How Do We Recruit People With Leadership Skills?

Organizations use a variety of assessment tests and/or tools to attempt to determine leadership as well as other personality traits in candidates. Overall, the results are very mixed.

Recruiting is not an exact science. You can’t “test” your way to hiring people with strong leadership skills. I advise your hiring team to focus on a candidate’s leadership track record. Ask each candidate to relate how they demonstrated leadership in various scenarios during their job history. Prior to the interview, have your team develop specific examples that relate to the job at hand. For example, the position being interviewed for may be a production supervisor in a manufacturing facility that has a poor quality record. During the interview session, have your team probe candidates to discuss their history at solving similar problems.

Past work history, combined with solid reference checking, is the best way to hire people with leadership skills. Assessment test may provide additional data to help in your hiring decision, but they are no substitute for probing past work history.

SOURCE: Mike Sweeny, MAS Recruiting, Cherry Hill, New Jersey

The information contained in this article is intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.