How to use data to drive decision making

How effectively are you using data in your hiring processes? The world of recruitment is evolving at an exponential pace, as more organizations turn to AI and robotics to enhance candidate selection and pinpoint any potential pitfalls.

HRD spoke to Justin Deonarine, I/O Psychologist at Psychometrics, to uncover how organizations can use data to enhance their decision-making.

“If you’re looking to benchmark selection, there’s a couple of ways to do this,” he prefaced.  “Over here at Psychometrics, we take a group of the top performers and analyze at their individual personality profiles. This allows HR to identify which applicant would be the best fit for the role on offer. Who are the stars of the team? Which personality type would you like to hire more of? From here, we compare this data to what the management team are looking for specifically. What qualities do they want to hire? What characteristics will their teams benefit from?”

In the cases where there’s little correlation between both data sets, Psychometrics will have a discussion with HR and identify the ideal cut-off score in the assessments. 

These decisions are only made possible through the wonderful world of data. Data has allowed HR to see exactly what’s going on in their organizations – what works and what needs improvement. 

“Data is such a hot topic these days,” added Deonarine. “HR teams are constantly using data to try to guide their decision making, but it really comes down to the data their using and how effective it is in addressing the problem.”

For instance, if an organization is having a turnover issue, they can use all the data in the world to identify the issue – it’s not going to help in making any useful decisions in resolving it.

“HR has a lot of data to contend with, the majority of which seem to point to problems rather than solutions. So, throughout my work, I’ve been trying to find ways to address this. Typically, it has revolved around incorporating some sort of assessment, be it emotional intelligence or personality or cognitive ability, and then taking the results of those assessments and figuring out how it correlates with particular issues.”

Essentially, if a company has a problem with high turnover rates these assessments can pinpoint why that is. Maybe it comes down to long-term job commitment, or highly competitive talent markets – or maybe it’s something more personal such as company culture or management’s values.

Whatever the case, it’s important for HR to remember that data is only part of the solution. In order to make any real, meaningful changes, employers need to combine the stats with further assessments.