Caitlin MacGregor was launching a new company to sell a Canadian software product in the United States when she discovered that if she hired someone who didn’t work out, it would cost the company around $300,000.
Determined to get it right the first time, she decided to use psychometric evaluations (also known as aptitude or personality tests) to vet every candidate.
It led her to look at people who didn’t have the education and experience that a software distributor would normally be looking for.nOne of those candidates who scored highly was Christine Bird.
“If we had relied on the traditional hiring process, she’d never have made the shortlist,” MacGregor, who hired Bird and began grooming her for management.
Now, Bird is MacGregor’s co-founder at Plum, a Kitchener-based startup that wants to make psychology-based assessments one of the first steps in the hiring process.
“Resume’s have no predictive ability,” MacGregor says.
Plum uses an test to measure personality, problem-solving ability and social intelligence, things that MacGregor says are better predictors of what a person will be good at.
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