A 30-minute hiring solution

Most hiring decisions are made in less time than it takes for a red traffic light to turn green.

Most hiring decisions are made in less time than it takes for a red traffic light to turn green. Within the first seconds of meeting a job candidate, a hiring manager will make the decision viscerally — the rest of the meeting will be spent coming up with rational reasons to justify the initial gut choice.

Fortunately or unfortunately, that is the way we humans are wired. Whether it is due to eye contact, looks, body language or the subtle chemical pheromones we emit, people judge other people subconsciously and almost instantaneously.

But is this the best way to hire a future financial adviser, especially one in whom a substantial training investment will have to be made?

Across the financial industry, hours are spent and fortunes wasted training raw recruits. Then, after several grueling months, some of these new hires are deemed unsuited to the rigors of the business and are cut loose.

But the hiring process can be improved, and candidates with the skills to excel as a representative or an adviser can be identified — and hired — if firms have candidates sit for three tests, such as those offered by my firm, which together take just 30 minutes to complete.

The tests, created to match a candidate’s talents to the characteristics of successful advisers and reps, are an effective predictor of success because the thoughts, behaviors and motivations of top producers are quite similar, according to my research. As a result, the traits of top performers can be identified.

Three facets of a job candidate are assessed during the tests:

Motivating or striving: personality traits that generate the energy needed to motivate a rep to get things done, to set priorities and then to seek greater accomplishments.

Behaving: how reps approach challenges, persuade others to a point of view, deal with rules and procedures set by others, relate to others and form relationships.

Thinking: the way people gather information, process it and make decisions based on it.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses in these areas. The key to successful hiring in the financial arena is to match the patterns of candidates to those of successful reps and advisers.

Let’s take a successful representative at a wirehouse as an example.

He entered the business during the market turmoil at the beginning of this decade but now has more than $500 million in assets under management. Why?

In terms of his “motivating” talents, the rep has a strong drive to maximize his return on any investment of time, energy and resources. He also sees himself as accountable for his actions and results, and has the skills to be a leader based on his knowledge of products, market trends, and his clients and their needs.

In terms of “behaving” talents, the rep scores highly. Whether his talent is instinctive or learned, he has the ability to connect with more than 80% of the market; the average rep can connect with less than 28% of the market.

This means he is seen positively by hard-driving Fortune 500 executives and professional athletes, as well as by their more analytical, risk-averse associates, such as chief financial officers, accountants and estate attorneys, who often are part of an investment-decision-making team.

The inability of an adviser to connect with the vastly different personalities that constitute their team is the chief reason that entrepreneurs, CEOs and other demanding, wealthy investors are more likely than other investors to switch financial advisers.

In terms of “thinking” talents, our top rep possesses an exceptional depth and clarity of thinking. He can deal with a wide range of challenges involving people, processes and systems. In particular, his assessments reveal tremendous respect for rules and procedures, making it easy to predict that he will be honest and ethical in the way he conducts business.

Of course, doing well on tests doesn’t preclude becoming even better through training. Even Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees benefits from batting practice. So it is not surprising that training programs helped increase sales productivity at New York-based Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. by 59%, at Boston-based New England Financial by 45% and at State Street Research and Management Co. of Boston, now part of BlackRock Inc. of New York, by 120%.

But training newcomers who don’t have the natural abilities of your top-producing brokers and advisers is like fertilizing a rock: It simply won’t work. My advice is to test first, then train.

Psychologist H. Joseph Marshall is a managing partner at Resource Management, a Boston sales-consulting and leadership development firm.