There are three approaches that humans take to make decisions - automatic, neuralistic and rational. Only one - rational - has any place in recruitment and selection. Automatic helps us survive. Neuralistic is fine for incident commanders. But only rational works for hiring decisions. Here's why.

On BBC Radio 4, Margaret Heffernan, the writer and entrepreneur, mounts an attack on the idea that talent is a good predictor of future performance - and hence it should not be used in recruitment selection. Her article is a good listen but a bit muddled. Here we clarify and suggest that talent is not the useless thing that Margaret Heffernan suggests, but a multi-dimensional set of characteristics about each candidate that need to be known before making a job offer.

The UK’s academic institutions are not turning out enough software engineers. Demand dramatically exceeds supply. This exemplifies the problem in many domains in the UK. So how do hiring managers find specialists? The key thing is to hire those with the right profile to contribute and learn. Profiling of personal characteristics and search for those must take precedence over high-level statements like ‘must be proficient in coding in MS.NET’. Coding and other specialist competencies can be learned.

When recruiting a new member of staff you want to select the best person for the job. But how? Use psychometric tools to test for aptitude. [Published September 2014]

Online gaming can be used as part of a selection process. If you play the game well, you get to make a job application. It’s a way of testing the applicant whilst promoting the organisation and informing the applicant about the job. TimelessTime's web-delivered customised assessment delivers quality in selection. It’s not America’s Army but it’s pretty close to CanYouCrackIt. Ultimately it is for that manager to validate what the automated systems are saying. What can gamification offer your firm?

There are four primary instruments that should be used to conduct a robust selection process during recruitment - the aptitude test, the personality profile, work sample tests and a structured interview. This blog focuses on the personality profile, which is one tool in a suite of psychometric tests.