and independence are just a few competency topics interview questions are formed around.

Example Interview Questions:

• Give us an example of when you took responsibility for delivering expected outcomes, giving credit to other teams and individuals where appropriate.
• Tell us about a situation when you failed to communicate appropriately.
• How do you respond to customer feedback?
• What is the biggest risk that you’ve taken? How did you handle that process?
• Tell us about a decision you made too quickly and got wrong. What made you take that decision?

A competency-based hiring process requires a company to invest a lot of time and effort, but the work pays off in the end because it enables the hiring decisions to be more appropriate and sophisticated. After a candidate is hired, core competencies continue to be useful in setting goals and positioning new hires for success.

Ensure an exceptional candidate experience every time! See how we can help you increase employee engagement and retention.

Those are two different people. As much as hiring managers would love to cherry-pick personality traits in their applicants, that isn’t how human beings are wired. Many personality traits are negatively correlated, especially ones that support service motivation vs. ones that support sales motivation.

If you work in the insurance business, you know how hard it is to find an Account Manager who can fulfill service and upselling duties with equal aplomb. Or maybe you work in another field where service-sales hybrid roles are a cornerstone. Veteran recruiters and hiring managers understand that you have to aim for balance when filling such positions. But how do you find the right balance?

Fortunately, science has come to the rescue. Based on psychometric research and advances in job-performance analytics, we now know the six qualities that are most important for success in the service-sales hybrid role. For consistency, we’ll refer to such workers as Account Service Professionals throughout the remainder of this post.

1) A focus on customer service

An eagerness to help other people is a no-brainer when looking at Account Service Professional candidates. But there’s more to customer service than simply offering assistance. Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, a good ASP strives to understand the needs of individual clients and customize responses. It’s also important to make sure the client receives undivided attention and is never made to feel like a burden. At the same time, the ASP has to balance the requirements of the customer with those of the company or agency.

2) The ability to persuade

As stated above, a big challenge for companies is hiring Account Service Professionals who are both service and sales oriented (the aggressive/persistent personality type associated with sales success is the inverse of the helpful/conscientious dynamic that typically drives service performance). Top ASPs are service oriented but not to the extent that they give things away simply to win approval from customers, and they are persuasive enough to promote the benefits of additional coverage without being so aggressive they make customers feel overly pressured. What they do best is use verbal and nonverbal cues from their clients to subtly transition the conversation from service to sales.

3) The ability to build relationships

Hiring managers sometimes mistake an outgoing nature for relationship-building skill. Gregariousness is effective for breaking the ice, but real relationship building flows from understanding clients’ needs, showing them undivided attention, and following through. Account Managers who position themselves as trusted advisors and partners are the ones who achieve the highest levels of customer satisfaction and retention.

4) Professional poise

Because Account Service Professionals are often caught between the conflicting agendas of salespeople, management, and customers/business partners, it is especially important that they maintain their composure and professionalism and avoid personalizing criticism that, in many instances, should be directed elsewhere. If you’ve ever managed a service function, you’ve probably dealt with staff members who suffer hurt feelings and eventual burnout. Excessive eagerness to please isn’t necessarily desirable when looking at ASP candidates. Sometimes the ability to stand firm and deliver a confident “no” is a valuable attribute.

5) An attentive listening style

The attentive listener is one who puts the focus on the client, asks meaningful questions, and adapts to input in an open-minded manner. Many problems can be solved and even turned into productive exchanges through listening, encouraging the speaker to elaborate, showing empathy, and fostering collaboration on solutions. A good Account Service Professional avoids letting his or her own preconceptions and assumptions get in the way of a positive outcome.

6) Strong time management

If you’re a manager or supervisor, you’ve undoubtedly had a staff member who struggles with time management. In service roles like Account Service Professional, which require the worker to juggle ongoing administrative/project work with intermittent client interaction, this issue can be prevalent. Working on protracted assignments calls for someone with extended task focus who can avoid distractions, while client interactions are unpredictable in terms of duration and response, sometimes requiring adaptability and a willingness to shift direction.

