KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE
How to find those who are capable of heroic deeds
KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE
How to find those who are capable of heroic deeds
The bank's IT team faced difficulties recruiting new specialists in electronic trading. Many of them, once hired, demonstrated poor performance and/or quickly left.
Over the course of two years, the management and HR carried out more than
interviews, but suitable employees never appeared.
Over the course of two years, the manager and HR conducted more than 700 interviews, but no suitable employees emerged.
HR department
contacted us with a request to develop a psychodiagnostic method for selecting ideal candidates. The test was intended to allow for department scaling and improve the survival rate of new recruits.

But before searching for the ideal candidate, you need to develop their profile.

The situation was complicated by the fact that traders are a rare breed, so it's impossible to rely on ready-made competency models.

But before searching for the ideal candidate, you need to develop their profile.

The situation was complicated by the fact that traders are a rare breed, so it's impossible to rely on ready-made competency models.
CHALLENGE
Before developing the methodology, we decided to identify target qualities, i.e., build a trader competency map. We did this from the bottom up, drawing on the experience of current employees rather than from existing models. Ultimately, it's the candidate's alignment with colleagues' expectations that determines their success within the team.
CHALLENGE
Before developing the methodology, we decided to identify target qualities, i.e., build a trader competency map. We did this from the bottom up, drawing on the experience of current employees rather than from existing models. Ultimately, it's the candidate's alignment with colleagues' expectations that determines their success within the team.
The first round of interviews revealed that in a horizontal team, all experts have different criteria. This not only complicates selection but also places newcomers in a situation of implicit conflicting requirements.

The challenge became:
"How can we consolidate candidate requirements and identify the qualities that are truly linked to success?"

We conducted a study using the GRASP methodology
to solve the following problems:
Engage all team members in self-exploration
Help each team member openly formulate "success factors" based on the strengths and weaknesses of their colleagues
Synchronize the individual images of the top performer
Develop a shared, team-wide image of a "dream colleague"
Build a team competency map
To identify the connections and conflicts between the team's internal expectations of newcomers. Compare the perspectives of experienced and newcomers, seniors and juniors.
The procedure consisted of several stages
  • Generation of individual constructs
    Using J. Kelly's repertory grid technique, each team member independently formulated professionally important qualities by which one could differentiate between real and ideal team members.
We conducted individual interviews with each team member, asking them to compare their current and terminated colleagues.

We had to find two similar colleagues, formulate what they had in common, and then evaluate the entire team based on this quality.

As a result of the interviews, each expert generated between 6 and 14 personality constructs — criteria by which they typically evaluate their colleagues' performance.

  • Structuring constructs
    Each team member received a general list of constructs formulated by all study participants and had to divide them into several groups according to meaning.

In the second stage, we sent all team members a link to an online questionnaire on the our platform. It contained cards with all the personality constructs the participants had articulated in their interviews.

Each team member was asked not only to familiarize themselves with them but also to group them into related groups — prototypes of future competencies.

This format allowed us to bring individual perspectives together and bring them under a common denominator.
  • Aggregation of individual assessments
    The data was loaded into a dashboard, with all individual assessments superimposed on each other.

    A graph was constructed, with individual constructs as nodes and the degree of similarity between two constructs as links (the number of people who sorted the two constructs as belonging to the same group).
The entire team worked simultaneously on the dashboard in a group facilitation session.

By comparing individual sortings, the dashboard algorithm formed clusters of the most frequently occurring constructs—competencies. The team's task was to come up with a concise and understandable name for each competency.

The dashboard visualized the connections between competencies and calculated the correlation of each with an external indicator of professional success. This allowed them to identify core and secondary competencies from the entire pool.

The diagram is interactive and clickable
⬤ Teamwork
This included more than 30% of all the named qualities.
⬤⬤ Abilities and skills
The second and third places in size are shared by the group of qualities - "Abilities and Skills" (there are many 4 clusters here) and "Seeing the Main Thing" (there are only 2 clusters here, but they include many constructs).
⬤⬤ Leadership and Contribution
The two most central clusters, those with the most connections to other clusters, are the "Initiative and Influence" and "Communication with the Team on Tasks" clusters. These clusters reflect leadership and impact within the team. However, the second largest group of clusters, including abilities and skills, is located far from the center of the network in the semantic map and is connected to the center only through intermediate categories.
🐉 PROCESS
A total of 24 competencies were identified, grouped into 7 large blocks.
Competencies
Communication
within a team
  • Communicates with the team on tasks
  • Open to feedback
  • Mentor
  • Proactive in sharing knowledge
  • A driven team player
  • Easy to communicate
  • Brings in and supports newcomers
See
the main thing
  • Able to quickly identify key points
  • Can formulate an MVP
  • Understands their task in the context of the business
Self-
development
  • Expands professional knowledge
  • Broader horizons
  • Tolerance for uncertainty
Personal abilities
  • Quick learner
  • Has technical skills
  • Code quality (no defects)
  • Broad specialization
Performance
  • He puts in the time to work.
  • Persistent
  • Reliable
Influence
  • Initiative
  • Influential in the team
Engagement
  • Available and engaged 24/7
  • Careful about the work and his colleagues
The personal constructs proposed by the participants at the first stage were included in each competency as specific behavioral indicators
Example of competency indicators for "Communicates with the team on tasks"
For each competency, we analyzed the connection with external criteria (experience, position, effectiveness) and presented this information in an analytical report.
⬤ Open to feedback from colleagues
The competency is formed around two semantic cores: the extent to which a team member is willing to express their own opinion and how easily they handle feedback from colleagues.
Observations:
It correlates highly with performance and tenure. It differentiates between terminated and active employees, with wide variation in this indicator among active employees, and consistently low scores among terminated employees.
The report also contained recommendations for HR practices that can increase the visibility of a particular competency within a team.
EXAMPLE OF A RECOMMENDATION that we, together with the team, formulated for the selection process:

  1. Weed out introverted candidates at the entrance: a combination of low extroversion and independence (possibly using a personality test)
  2. Include the following points in competency-based interviews:
  3. openness to feedback
  4. having an opinion and the ability to express it freely
  5. ensure that feedback within the team is given in a sufficiently sustainable manner
As a result of this work, in addition to the list of criteria, we received:
  • List of key competencies
  • Behavioral indicators
  • List of assessment tools
  • Recommendations for optimizing HR processes
RESULT
The team members themselves formulated unified requirements for candidate competencies, and we verified their statistical correlation with external criteria and developed recommendations for the use of HR tools in four areas:
Culture-fit
alignment of the team culture with the candidate's values
Personality-fit
compatibility of the candidate's personal qualities with the challenges of the job
Ability-fit
necessary abilities
Skill-fit
necessary knowledge and skills
Different methods are traditionally used to diagnose each of these groups.
Technical interviews, competency-based interviews, portfolios, and professional knowledge and achievement tests are relevant for assessing skill fit.

Ability fit is assessed using aptitude (intelligence) tests.

Personality fit is assessed using personality tests that measure both basic and more complex traits.

Culture fit, unlike other assessments, is less susceptible to social desirability bias. The key objective here is to inform candidates about the specifics of the corporate culture, provide them with a tool to assess these and make an informed career decision – a checklist or self-assessment questionnaire.
Knight of the Round Table
Upon completion of the assessment, candidates receive a job-fit index based on four basic criteria.

If a candidate's index score is high enough, they are invited to submit an application.
The job and team are attractive to the candidate.
the tasks correspond to his values ​​and expectations
the job suits his personality
corresponds to the level of his training and abilities