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V O L . X X I N O. X I I I If that doesn't get them thinking that there must be a better way of tackling their three top problems, Boulay drives the message home with this question: "How many dollars could you add to the bottom line this year if all the mediocre performers were replaced with top performers?" "I think most people understand the importance of hiring the right person, who fi ts in perfectly and has all the right skills," he says. " e problem is that people assume there's no way to measure which applicant is the best fi t for a particular job." Boulay and his business partner, Bill Maloney, presi- dent and chief talent offi cer, started their company in 1993 on the premise that scientifi cally based assessment tools can take the fuzziness out of the hiring process. Such tools could objectively measure an applicant's below-the-surface motivation and capacity for perfor- mance as a complement to the traditional pre-employ- ment reviews of resumés, interviews and reference checks. ey have 75 regular clients, most being in the United States but a few are international. e company is currently involved in fi ve recruiting eff orts. Boulay says what diff erentiates his company's approach from simple assessment tools — such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which identifi es and describes 16 distinctive personality types, or the DISC Assessment centering on four diff erent behavioral traits — is its use of multiple assessments that measure 93 distinct factors. at scientifi c and objective process, he says, is highly predictive of an applicant's likely success in a given job. "I've done about 10,000 assessments," he says. "It's taken me a lot of years to get here. e key thing I've learned is that there's no single instrument that can explain the full complexity of an individual." A story last year in the Harvard Business Review, " e Problem with Using Personality Tests for Hiring" by Whitney Martin, gives credence to the multi-assessment approach used by Boulay's com- pany. Citing a 2013 update of Frank L. Schmidt's 1998 ground-breaking study of 19 selection pro- cedures for predicting job performance, Martin reports that "multi-measure tests" have the highest predictive ability for job performance (71% eff ec- tiveness), followed by cognitive ability tests (65%), integrity tests (46%), reference checks (26%), emo- tional intelligence tests (24%), personality tests (up to 22%) and job experience (13%). Fitting into a company's culture Before beginning their search for the best employee, Boulay advises his clients that they should take time to identify the specifi c skills, knowledge, attitudes, behav- iors and motivation required by the position. Doing so, he says, helps reduce the risk of trying to fi t a "square peg into a round hole." It also helps the hiring team gain a better understanding of their expectations for the position, the behavioral traits that will best fi t the company's culture and how that position might help advance the company's long-term goals. " e biggest thing I talk about is being clear about what makes a good hire, or, more specifi cally, what makes a problem hire," he says. He also diff erentiates between "technical skills," which often can be taught, and the fuzzier notion of "fi t." P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY F O C U S F O C U S Finding top performers Brunswick company helps employersmake the 'right hire' b y j a m e s m c c a r t h y J U N E 2 9 , 2 0 1 5 20 » C O N T I N U E D F R O M C O V E R Art Boulay, CEO of Strategic Talent Management, with his dog Fenway outside his offi ce in Brunswick. Boulay's company uses multiple assessment tools to create scientifi c and objective evaluations that are highly predictive of an applicant's likely success in a given job.

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