In reality, finding applicants who shine in all six areas won’t be easy, and sometimes you’ll have to compromise in your hiring decisions. The good news is that, using the breakdown above as a guide, you can develop targeted interview questions to gain an understanding of your job candidate’s relative strengths and limitations. And when it comes to people already in position, this list can serve as the foundation for coaching and development.

Employment assessments are a valuable tool in helping you dig deeply into people’s intrinsic strengths and limitations and get around scripted interview answers. Just make sure you’re using an assessment instrument that has been scientifically validated for candidate selection. Happy hiring!

No, this isn’t a scene from a new horror movie. It’s a scene from a job interview, and the mask in this case is metaphorical.

Job applicants are understandably eager to present the ideal versions of themselves to prospective employers. They want the job! Their resumes are professionally polished, and many don’t write their own cover letters. They also read books and watch videos about prepping for interviews.

We all know by now that a candidate who charms during the interview is not guaranteed to be a good employee. This is where the objective data delivered by a pre-employment assessment report adds critical value to the hiring process.

A good pre-employment assessment (one that has been built on a foundation of scientific validity) will reveal your applicant’s intrinsic motivations. The masked figure may claim, “I’m actually very good at detail work,” or “Just point me to the teenagers you want to frighten, and I’ll chase them with my chainsaw all day long!” But the assessment results present a more accurate picture of the individual’s strengths and limitations. Does this person really have the patience and focus to produce high-quality documentation on an ongoing basis? Or the stamina to continuously menace teens whose van broke down on the worst possible dirt road?

[Disclaimer: There’s no assessment we know of that evaluates one’s motivation to chase teenagers around with a chainsaw. If that disappoints you… what kind of business are you running anyway?]

An extra good pre-employment assessment links an applicant’s intrinsic motivations to job performance using science. For example, imagine you are looking to hire a Project Manager. A top-quality assessment not only shows your candidate’s internal motivations, but it also measures those motivations against a Project Manager competency model based on top-performer data. If the assessment report suggests that the candidate has limitations in key areas, you’ll know where to drill down with targeted interview questions.

Many hiring managers say, “Yeah, assessments are great when you need to evaluate candidates, but what happens when you have a hard time attracting candidates in the first place?”

In keeping with the Halloween theme: Do you remember trick-or-treating when you were a kid? Most houses handed out the “fun size” chocolate bars or fruity candy packs. But picture your neighborhood as a bell curve, and go down a couple standard deviations. Now, we see houses that give out unwrapped lollipops and tarnished pennies. Or look to the other end of the spectrum at the houses that offer bags of king-sized candy bars. Pretty soon, the house with the king-sized candy bars becomes a legend, a sparkling palace on Ivy Lane. While the house with the tarnished pennies turns gray and the trees wither in the accursed soil surrounding it. The kids all decide the house is haunted and thereafter cross to the other side of the street when they pass it on the way to school.

Okay, perhaps we got carried away by the season there. Companies that struggle to find applicants may face a combination of challenges ranging from geography (the talent pool is too dispersed) to over-specialization (not enough people with the necessary skills). One thing any company can do, however, is to take a deep look and see if it’s giving out the good candy.

Good candy might be updated policies like flexible hours and a work-from-home option (that does not indirectly punish employees who choose that route), improvements to the work environment, a flatter structure that leads to more empowerment and engagement, structured career-development programs, or other benefits that appeal to the new generation of talent. Desirable applicants seek a destination employer, just as little witches and spooky skeletons seek to weigh down a pillow case or plastic pumpkin basket with oversized servings of chocolate.

In horror movies, masked maniacs have proved frighteningly resilient to whatever weapons the heroes wield against them. In real life, a good pre-employment assessment and employee-friendly policies are your best tools for weeding out the garden-variety ghouls and hiring only the most motivated monsters.

This article doesn’t pretend to be a comprehensive answer to addressing the talent shortage. By considering these 3 tips against your current talent-acquisition methodology, though, you might think of a few ways to refine your approach and drive better candidates to your door.

Shall we?

