To Make Better Hires, Learn What Predicts Success

Hiring the best talent remains a persistent struggle for many companies. That’s because they are doing it wrong — often looking at the labor pool for carbon copies of people who are already successful in their roles. But that is being too demanding, particularly during a tight labor market. Instead, employers should borrow an approach from baseball, in which top teams track the performance of new hires and then search for the one or two skills or experiences that predicted their future success. For digital journalists, for instance, it might be the social engagement with published articles. To do this, companies must better connect hiring with performance management.