Would You Win a Talent Competition?

I know, it sounds like a silly question, but think about it for a minute. Any time you apply for a new job, or put yourself forward for a promotion, you are essentially in a talent competition whether you know it or not. Even if you remain in an existing role, unbeknownst to you, judgements are constantly being made – about your performance, past contributions, your general capacity for taking on more responsibility, or your style and approach to leadership. Your current manager is always evaluating how you are doing. Your manager’s, manager likely has you in their sights as well, quietly prospecting for identifying high potentials or future succession. So, the question is - would you win a talent competition?

Now, what is one of the best ways to win any competition, talent or otherwise? It is to provide objective, irrefutable facts about your ability to perform and execute. From this lens, assessments can be viewed as the equivalent of a photo finish, or a digital time stamp at the finish line – they become objective measures that are hard to dispute. But there is a catch. The tests used need to meet some very specific criteria. They need to be standardized and validated and ideally possess criterion-related validity, meaning they can be predictive of future performance. The assessment should be specific to a role or set of competencies and be able to provide how certain cognitive, personality and behavioural traits are specifically related to the role at hand. The assessment should be able to separate underlying motivations and values and provide detailed and specific information about cognitive processes that are also linked to the role in question. I know, it’s a pretty long list of requirements, yet if organizations are going to ask potential candidates to do an assessment, they have an obligation to do it properly so that the data generated is useful, valid, purpose driven and objective. The simple, quick, and dirty on-line test you buy for fifty bucks is simply not going to cut it anymore. In fact, in many ways trying to cut costs on testing and or using tests that are not validated for specific purposes is the best way to initiate a lawsuit and will cause more harm than good in the long term (*If you want more information of standards related to or workplace testing, visit the American or Canadian Psychological Associations websites).

Since the start of the pandemic, we have seen an increase in the use of assessments for both pre-hire selection as well as individual development, team dynamics and remote or virtual leadership. This resurgence has occurred in part because of the ability of a good testing protocol to provide objectivity, validity to decision making, and to help remove personal bias when looking at candidates. A second and equally important reason for the increased use of assessments has been the rise of candidates seeking out coaching to become more “effective” when being interviewed. A well-designed testing protocol will get under the “presentation veneer” that has been developed by many candidates. Any good assessment protocol will easily unearth a candidate’s true capability/capacity, innate thinking style and approach, potential for growth, learning and leadership style, values/motivations, and the light and dark personality traits that need to be understood before making any hiring or promotion decisions. Because our assessment protocols have become so advanced and effective at getting to the innate underlying structures that drive behaviour and performance, we repeatedly suggest to clients that they move the assessment protocol to earlier in the recruitment process because the information they can gather will help them to avoid wasting time with candidates that simply would not function well in the given role. Assessments when properly designed and strategically deployed can help hiring manager avoid candidates who are false positives, and big talkers that present well but do not have the goods to back up their coached personae. 

The truth is we are all in a talent competition and the current global situation has created a permanent mental shift in how employees are valued and evaluated. As Talent Assessment experts, we’ve experienced the changes first-hand. We’ve engaged conversations with client organizations about their needs for acquiring, developing and continually engaging high performing employees. We’ve been involved in creating hiring and development testing protocols and strategies for “weeding” out low performers, and consistently being able to identify optimal performers. The organizational performance bar has been raised permanently and the expectation for employees to contribute at high levels has peaked. In today’s economy, you are either going to win the talent competition, or… well, let’s not even go there. The more pressing question is how do you position yourself to ensure that you can win a talent contest in your work setting or when applying for a new role elsewhere?

For the majority the of readers here, you’ve probably had some form of assessment completed, good, bad, or ugly at one point in your career. And decisions were likely influenced by the results of that assessment whether it was acknowledged explicitly or not. The question is - what have you proactively done with that information? Have you leveraged it to promote yourself? Have you used the feedback to improve your own performance or is it just sitting in a digital file somewhere on your hard drive, ignored and left to collect virtual dust? Have you sat down with someone to review the results and to have a deeper discussion of what lies in those scores and to better understand innate versus learned strengths, innate orientations, driving motivations, aspects of your trait map that makes you unique, genuine weaknesses you need to be aware of and strategize around to ensure they do not undermine you?

