Hiring great people is one of the most important and most challenging things we do in our professional lives. The hardest part is often just knowing what to ask applicants to make sure we're getting the right person for the job. We know there are certain attributes the ideal employee will have, but what exactly are they and how do we test for those traits in applicants? And do it in the limited time you have? This pressure often leaves one feeling overwhelmed and even a little frustrated. 

I recently had a conversation with a Talent Acquisition Leader that left me shocked. While talking about how important it is to hire the right person, I sensed an alarming degree of indifference around hiring accuracy altogether. I understand this is not top of mind for everyone, but this was coming from the Director of Talent Acquisition for a Fortune 5,000 company.

Extroversion is one of the most widely talked about personality characteristics of all time. There have been books written about extroversion and introversion, TED Talks have been given, and there are dozens of online tests and opinions about this every present personality characteristic. It might be the most widely talked about personality characteristic because it makes a lot of sense and people can easily self-identify their own level of extroversion.

If you’re serious about increasing the gender diversity in your workforce, start with the hiring process. Here are  three simple suggestions that will improve your hiring process and increase gender diversity.

Now more than ever, human resources teams are expected to create tangible value for the business—from hiring and retaining talent to performance management to leadership development and more. People analytics are key to helping HR teams meet the demands of today’s business landscape.

If you’ve been incredibly fortunate, you’ve never worked in a dysfunctional team or organization scarred by conflict (or conflict avoidance). For the rest of us, it’s more a matter of what type of dysfunction we’ve had to work with. These dysfunctions can tend to boil down to four general cultures/behaviors of dysfunctional workplaces and teams that we’ll call: willful blindness, cold tensions, skirmishes, and active warfare.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to sense, correctly interpret, and effectively use emotional signals or clues in a social situation. For sales professionals, one of the most important traits that they should develop is emotional intelligence. For example, sensing when a pitch is working, identifying a truly interested customer, or intuiting a better approach to inspire a potential client about a product.

A great interview question can make all the difference when selecting the right person to hire, yet writing such a question can be a daunting process for anyone. After spending countless hours and writing over 300 questions, here are my top 5 tips to write great interview questions in less time.

There seems to be a current trend among employers to offer more unique and diverse office perks in the hopes of attracting and retaining talent. While perks can be fun and bring momentary happiness, they do not meaningfully move the needle on employee satisfaction or retention. One such example was highlighted by Payscale’s list of employee tenure at Fortune 500 companies, which denotes that Google, a company that offers top-notch perks, has a median employee tenure of 1.1 years.

Being in the business world, it's likely we're all familiar with Pearson's Law, which states: "When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported back, the rate of improvement accelerates."  The idea that tracking performance ultimately yields better results is a common-sense proposition at this point.