Inevitably, hiring teams are asked to weigh two important types of information about a candidate: what they’ve accomplished in the past (their experience) and how they’re likely to perform in the future in the role they’re applying for (their potential).
As we’ve seen firsthand by working with thousands of employers, figuring out which information matters most is rarely clear-cut. Even when objective candidate data is available, and a structured hiring process is in place, hiring decisions can boil down to a bunch of smart people in a room, each with a slightly different position on a candidate, making their case with different pieces of evidence.
Recently, we decided to get more clarity about this complicated process. So we asked over 500 HR professionals and 500 hiring managers how they think about experience and potential as hiring criteria, what tools they believe are most effective at gauging each, whether their approach to prioritizing each factor depends on the job in question, and more.
In this report, we’ll reveal six of the most interesting findings, and share a few thoughts about what they might mean for you.
* For the purposes of this survey, we defined “experience” as a candidate’s education, employment background, and/or accomplishments as they relate to the job opening and “potential” as a candidate’s intelligence, personality, and/or motivation as they relate to the job opening.
1. Science-based hiring assessments are seen as more strongly reliable than resumes, references, and cover letters across the board.
Before we asked HR pros and hiring managers about their attitudes on the importance of experience and potential, we wanted to get a sense of their underlying attitudes towards some of the most common methods of uncovering that information at the top of the funnel.
Specifically, we asked them to rate a few common hiring tools on a five-point scale from “extremely reliable” to “not reliable,” and then looked at what percentage of people answered “extremely” or “very” reliable for each.
Here’s how their responses broke down:
HR professionals
The most trusted:
Science-based hiring assessments: 63.8%
The rest:
Resumes: 52.3%
References: 49.3%
Cover letters: 41.7%
Hiring managers
The most trusted:
Science-based hiring assessments: 59.4%
The rest:
Resumes: 52.6%
References: 46%
Cover letters: 40.9%
Perception vs. Science
What people perceive as being effective isn’t always backed by scientific research. But in this case, the two align: according to research done in 2013 by Frank Schmidt as a follow up to his seminal 1998 paper, The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology, science-based, multi-measure hiring assessments centered on cognitive ability are the most predictive method of gauging a candidate’s potential. To see exactly how they compare to resumes, reference checks and more, watch this video.
2. More-experienced HR pros and hiring managers felt resumes and cover letters were less strongly reliable than their less-experienced peers.
Specifically, we noticed that viewpoints on which hiring tools were “extremely” or “very” reliable differed significantly based on how many years of work experience the respondents had. Here’s how the results broke down by group:
| HR pros with 1-2 years’ tenure | HR pros with 10+ years’ tenure | |
|---|---|---|
| 66.1% said resumes are “extremely or very reliable” | A difference of more than 23% | Only 42.8% said resumes are “extremely or very reliable” |
| 52.1% said cover letters are “extremely or very reliable” | A difference of 19% | Only 33.1% said cover letters are “extremely or very reliable” |
| Hiring managers with 1-2 years’ tenure | Hiring managers with 10+ years’ tenure | |
|---|---|---|
| 60.5% said resumes are “extremely or very reliable” | A difference of more than 14% | Only 46% said resumes are “extremely or very reliable” |
| 59.5% said cover letters are “extremely or very reliable” | A difference of more than 15% | Only 33.7% said cover letters are “extremely or very reliable” |
A not-so-fun fact:
When we asked HR pros and hiring managers if they’d ever discovered that someone misrepresented themselves during the hiring process, 72.3% of HR pros and 80.9% of hiring managers said yes.
Interestingly, these findings align fairly closely with a recent study that found that 78% of candidates polled admitted they had or would consider misrepresenting themselves in their application.
3. Both groups of respondents identified interviews as the best method for gauging both potential and experience.
We asked HR pros and hiring managers to rank interviews, skills tests, hiring assessments, resumes, references, and cover letters for their ability to identify candidate potential—then totaled up the percentage of respondents that put each tool in their top 3.