We know that assessments tend to be used tactically, for specific issues or concerns (i.e., most often for selection, development, succession, and or team dynamics). The reality is most assessment data is grossly underutilized. The answers to most of an individual’s career challenges be it boredom, overwork, underwork, stress, growth, change, etcetera lies in the data that comes from a well-designed assessment. That said, how do you use any assessment information you have to help position yourself more effectively? Our experience working with clients has highlighted 3 key strategies all high performers use to keep their edge over the competition (i.e., win talent competitions). These strategies are tied together via a process we call HPP – High  Performance Practices. Clients have shared that this strategy allows them to clearly and objectively articulate and demonstrate their edge over overs in selection and or promotion scenarios. With this approach, high performance can be a result of leveraging and utilizing assessment information across three inter-related elements. Ignoring any individual element will leave potential performance gaps. Let’s quickly look at each element and discuss why it is essential for high performance and how it contributes to winning a talent competition.

Phase 1 Individual Strengths Mapping: High performers have a very clear understanding of their core personality strengths and how to leverage those strengths in their current work settings to ensure that they are successful.

In many cases the difference between high and average performance is having access to just one tiny piece of missing information – your real strengths/weaknesses. Understanding your real strengths and weaknesses provides access to the roadmap of performing optimally. Gaining a clear and objective measure of your own individual personality map provides a concrete way to leverage strengths and minimize the negative impact of weaknesses. 

Having this information explained objectively via a performance debrief and in practical/applicable terms makes it accessible for immediate use. This activity alone can have a substantial impact on your performance and the perception people have about you. Explicitly linking this information to specific job-related competencies makes optimal performance second nature and allows you to talk about it in terms related to job competencies, strengths, and output – measures hiring managers are interested in learning.

Phase 2 Linking Individual Strengths to Job Competencies: Once a high performer understands their profile, they intuitively know that in order to really leverage and take advantage of their skills and abilities they need to align themselves as best they can with a set of job-related competencies that utilize those particular strengths, each and every day. 

Every organizational role can be defined by a set of core competencies which drive high performance. High performers identify the core competencies required for high performance in their roles and create a customized competency map to which they overlay their strengths profile. The result is a clear understanding of fit for the individual and the role at hand. The better the fit between the individual’s innate strengths and the competency model, the higher the performance probability – High Performance.   

High performers know they are looking for best fit with a minimal number of competency gaps. The greater the number of gaps, the more difficult it is to attain high performance in the role as stated.  In order to achieve true optimal performance, you will need to understand the exact points of fit (strengths) and areas for development (weaknesses). Combining these two dimensions allows you to decide on not only what the best course of action towards high performance is but also whether it is a viable option for you personally at that given point in time. If you find yourself struggling to make those connections, an assessment debrief coaching session could provide the necessary objectivity, candor and structure that allows you to begin leveraging your individual strengths more fully against the job you are currently working in or looking to apply for.

Phase 3 Competency Based Action Items: The final component to ensuring you can win a talent competition is to have a plan. A plan that focuses on leveraging strengths and areas of untapped potential, minimizing the impact of weaknesses (we all have them), and aligning oneself as best one can with the competencies related to the role you are in or pursuing. Assessment based action plans assist you in knowing what needs to be done in both the short and longer term. Specific action items are linked directly to your individual strengths and the fit with a customized competency model of performance. 

Areas of potential action can be developed alone or can be created via discussions with a an assessment coach familiar with talent psychology. In our experience infrequent but regularly scheduled use of an assessment coach to revisit assessment results and fine tune action plans works best for longer term performance gains as well as ensuring reinforcement of new habits.

So, the good news is that you can decide to prepare yourself to win the next talent competition when it comes knocking. One way to do so is to use the ideas from the High-Performance Practices program discussed above. Another is to seek out an experienced assessment coach that understands talent psychology and who can help you make sense of your assessment results, strategically connect the dots (scores, competencies) with you, and challenge you to integrate and apply aspects of your profile consistently, deliberately and with intention.  

The only question left to answer is are you ready to do the work?

Dr. Richard Kercz,