In this talk, a veteran of both buying and supplying hiring systems explains that traditional vendor pitches—filled with success stories, research studies, and claims of cost reductions—are insufficient for determining whether a screening and evaluation platform will actually work for a specific organization. The speaker proposes a simple, hands‑on validation method: ask the vendor to run their system on a small group of employees the buyer already knows well (including top performers, average workers, and poor fits). By comparing the system’s rankings to the buyer’s own assessments, the organization can directly gauge the tool’s predictive validity for its own context. The speaker emphasizes that this practical test is far more reliable than external case studies, and notes that in his experience, the vast majority of systems prove valuable when subjected to this real‑world trial. He uses Performia as an example vendor, stating that such testing quickly reveals whether the vendor’s product is effective or not.
Chapters
So someone comes to you and they're trying to sell you a hiring system. Alright, they're going to sell you a whole screening evaluation and a whole admin system, and there's some fantastic products out on the market. Unbelievable. And you know, being someone that's been in this industry on the customer side buying hiring systems for over 20 years and now on the supplier side supplying hiring systems, I'm never amazed at what I find out there. But there's something really interesting on how you can evaluate a hiring system. Because it doesn't matter how much research is done, it doesn't really matter, you know, how many success stories the organization can show you that's trying to sell you their hiring system. It comes down to, does it work for you in your organization? And so there's a really simple way to evaluate a hiring system. It's like, get them to use it in your organization. So they come to you, they go, we have the best candidate screening or evaluation system on the market. You go, fantastic. How do I know that? Prove to me. Well, have a look at this. We have all these studies done by this university and we did this study out here and we have this large organization, they used it here and their retention went up and their cost of hiring went down and, you know, even their productivity improved. All good signs. But how do you know it's going to work in your organization? How do you know it's going to work for you? And it's really simple. Park everything aside and go, Okay, what I want you to do is I want you— I have these 5 people. I know them really well because I work closely with them. These 2 over here, I actually would have preferred not to hire because, you know, they're a little bit painful. They're not so really— they don't really get the job done. This girl here, fantastic. I really like her, does a great job. These 2 here, they're amazing. If I could hire guys like these all the time, I'd be so happy. So what I want you to do is I want you to put them through your system and tell me which one's which. Okay. And then I'll know if it works because then I'll know if you tell me that these 2 are the guns, this person's okay, these 2 are no good, I know that I'll just hire the 2 good ones all the time and I know your system works. And this is the simplicity. Use the system on people you know and then just— then you'll know. Because it doesn't matter how good it's been for someone else, it doesn't matter what studies have been done on it, if it doesn't work in your organization, it doesn't work. So this is why we invite our clients or our prospective clients to go, here's our tools, use them, and then we'll tell you all about these people. And then you can go straight away whether it's like Performia knows what they're doing or Performia is the most unprofessional, horrible business I've ever seen in my life. And we're so willing and we're so brazen that we'll just go in anywhere and we use our tools that we know because Most of the time, probably 99% of the time, we come back with, wow, that's amazing. It's like, we didn't know there was a system that could predict value and personality like your system. So use it, try it, use it, and then let us know if you think it's good or not. Thank you.