1. Thoroughly review and revise your job descriptions and postings

No one can deny that technology has changed and will continue to change the business landscape. If you work in HR and are involved in job postings, you know that IT-related positions need to be updated regularly as systems and software needs evolve. But are we digging deep enough and making sure job descriptions and job postings are intriguing to job seekers?

Prospective employees aren’t energized by reading a list of tasks they have to perform, and they are often discouraged by experience requirements that, frankly, tend toward the implausible. Like, “Must have 7 years’ experience as a Kindergarten Teacher + a master’s degree in survey design + 10 years as a Plant Manager.”

Perhaps that’s a slight (and slightly silly) exaggeration, but it’s not entirely distant from real job postings floating around out there. Maybe now is a good time to review your job postings. Do you really need ten years’ experience to be good at something? Are all the people in your company with ten years’ experience good at their jobs? Unlikely. Has anyone done a scientific study proving that three years’ experience performing a task is appreciably different from seven years’ experience?

Today’s workers are more enthused and excited about positive work cultures and opportunities to practice their talents. “Use your tech skills and creativity to help us design innovative software” is far more inviting than “Incumbent will perform coding and testing tasks, 40%.”

Think about what it takes to be successful today in the role. What motivations, interests, and personality attributes result in good performance? Lead with that.

2. Implement organizational changes that improve your status as a destination employer

“You call that a tip? Are you kidding? Reinventing my entire organization is a tip?”

Okay, maybe it sounds complicated, but we’re really talking about modernizing some policies to stay abreast of cultural trends and developments.

“Old habits die hard” is a cliché for a reason. The status quo is status quo. In other words, it’s perfectly normal for an organization to do things a certain way because it has always done them that way, and human nature drives people to reflexively distrust that which is new and different. But we’re trying to fix a problem here, and sometimes we have to start with ourselves and work our way out.

There are still many organizations without a realistic work-from-home policy, for example. Managers still—incorrectly—assume people who work from home are goofing off. The same goes for flexible hours. Younger employees want more flexibility and to let technology work for them to improve their employment experience. The business world is irrevocably moving toward a more flexible, virtual work environment, and organizations hoping to attract and keep talent must adapt.

A lot of companies still maintain the strictly hierarchical organizational structure of decades past as well, which tends to result in an environment that is formal and restrictive. In other words, an environment that might not appeal to workers who seek a flatter, more empowering structure that fosters engagement and creativity. Sure, suggesting that someone change an ingrained organizational culture is a bit beyond the scope of a “tip,” but it may serve to inspire some thought and reflection about the image employers are presenting to prospective candidates.

3. Stop looking in the same places for talent

The biggest block a lot of hiring managers have in looking for talent is their own ingrained tendency to overemphasize past experience. Many of them believe industry knowledge outweighs other factors and worry that inexperienced candidates can’t be taught.

Less experienced people can be taught, in fact. They’re smarter than many managers think, and they may even bring some fresh ideas from an outsider’s perspective. You know what you really can’t teach? Intrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation is a stronger predictor of performance than past experience. Every department has a story about that one person who “got it” right away and within six weeks was showing the veterans how to do it. That superstar you’re looking for who gets it right away? That’s the person with intrinsic motivation that aligns with the job. Those veterans who turn in a mediocre performance year in and year out … they have experience.

If you seek those whose intrinsic motivations align with job requirements, instead of the same people kicking around the industry for years (let’s face it, the good ones aren’t coming available), you have a whole new world of candidates. Recent college grads, people from other industries, job fairs, people returning to the work force after a family break… these are all potential top performers when placed in the right roles. Don’t throw out their resumes and cover letters because they haven’t worked in your industry. Examine the role in depth, determine the personal attributes needed to succeed, and find the candidate with the right internal wiring.

Caliper’s assessment tools are designed to show you which candidates align best with the positions you are looking to fill… with a high degree of predictive power. So when those applicants come knocking, give us a shout. And don’t forget to ask about our brand new assessment report suite, Caliper Essentials™. Scroll down for contact information.