Regardless of their tenure, respondents felt interviews were the top method for determining candidate potential and experience.
Specifically, 83.4% of the HR pro group ranked interviews in their top 3 of 6 options for identifying potential, and 71.7% ranked interviews in their top 3 for identifying experience.
Of the hiring manager test group, 79.4% ranked interviews in their top 3 of 6 options for potential, and 67% ranked interviews in their top 3 for identifying experience.
A note about interviews:
Since interviews are the most time-consuming, personal, and interactive way most companies get to know candidates, it’s not surprising that they’re seen as most essential to evaluating talent.
However, as this Harvard Business Review article points out, if you’re using unstructured interviews, you’re doing yourself a disservice, as all kinds of biases can skew the perspective of individual interviewers and hiring teams as a group.
In fact, HBR states: “dozens of studies have found [unstructured interviews] to be far less reliable than general mental ability tests, aptitude tests, or personality tests.”
Objective, scientific candidate data is the antidote to this kind of subjective criteria. And when compared to the most common tests and tools, multi-measure hiring assessments have been proven to be the most predictive of performance.
Ready to learn more about the benefits of using hiring assessments?
Download our eBook Resumes, Referrals, and Interviews Aren’t Enough: Why This Is the Year to Embrace Pre-Employment Testing to see how multi-measure pre-employment assessments can help you identify the best talent possible.
4. There was consensus about how to weigh potential for manager-and-above roles, but a lack of consensus about how to best weigh potential for entry-level candidates.
We had a feeling that the degree to which HR pros and hiring managers would value a candidate’s potential and experience would vary significantly depending on how senior the role was that a candidate was interviewing for.
So we asked these groups to approximate their approach to weighing potential and experience for roles that were entry-level, manager-level, director-level, and VP-level and above.
Here’s what we found:
“Experience” was weighted very similarly for Manager, Director, and VP and above roles, by HR pros and hiring managers of all experience-levels—a clear consensus.
Specifically, at least ninety-two percent (92%) of all respondents said they would weigh either “experience only,” “mostly experience,” or an “equal combo of experience and potential” for these manager-and-above roles.
However, the responses we received about assessing entry-level candidates were considerably more varied.
Specifically, the responses fell into three fairly evenly-distributed positions:
HR professionals
30.3% said they’d weigh “experience only” or “mostly experience”
35.3% said they’d weigh experience and potential equally
34.4% said they’d weigh “potential only” or “mostly potential”
Hiring managers
29.2% said they’d weigh “experience only” or “mostly experience”
32.5% said they’d weigh experience and potential equally
38.2% said they’d weigh “potential only” or “mostly potential”
Interestingly, the differences on how to evaluate entry-level candidates were even more stark when tenure on the job was factored in. Specifically:
| HR pros with 1-2 years’ tenure | HR pros with 10+ years’ tenure | |
|---|---|---|
| 56.2% said they’d weigh “experience only” or “mostly experience” | A difference of more than 38% | Only 17.4% said they’d weigh “experience only” or “mostly experience” |
| Only 14.9% said they’d weigh “potential only” or “mostly potential” | A difference of almost 29% | 43.8% said they’d weigh “potential only” or “mostly potential” |
| Hiring managers with 1-2 years’ tenure | Hiring managers with 10+ years’ tenure | |
|---|---|---|
| 38.6% said they’d weigh “experience only” or “mostly experience” | A difference of more than 16% | Only 22.3% said they’d weigh “experience only” or “mostly experience” |
| Only 31.6% said they’d weigh “potential only” or “mostly potential” | A difference of more than 16% | 47.8% said they’d weigh “potential only” or “mostly potential” |
What might these findings mean?
When it comes to evaluating entry-level candidates, there’s clearly no consensus about what matters most to predicting their future success. Whether these differences in opinion are a byproduct of varying personal biases about what inexperienced workers need to succeed or the confidence they have in their company’s ability to train entry-level workers to succeed isn’t clear.
