How to Set Up an Evidence-Based Hiring Program at Your Organization

What makes a good employee? Is it the passion they have for their craft? Their leadership abilities? Is it about productivity or, maybe, culture fit? 

A great employee probably has some combination of the above.  

But making a great hire, in the age of hybrid work, is becoming more about hard skills–and about figuring out which of the “soft” qualities above are actually effective at predicting employee outcomes. 

It’s called evidence-based hiring, which, according to industry-leading HR software Criteria, is based on the “evidence” compiled from extensive research in organizational psychology. That evidence gets paired with internal company data to determine, scientifically, which factors are more likely to predict job performance than others. 

It’s about building a hiring process that incorporates more predictive factors–and weighs them more heavily–to improve hiring outcomes over time. 

As an added benefit, evidence-based hiring also helps hiring teams weed out bias so they can create a fairer screening process–free of any unintentional discrimination. 

Degree Inflation: Evidence-Based Hiring In the Real World

Take degree inflation, for example. 

For decades, degree requirements have been added to more and more jobs–generally recognized by recruiters and hiring professionals as a “good” predictor for employee outcomes. 

A recent Harvard Business School study, however, named this trend “degree inflation” and warned that the phenomenon hampers companies from finding the talent they need to grow and hinders Americans from accessing jobs that provide the basis for a decent standard of living. 

Similarly, research by McKinsey found that degree requirements screen out skilled applicants, expand the opportunity gap and make upward mobility more elusive. 

That’s why McKinsey partner Byron Auguste founded Opportunity@Work–to connect employers to a huge, largely invisible talent pool of capable people called STARS (workers who are Skilled Through Alternative Routes rather than through four-year degrees). 

As a result of this growing body of research-backed knowledge–and current labor trends that are making it difficult to hire quality candidates–more and more companies (like Google and Apple!) are removing arbitrary degree requirements from open jobs. Instead, they’re weighing candidate skills (picked up during community college, boot camps, certificate programs, and on-the-job learning) more heavily during the screening process. 

This shift in hiring philosophies and practices perfectly exhibits evidence-based hiring in action: organizations are leveraging data-backed research to improve their own hiring outcomes. 

Of course, this particular research isn’t for everyone. There are jobs that require degrees, such as education or healthcare. And, in certain industries, degrees may actually be a pretty good predictor of job outcomes.

But, that’s what evidence-based hiring is all about: taking a look at the research and determining–based on the unique needs of your business–how to weigh those factors in a way that improves hiring outcomes over time. 

Bring Evidence-Based Hiring to Your Organization  

This brings us to #1 and #2 on our list of tips for setting up an evidence-based hiring program at your organization: 

1. Use professional research, data, and trends as a starting point…According to decades of organizational research, some of the most predictive tools for hiring outcomes include things like work samples, pre-employment assessments for cognitive aptitude and personality, and structured interviews.This kind of science-backed data–that has been proven to work for other organizations–is a great place to start your evidence-based hiring journey. Consider choosing one factor to incorporate into your current hiring strategy and track its progress over time.
2. …but not the end all be all. Remember, every organization is unique. Don’t let a single factor drive your hiring decisions. Instead, look at all the available data points to get a deeper, more nuanced understanding of your candidates (and the people evaluating them).The trick is to select the right combination of tools for your business and weigh them in a way that provides you with the most efficient and predictive signal of a candidate’s talent.
3. Never stop testing and iterating. Evidence-based hiring is a philosophy shift, not an overnight fix. It’s about practice. It’s about changing your organization’s hiring culture over time through an unwavering commitment to testing and iterating. It’s about getting better each day to grow the kind of workforce that will help improve business outcomes.To do so, organizations need to standardize the hiring process (what is being measured, how it’s being measured, how different predictors are weighted, etc.) so every candidate goes through the same steps. This commitment to standardization will ensure your hiring data is controlled–meaning you’ll get better, fact-based, eye-opening insights that really zero in on the levers you can pull to enhance hiring.
4. Use technology to get better, faster. Thankfully, there are solutions out there to help you and your hiring team do this kind of work–technology created to support your newfound evidence-based hiring philosophy. Tools designed to bring more standardization to the process. Use them!From pre-employment assessment platforms to professional license verification tools that vet candidate skills, there’s tons of technology out there that help you organize and track your data so you can gather actionable insights more efficiently and effectively.
5. Commit to continuous information-sharing and education. If evidence-based hiring is about continuously getting better over time–that means your people need to be getting better too. Be sure to regularly educate hiring managers, interviewers, and other decision-makers on what evidence-based hiring looks like at your organization–so they can be ambassadors of the program.Document your hiring philosophy, code of conduct, and standardization plan so there is one source of truth that everyone is operating from. Share findings publicly within your organization and offer suggestions for how employees can incorporate those findings into their own practices–to create a culture of adaptability and continuous improvement.

For more practical tips for setting up an evidence-based hiring practice at your organization, tune in to America Back to Work. We’re recently say down with industry expert Ryan Cleaveland, founder of Spotter Staffing, to hear his secrets for standardization in the hiring process. 

Click here to find the episode, subscribe, and listen wherever you get your podcasts.