When the demand for top people exceeds the supply, you need to implement an “Attract the Best” talent strategy, not one that’s designed to weed out the unqualified. Yet it seems to me, HR Tech designers and their HR customers are ignoring this basic Economics 101 principle.
For example, the five pillars of exceptional employees shown here are recognized as the traits that separates the strongest employees from average ones. Given a shortage of these remarkable people one would conclude that HR tech should use AI to attract, identify and recruit them.
But that’s not what’s happening since the focus is on process efficiency not quality of hire improvements. This is where “Moneyball for HR!” can help shift the focus.
The Five Pillars of Success – What AI Has Failed to Identify
- Results & Impact: McKinsey’s research on high performers shows these individuals don’t just complete tasks – they drive measurable business outcomes and take ownership beyond their formal responsibilities.
- Leadership & Influence: Harvard Business Review’s extensive studies reveal that informal leadership – influence without authority – predicts career success better than technical skills.
- Adaptability & Growth: MIT’s research on learning agility demonstrates that the ability to rapidly acquire new skills in changing environments is the single best predictor of leadership potential. Carol Dweck’s growth mindset research at Stanford reenforces this point.
- Initiative & Innovation: Gallup’s engagement research shows that employees who proactively identify and solve problems generate 23% higher profitability for their organizations. These self-starters think like owners, not renters.
- Cultural Amplification: Research from Columbia Business School demonstrates that employees who strengthen organizational culture – rather than merely fitting in – drive 30% better business outcomes.
This “Moneyball for HR!” Scorecards Measures the Five Pillars
Here’s how the Performance-based Hiring Quality of Hire Talent Scorecard uses “Moneyball for HR!” to measure these five success factors:
- Ability encompasses Results & Impact plus the technical aspects of Leadership – can they do the work and deliver outcomes?
- Fit captures Cultural Amplification and the interpersonal aspects of Leadership – do they strengthen the team and culture?
- Motivation (the exponential factor) drives Initiative & Innovation and Adaptability & Growth – will they proactively evolve and improve?
These factors can all be accurately assessed using the performance-based interview. As you’ll discover a Level 4-5 performer scores high across all dimensions, exhibiting all five pillars. Level 3 performers show strength in most areas. Level 1-2.5 performers lack multiple pillars, explaining why 46% of new hires fail within 18 months (Leadership IQ study).
AI’s Missing Opportunity: Traditional Hiring Still Repels Excellence
Despite clear evidence about what drives performance, traditional hiring processes systematically screen out people who exhibit these five pillars.
The Attraction Problem: Job postings emphasize static requirements – “10 years experience in X” – rather than growth opportunities. High performers exhibiting Adaptability & Growth see no challenge worth pursuing. Those strong in Initiative & Innovation read “maintain existing systems” and look elsewhere. Cultural Amplifiers find no authentic voice in corporate-speak job descriptions.
The Screening Catastrophe: Applicant tracking systems scan for keywords, not achievement patterns. They reject the adaptive leader who gained diverse experience across industries while advancing the linear specialist who shows no evidence of the five pillars. Initial screens focus on pedigree over performance, missing that Results & Impact can happen anywhere.
The Selection Failure: Traditional interviewers ask predictable or meaningless questions that assess presentation skills and personality, not actual performance. Reference checks confirm employment dates rather than probing for evidence of Leadership & Influence or Cultural Amplification. The entire process optimizes for risk mitigation – avoiding bad hires – rather than identifying transformational ones.
The Solution: Performance-based Hiring and “Moneyball for HR!”
Just as sports have been revolutionized by measuring what actually predicts winning, Performance-based Hiring transforms talent acquisition by focusing on true performance, not weak proxies.
Attracting the Five Pillars: Instead of listing requirements, define performance objectives that attract high achievers. “Build and lead a team to reduce customer churn by 25%” attracts those strong in Results & Impact and Leadership & Influence. The language itself screens – passive candidates with the five pillars engage, while those seeking easy lateral transfers self-select out.
Screening for Excellence: Search for the Achiever Pattern – consistent evidence of taking on increasingly complex challenges. This directly identifies Adaptability & Growth.
Look for trajectory over tenure, recognizing that someone who compressed 10 years of learning into 3 years exhibits more growth potential than someone who repeated one year 10 times.
Recruiting Through Career Growth: Performance-based Hiring offers true career moves – combining stretch, faster growth, and increased satisfaction. This is called Win-Win Hiring where hiring success is measured throughout the year, not on the start date.
Delivering the Promise: The performance-based structured interview process gathers evidence of past performance predicting future success. Probe deeply into major accomplishments, understanding the how behind the what. This reveals all five pillars through actual behavior, not claimed capabilities.
The future belongs to companies that use technology to find and develop employees who exhibit all five pillars of success. Performance-based Hiring provides the framework. The Quality of Hire Scorecard provides the measurement system. Together, they ensure we stop rejecting our best candidates before we even meet them.