Also, less-experienced hiring managers and HR pros may place more value on a candidate’s experience (education, employment background, job-related accomplishments) because they perceive it to be a more concrete, verifiable record of their abilities. Or they may lean harder on experience because they find the task of evaluating potential to be more difficult than their more-experienced peers do as a result of not having seen as many new hires develop into seasoned, valuable employees.
5. Views on the value of interviews and references in gauging potential also varied considerably based on years of job experience.
For both groups, we found that respondents with at least 10 years of experience ranked interviews considerably higher and references as considerably lower as a gauge of potential than respondents with 1-2 years’ experience. Specifically:
| Hiring managers with 1–2 years’ tenure | Hiring managers with 10+ years’ tenure | |
|---|---|---|
| 69.9% ranked interviews in their top 3 methods of gauging potential | A difference of more than 15% | 85.5% ranked interviews in their top 3 methods of gauging potential |
| 41.6% ranked references in their top 3 methods of gauging potential | A difference of more than 15% | 26% ranked references in their top 3 methods of gauging potential |
| HR pros with 1-2 years’ tenure | HR pros with 10+ years’ tenure | |
|---|---|---|
| 62.8% ranked interviews in their top 3 methods of gauging potential | A difference of almost 25% | 87.7% ranked interviews in their top 3 methods of gauging potential |
| 42.2% ranked references in their top 3 methods of gauging potential | A difference of almost 15% | 27.4% ranked references in their top 3 methods of gauging potential |
What might these findings mean?
Similar to their attitude toward resumes and cover letters (which are concrete and require little interpretation), it’s possible that less-experienced HR pros and hiring managers are more inclined to trust third-party information and less inclined to trust their own ability to accurately assess a candidate in an interview setting than their more-seasoned peers do.
6. HR pros ranked hiring assessments higher—and resumes lower—as a gauge of potential and experience than hiring managers.
| HR pros | Hiring managers | |
|---|---|---|
| 56% ranked hiring assessments in their top 3 methods of gauging potential | A difference of almost 7% | 49.1% ranked hiring assessments in their top 3 methods of gauging potential |
| 51.5% ranked hiring assessments in their top 3 methods of gauging experience | A difference of more than 8% | 43.8% ranked hiring assessments in their top 3 methods of gauging experience |
| HR pros | Hiring managers | |
|---|---|---|
| 46.6% ranked resumes in their top 3 methods of gauging potential | A difference of 10% | 56.6% ranked resumes in their top 3 methods of gauging potential |
| 57.5% ranked resumes in their top 3 methods of gauging experience | A difference of more than 5% | 62.9% ranked resumes in their top 3 methods of gauging experience |
What might these findings mean?
The more extensive experience HR pros have with using hiring assessments and resumes may be related to them finding more value in hiring assessments and less value in resumes than hiring managers who assess candidates—and use those tools—less frequently.
Conclusions
As we’ve shown, there is some consensus about the value and reliability of the primary hiring tools used to assess potential and experience.
However, there are also telling differences in attitude and approach across the board when it comes to evaluating entry-level candidates. And there are dramatic differences in the value attributed to interviews, cover letters, resumes, and referrals between the most and least tenured hiring managers and HR pros.
These two findings in particular raise some interesting questions about the underexplored challenges in assessing candidates with a short work history, the way that more hiring experience might lead to less trust in cover letters and resumes, and the comfort level less-experienced hiring managers have with using quantitative versus qualitative assessment methods.
Recommendations
How might you act on the insights in this report?
- Start a conversation with your colleagues about the best approach to identifying high-potential entry-level candidates.
- To get a sharper sense of what competencies are most crucial for entry level roles, specifically, consider doing more thorough in-house job analyses.
- Help the less-experienced people on your hiring teams feel more competent in assessing candidate data from interviews by instituting a structured interview process.
- For more insights into the scientific research around hiring approaches, check out our eBook, Resumes, Referrals and Interviews Aren’t Enough: Why This Is the Year to Embrace Pre-Employment Testing.
