The Angel Who Saved My Life!

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With no money to pull on beyond a week, the only option I had, was to put best efforts in getting a long-awaited refund of half a million from the Income Tax department.

The concerned official happened to be a young lady in her early thirties. I met her for a minute and explained my situation -- more through body language than any verbal communication.

She could sense my desperation and put all her senior officers on the job, instantly -- something unusual in a  government run set-up.

Finally, the problem, that was lingering for more than a year got sorted out in hours. Surely, it wouldn't have been possible without her extra-ordinary intervention.

I'd always pray to God for her well-being, because she saved a life: Mine!

Thanks a lot my dear angel!

Could Personality Test be Used as A Lethal Weapon to Destroy Good Recruitment!

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You work hard to identify a relevant candidate from hundreds and convince him to look for a change; recommend him to your client for a detailed interview and he comes out in flying colors; and finally, Managing Director of the company meets and approves him for an offer. However, the result of a psychometric test, that he takes later, projects him to be a mismatch for the job under consideration and all your efforts go waste.

Yes, the 'you' that I mentioned above, is 'me.' It has happened with me, recently, and not once but a few times. I don't know, if my strained relationship with HR director of the company - may be because the MD of the company doesn't hesitate to call me whenever there is a critical position to be filled up on priority - has a decisive influence in deflecting the outcome but, something was wrong!

Well, there seems to be a major concern in intellectual circle over the relevance of psychometric tests in decision making as far as recruitment is concerned, as evident from the following analysis:

"It is important to understand that testing on its own should never be the sole
tool in selection decisions. There is any amount of research material and
validation studies that provide information on the predictive validity of various
means of selecting staff. Recent findings provide quite an optimistic picture of the value of the interview and rigorous reference checking as a highly valid method of selection." Click here to download and read this interesting analysis.

Also, the comments by participants in a linkedin discussion reveal how concerned but divided, professionals are, over the usefulness of psychometric tests in recruitment.

Digging further, I recently conducted a survey to find out what our HR folks think about its usefulness and surprisingly 90% of them ruled out its importance in final decision making, specifying clearly, that it may only be used as an additional tool to gain some foresight into candidates' personality -- nothing more!

All of them clearly opined that psychometric test, is, no doubt, an important predictive tool, but a wrong use may even put the organization in jeopardy in terms of picking up a basket-full of non-performers over a period of time.

So, personality test may be misused as a lethal weapon to destroy good recruitment and also the organization, if, there's some one committed to...

What do you say?

Do you think psychometric test as a decisive tool in recruitment is contextually valid, or an obscure manifestation of inflated intellectualism promoted by people with vested interests -- purely for business ( or individual ) gains?

Update: 20th Oct 2010

1. According to Businessballs: In most respects psychometrics tests and personality models are aids to personal development and to helping people understand more about themselves. They are not to be used a single basis for recruitment or career decisions.



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Abraham Maslow and Self Actualization!

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"Self Actualization is the intrinsic growth of what is already

in the organism, or more accurately, of what the organism is."

Abraham Maslow

Maslow argued: Humans intuitively have a natural drive to become the best possible persons in terms of both physical and mental health, including a high level of spiritual achievement.

Recruiters' Nightmare: Talent Crunch at Its Peak, in India!

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While executing a candidate search operation for one of my clients, urgently looking for two manufacturing heads for a particular product range at two different locations, I could sense the severity of talent crunch that many organizations in India are not aware of.

How to Edit Blogs from Smartphone Via Mobile Browser, and Completely Forget the Computer!

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The exponential growth of mobile technology is allowing smart-phone users to carry out most of the internet related tasks on their device itself, with no need to remain dependent on the availability of either a desktop or a laptop.

Social Intelligence, One of the Most Desirable Leadership Traits

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The other day while introspecting through my career achievements, in general, I suddenly remembered a professional with whom I had worked for a few years as his deputy .

The company was not in good shape, making huge losses, and the owner paid hefty compensation to get the best available talent for reviving the lost glory.

Having worked with one of the largest system driven organizations of that time, for many years, I was suddenly at loss of enthusiasm and initiatives on the very first day.

Although I was told about the background and also the current state of affairs, living with it even for few hours happened to be a different kind of experience. Only news worth mentioning was: My new boss would be joining the next day.

Well, he came; mingled freely with all of us; and in a few days became extremely popular. In less than 3 years he turned around the company from a blacklisted entity to a self certified vendor supplying precision engineering products to a galaxy of public and private sector organizations.

I followed him blindly, rather he made me follow him blindly, which I did not realize at that point of time because his ability to inspire and motivate people was remarkable.

Entire team worked round the clock, happily, embedding in mind a single objective of reviving the lost glory of the company in terms of reputation as well as profitability.

He successfully removed all other priorities of life from our mind channelizing our strengths in one direction and, finally achieving the objective.

What made him such a good leader, is a million dollar question!

I think it's his 'Social Intelligence' skills, exhibiting empathy and becoming attuned to our moods literally integrating his own brain chemistry with that of ours, his followers. He actually removed the "Fear of Failure" from our mind....

Apart from professional issues we could confide in him about personal matters also, taking his guidance time and again and in that process made him an integral part of our life.

It was a unique biological synchronization or brain interconnectedness through which he guided us to develop a genuine interest in the purpose, fostering positive feelings in us.

Well, a recent discovery of mirror neurons in widely dispersed areas of human brain confirms above connectivity, that help us detect, consciously or subconsciously, someone else’s emotions through their actions and our mirror neurons reproducing those emotions. Collectively, these neurons create an instant sense of shared experience: Mirror image!

Perhaps, because of those mirror neurons' intervention we minutely observed and followed his actions moving seamlessly towards the goal -- no longer his, but ours too.

That's why, I strongly believe that 'Social Intelligence' is one of the most desirable leadership traits.

What's your take? Pl, share!

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