The best candidate for your next job opening may already be in your applicant pool.
You just may never know it.
Today, technology has transformed high-volume hiring. A single job posting can now generate hundreds of applicants, giving employers access to more talent than ever before.
That’s progress.
But there’s a problem.
A hiring process can become extremely efficient at screening out people – without becoming any better at screening in the right people who can actually do the job.
And once you’ve eliminated someone from consideration, you can’t go back and find out what you lost.
That’s the problem we need to solve.
Is your hiring process selecting the right people?
250 APPLICANTS
Imagine 250 people apply for the same job. Some are clearly unqualified. Some look outstanding on paper. Most are somewhere in between.
And hidden among those 250 are the best candidates who could actually become successful performers.
The problem?
You don’t know which ones they are.
So we start cutting.
Keywords. Education. Job titles. Years of experience. Assessments may follow, then interviews.
The applicant pool gets smaller.
250 becomes 100. 100 becomes 50. It feels like progress.
And it is – if the right people are still standing.
But what if they’re not?
THE BIG CUT
Let’s say, simply for illustration, that 50 of our 250 applicants are genuinely capable of succeeding in the job. We still don’t know which 50.
In fact, how much do we really know about those applicants?
If our early screening process makes a large cut before capability is directly measured, some of the most promising 50 will inevitably disappear along with all the others.
Maybe their experience was in a different industry. Maybe their job title didn’t match. Maybe the right keyword wasn’t on their resume. Maybe their education or career path looked different from what we expected.
Sure, some of those eliminated wouldn’t have been right for the job. But some might have been exactly who we’re looking for.
We’ll never know.
Because they’re already gone.
And that’s the fundamental problem.
You can’t recover what you’ve already cut.
EVEN THE BEST ASSESSMENT CAN’T SAVE YOU NOW
Imagine that the assessment or interview you administer later in the process is perfect – 100 percent accurate at identifying future successful performers. And let’s say your hiring manager has an exceptional ability to recognize talent.
None of that matters if the right candidate never made the cut.
Even the best selection tool in the world can’t identify great talent you’ve already screened out.
THE HIRING MISTAKE YOU NEVER SEE
We all know what a hiring mistake looks like. The performance isn’t there. The manager is frustrated. Other employees have to compensate. Productivity suffers. Eventually, the employee leaves – or needs to be replaced. We see the cost. We can observe it and measure it.
But there is a different hiring mistake that’s almost impossible to spot.
Let’s go back to our 250 applicants.
Suppose 50 could have succeeded, but some of those 50 were screened out before their capability was ever measured. Where’s the evidence of the mistake? There isn’t any. There is no performance record. No productivity number. No manager feedback. No retention metric. They simply disappear.
No one ever gets to see what the person could have accomplished.
Once gone, you’ll never know what you’ve lost.
WHAT IF WE MEASURE PERFORMANCE FIRST?
Instead of relying on inferences about success or assumptions of capability …
What if we measured what candidates can actually do before making the biggest cut?
Instead of asking only whether someone looks qualified, let them prove it. Give applicants an opportunity to demonstrate performance early in the process.
Let’s return to our 250 applicants. With a performance-first approach, you might screen out 20 to 25% based on how well they perform key job tasks and interactions. You’d still have around 200 viable candidates – but now, instead of guessing who might succeed, you’d have evidence of what each candidate can actually do. The point isn’t that 200 is a magic number.
The critical difference is what we know about candidates before making the Big Cut.
- We know which candidates will likely struggle to perform the job successfully, even if their credentials match.
- And more importantly, we discover high-potential candidates who might otherwise be overlooked but have the skills and ability to hit the ground running.
Rather than eliminating most applicants first and measuring performance later, reverse the order. Give applicants an opportunity to demonstrate what they can do.
Measure performance first.
We now have strong evidence to inform every decision that follows.
THE RIGHT TOOL AT THE RIGHT TIME
Placing performance first doesn’t mean resumes or interviews disappear.
They are still important. A resume tells us where someone has been. A well-designed structured interview helps confirm qualifications and fit. The question isn’t which single tool wins.
The question is:
Are we using the right tool at the right time?
If performance is measured earlier, all subsequent decisions build from a stronger foundation. The recruiter has more meaningful evidence of job readiness. The hiring manager can ask better questions. The interview can probe areas that actually matter.
And technology can optimize a process built on stronger evidence rather than simply accelerating who gets eliminated first.
GETTING THE RIGHT 50
Technology has given us extraordinary ability to process applicants quickly. But getting from 250 applicants to 50 quickly isn’t the real achievement.
Getting to the right 50 is.
A process can be incredibly efficient at eliminating applicants without being equally effective at pinpointing those most likely to succeed in the role. And when technology amplifies that process, efficiency isn’t the only thing that grows. Mistakes are amplified too.
That’s why the sequence matters.
Measure what matters first – before you eliminate people who may be exactly who you need.
A STRONGER FOUNDATION BUILDS HIRE CONFIDENCE
Focusing on performance early also delivers an important human benefit. Hiring managers don’t simply receive candidates who survived a screening process. They receive candidates whose capabilities have been observed and measured.
Instead of:
“We hope this person can do the job.”
They can say:
“We have evidence this person can do the job.”
This creates greater trust in the process and greater confidence in the decision.
THE GOAL
Technology will continue to amplify hiring. Applicant pools will continue to grow. Organizations will continue looking for faster ways to manage them.
Technology amplifies whatever process you give it. So, the answer isn’t to reject it. It’s to use technology to amplify the right things at the right time.
After all, the goal isn’t to help us eliminate candidates faster.
The goal is to help us identify the best talent for our teams.
Because the biggest risk may not be making a bad hire. It may be eliminating a great hire before you ever discover what they can do.
FROM INSIGHT TO ACTION
PERFORMANCE-BASED HIRING: FROM ASSUMPTIONS TO EVIDENCE
HOW TO BUILD A BETTER HIRING PROCESS
STOP THE TALENT DRAIN: HOW TO KEEP YOUR APPLICANT POOL FULL
TALK TO AN EXPERT
Wondering whether your hiring process is identifying the best candidates or simply narrowing the applicant pool? We’re here to help. Click here or call 888.332.0648 to start a conversation.
Joseph T. Sefcik is the founder and president of Employment Technologies. As a thought leader in simulation and immersive assessment technologies, Sefcik pioneered some of the earliest employment simulations for organizations such as The Coca-Cola Company, Ford Motor Company, and the New York Police Department. For more than 30 years, his passion has been the advancement of simulation technology for personnel selection and development.